Bashkir-Berkut burials in the Historical and cultural heritage of Bashkortostan: on the question of the ethnicity of burials in the decks

Antonov Igor' Vladimirovich PhD in History Senior Scientific Associate, R. G. Kuzeev Institute of Ethnological Studies of Ufa Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences 450077, Russia, respublika Bashkortostan, g. Ufa, ul. Karla Marksa, 6 igan73@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction

The Southern Urals is a region located in the center of Eurasia. The cultural trends characteristic of both the Asian and European parts of the Great Steppe were reflected here. Nomads on their way from east to west and from west to east could not pass the South Ural region. With a lack of information from written sources, the priority in studying the movements of nomads belongs to archaeology.

As you know, after the Mongol invasion, significant changes took place in the ethnic composition of the population of the Southern Urals. In the steppe zone of the region, which includes the southern regions of the modern Republic of Bashkortostan, numerous burial mounds and burial mounds appear, among which new varieties of funerary monuments stand out, completely atypical for the pre-Mongol time. Such monuments include burials in decks. On the territory of Bashkortostan, a total of eight burials are known in the decks of the Golden Horde time: the burial of 15 Urmanaevsky II ground burial ground in the Bakalinsky district, three burials of Bashkir-Berkut burial mounds in the Kugarchinsky district, burial of kurgan 1 of the Ivanovo IV burial ground in the Khaibullinsky district, burial of Baiguskarovsky II single burial mound in the same area, two burials of Yuldybaev II burial mounds in the Zilair district. It is not possible to consider all these monuments in one article. It is advisable to focus on one, the largest of them – the Bashkir-Berkut burial ground.

Bashkir-Berkut mounds

On the northeastern outskirts of Bashkir-Berkutovo village of Kugarchinsky district, on the left bank of the Ik river, on a mountain, three mounds with a diameter of 6-7 m, height of 15-30 cm, were excavated, according to things dating from the XIII-XIV centuries ^{[1, p. 182, No. 1644; 8, p. 73, No. 7] [1]}. The clothing material includes 16 items ^{[24, p. 52, No. 230]}.

Grave graves of type VII are rectangular narrow graves of simple construction with burials in wooden decks ^{[18, p. 112, Table 3]}. All mounds have type I mounds – hemispherical earth mounds, all graves of type VII are rectangular narrow graves of simple construction with burials in wooden decks ^{[18, p. 112, Table 3]}.

Each mound contained one relatively deep (1.6 m) and narrow (60-70 cm) grave, in which there was a wooden deck. The bottom of all three decks is abundantly sprinkled with a layer of ash, which may be an echo of the cult of fire. But it is not excluded the use of ash, which has a preservative property, in order to protect the corpses of the dead from rapid destruction. In the male burial of one of the mounds, the remains of leather shoes (boots), an iron stirrup, a chair and several beads were found. A silver mirror, a birch bark tube, earrings, and pieces of cloth were found in the female burial of another mound. Both bones are buried in an elongated position with their heads facing west ^{[15, p. 162; 17, p. 173]}.

Two mounds were opened in 1968, one in 1969. The diameter of the last mound is 6.5 m, height 20 cm. Under the southern hollow of the mound, vertebrae, it seems, of a cow, were found in the mound. The mound contained one burial, located in the eastern half. The dimensions of the grave pit are 3.25x0.5 m, the depth is 1.3 m. At the bottom of the pit was a deck 2.3 m long, 55 cm wide (diameter). The deck consisted of a roof and a base and was made of solid wood (oak). In the corners of the deck there are holes for holding the rope. The ends are vertically cut off.

At the bottom of the deck lay the skeleton of a presumably female. The backbone is laid outstretched, on the back, with the head to the northeast, the arms are stretched along the trunk. The bottom of the deck was strewn with ashes. To the left of the skull was a birch bark tube, probably a case for storing braids. There is a piece of leather in the belt area. The right femur has an iron knife. The left knee joint has a silver mirror. A piece of birch bark with traces of a seam was found in the filling of the pit ^{[16, l. 3-4]}.

V. A. Ivanov and V. A. Krieger consider the Bashkir-Berkut burial ground one of the most significant among the graves of nomads of the second half of the XIII – first half of the XIV century. (the Golden Horde pagan period) in the Ural-Volga region ^{[8, p. 29]}. According to I. V. Matyushko's classification, these are burials under earthen mounds, without horse bones, dated from the XIII-XIV centuries ^{[20, p. 49]}.

