A Middle Bronze Age burial mound containing the remains of man of impressive height has been discovered in Azerbaijan. Preliminary examination of his skeleton estimate his height at 6’7″ (2 meters), and he was buried in a semi-flexed position holding a four-pronged bronze spearhead in his hand, an exceptionally rare find not just in Azerbaijan, but in the whole South Caucasus region. The weapon and his burial posture indicate he was a warrior in life and buried according to specific rituals fitting his position.
The burial mound (known as a kurgan on the steppe of Eastern Europe and central Asia) is in the Keshikchidagh historical and cultural reserve area on the Ceyranchol plain near Azerbaijan’s western border. It is more than 90 feet across and 6’7″ high, but was only discovered on the windswept plain this summer when the area was surveyed as part of a five-year project of archaeological summer schools that has seen almost 2,000 professional archaeologists, professors, secondary school history teachers, undergraduate and graduate students and volunteers systematically explore the Keshikchidagh reserve.
The kurgan dates to about 1800 B.C. and contains a burial chamber that was divided into three parts by stone walls. In the main section were body of the deceased and his funerary furnishings, including the spearhead, bronze jewelry around one ankle, glass beads, obsidian tools and 12 inlaid and carved ceramic pots decorated with dot and line motifs. The jars contained the bones of cooked animals including goat, cow, horse and boar that archaeologists believe were offerings of food for the deceased to enjoy in the afterlife. The second section of the burial chamber contained only pottery, while the third section was empty.
Above the kurgan just a foot and a half below the surface, the team unearthed 14 limestone slabs, each weighing a literal ton and measuring two feet wide by 6’5″ long. There was also a massive stone idol of a bull, but it has been so eroded by 4,000 years on the plain that it’s hard to make out its features.
Every artifact was documented and professional sketched in situ. Even the fragmented objects were reconstructed at the site to record the find as close to its original condition in its original context as possible. The recovered archaeological remains will now be studied by an international team of researchers. They plan to conduct radiocarbon dating, stable isotope analysis, metallurgic analysis and mineralogical composition studies.
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