N. A. Mazhitov identified mounds of Bashkir-Berkut type, the sign of which "is burial in wooden decks or double boxes: external and internal (coffin or deck)." The shape of the decks "turned out to be standard. The decks were made of oak with a diameter at the base of about 80-90 cm, 2-2.20 m long. The log was split into two unequal parts, of which the upper one, occupying about one third of the whole, served as a lid. The middle of the deck of both the base and the lid was carefully hollowed out, which gave it the shape of a trough with a wall thickness of about 3-5 cm. The ends of the deck are cut off straight and at a distance of 15-20 cm are left solid, apparently for strength. In the middle of the ends, a hole was hollowed out on the lid and base for threading a rope, with which the deck was firmly tied. It seems that the deck adapted not only to the descent into the grave, but also to transportation over a considerable distance.

In this regard, it is interesting to recall the custom of the Mongols to transport the corpses of noble people to the cemetery of their ancestors." A birch bark hair cover in the form of a long tube, which is part of the characteristic Mongolian bokka-type headdress, "as well as other materials allow the appearance of burial mounds in the Southern Urals to be confidently associated with one of the waves of population migration from the regions of Southern Siberia or the Mongolian steppes" ^{[18, pp. 113-114]}.

However, the allocation of monuments of the type described by N. A. Mazhitov did not find the support of V. A. Ivanov and V. A. Krieger. According to V. A. Ivanov, "none of the burial mounds of the XIII-XIV centuries known today (by the mid-1980s – I. A.) in the steppes of the Southern Urals, according to their typological characteristics, does not go beyond the Kipchak (Polovtsian) funeral rite (including the so–called burial mounds)."Bashkir-Berkut type"), which naturally leaves no doubt about the ethnicity of the nomads who left them" ^{[7, p. 96]}. V. A. Krieger notes that the main signs of the burial rite of the "Bashkir-Berkut type" mounds located on the northern outskirts of the Ural steppe (burials under earthen mounds in coffins or decks placed in narrow grave pits), "completely dissolve among the signs of the western group of monuments of the Kipchak period in the Urals" ^{[13, p. 114]}. The main disadvantage of the proposed interpretation V. A. Ivanov and V. A. Krieger consider "artificial separation of monuments of the Bashkir-Berkut type" from other synchronous monuments of the region (Southern Urals. – I. A.), including those that were known here already in the 60s", i.e. before the excavations of N. A. Mazhitova. They also agreed with N. A. Mazhitov that "the monuments of the Bashkir-Berkut type"do not have genetic roots in the Urals," their carriers became part of the Bashkirs as one of the ethnic components ^{[8, pp. 56-57]}.

Burials in decks on the territory of Eurasia

The search for analogies to Bashkir-Berkut burials leads us to the medieval nomads of the Pre-Baikal region, among whose burials the most common variant of the inter-grave structure is a deck. It is present in 67 (72%) burials of the Ust-Talkin culture of the south of Central Siberia of the XII-XIV centuries. The decks were made only from Siberian larch. Here is one of the methods of manufacturing from a single trunk of the adjacent part of the tree, very similar to the one described by N. A. Mazhitov: "The trunk was split lengthwise into two uneven parts, one of which (smaller) it went to the lid, and the second (large) was cut and hollowed out under the base. The lid was hollowed out from the inside, in the section it became smoothly curved. In the plan, it repeated the base of the deck and was attached to it with rectangular brackets." The spread of burials in the deck at the end of the I millennium AD is associated with the activation of the Mongolian tribes of Transbaikalia and Central Asia. At the beginning of the II millennium A.D., the middle course of the Selenga River – the nomadic area of one of the largest Mongolian tribes, the Merkits, became the center of distribution of the burial rite in the decks throughout the territory of Pre–Baikal and Transbaikalia. Such elements as inter-grave structures in the form of decks and coffin boxes, the corpse-laying of the deceased horizontally stretched on the back with arms along the trunk, orientation of the head to the north, northwest, northeast and east, combine the burial practice of Ust-Talkin with the funeral rite of the carriers of the early Mongol archaeological culture of Western Transbaikalia at the Sayantui stage (XI-XIV centuries) of its existence and the Kimako-Kipchak tribes of the X-XII centuries. In the XII-XIV centuries, burials in decks spread to the territory of Eastern Transbaikalia, among Tatar and Mongolian nomadic tribes. The Ust-Talkin culture itself is associated with the Turkic-speaking Tumats ^{[23, pp. 116-159]}.

The Mongolian tribes, the ancestors of the Buryats, in the Baikal region belonged to the Anginsky burial complex of the X-XIV centuries. At the bottom of the grave, a stone box was built, in which a larch deck or a wooden house made of boards without a lid was placed. The backbone lay stretched out on its back, with its head facing east ^{[2, pp. 68-78]}.

Archimandrite Palladius (Kafarov), according to Chinese sources, compiled a description of the secret burial of the Mongol khans who ruled in China: "When the khan was dying, two pieces of fragrant wood (xiang nan mu) were used for his coffin and, having hollowed them out, according to the height of the deceased's body, they put him in this coffin; the deceased was dressed in a fur dress and a fur hat; boots, stockings, a belt and a waist cup, moreover, were made of bleached leather gold vessels were also placed in the coffin with him: a teapot, a vase, a deep plate, a cup, a small plate, a spoon and a pair of chopsticks. When it was all over, the coffin was put together with four golden hoops. The hearse consisted of white felts and dark and green nashish (brocade or carpet); the coffin was also covered with nashish. On the third day after death, the coffin was sent to the north, to the place of burial; in front of it rode a Mongolian shaman on horseback, dressed in a new dress, and led a horse with a golden saddle, with a bridle and reins from nashish; every day three times a ram was sacrificed to the deceased. Upon arrival at the burial site, the coffin was buried deep in the ground; then several thousand horses were driven along the burial mound, or the excess earth was taken to another place. When the grass was coming up, it was all over; the grave was a flat place where nothing could be recognized. Three officials remained at the cemetery, five li from the grave; they once performed tao fan every day, i.e. burned the victims in the pit; this lasted three years" ^{[27, pp. 251-252, note 619]}.

Bashkir-Berkut burial mounds, of course, are not burials of the Mongolian nobility. In the only male burial, no weapons were even found, this burial cannot be considered military. An iron knife in one of the female burials is obviously a household item (as it used to be in a male burial). The iron stirrup (for some reason only one) in the male burial allows you to call a person a horseman (maybe a shepherd?). Remains of leather were found in the male and in one of the female burials, and remnants of fabric were found in the other female burial. Only silver mirrors in both women's burials can be considered relatively expensive items. Birch bark tubes were also found in these burials, and earrings were also found in one of them. Jewelry (beads) were also found in the male burial. The purpose of a piece of birch bark in one of the women's burials is unclear. In general, the inventory of Bashkir-Berkut mounds is quite poor. In the burials there are no fur clothes, no gold vessels, no felts, no sacrificial food, as Kafarov wrote about. There are also no finds of coins that are an indicator of the high status of the Golden Horde nomads. In a word, we have ordinary nomadic burials in front of us. Of course, these burials cannot be considered secret. The bearers of the Bashkir-Berkut mounds obviously lived there, it is unlikely that the dead had to be transported for a long distance. But the burials were performed in decks, the very process of making which seems to be quite laborious.

Burials in decks or double boxes in the Southern Urals are attributed to "a group of ethnically homogeneous tribes that came here as part of the Tatar-Mongols. Now it is difficult to say whether it was a Mongol- or Turkic-speaking population, but some analogies do not exclude the second assumption" ^{[18, pp. 184-185]}.

We are talking about signs of Mongolian culture that could be perceived by the Turks. The burials of the XIII-XIV centuries in the Sayano-Altai were allocated to the Chapelnogorsky type (named after the most characteristic monuments on the Chapel Hill near Krasnoyarsk). "The change in the burial rite – without a horse, often in a deck while maintaining orientations (on Z and C), and the anthropological type – Turanian (Debets) indicates the political reasons for the change of culture in the steppe, and not ethnic. With a high degree of probability, it can be assumed that the desire of the Turkic tribes to call themselves Mongols, reflected in written sources (Rashid al-Din. – I. A.), was accompanied by the desire to be like the Mongols, which explains such a rapid spread of a new culture both in the Sayano-Altai and in territories inhabited by other tribes."^{[5, p. 106][2]}.

Perhaps a similar process took place in the Southern Urals. In this case, the fact that there are no complete or partial horse burials in the Bashkir-Berkut mounds is explained not by the poverty of the people buried there, but simply by the absence of such a sign in the funeral rite of the Mongols. But the fact that the Bashkir-Berkut mounds have both western and north-eastern orientation of the dead is surprising, because it is the orientation that is considered almost the most important ethnic indicator. There are no signs of an Islamic funeral rite in the Bashkir-Berkut burial mounds, therefore, Western orientation in this case cannot be attributed to Islamic canons in any way. By Turanian, obviously, we mean the South Siberian anthropological type. However, the Bashkir-Berkut burial ground has not been studied anthropologically. Anthropology data could be of great help in determining the ethnicity of the burial ground.

Such categories of things as earrings-pendants in the form of a sign "?", bronze mirrors with an ornamented back surface, flat iron arrowheads, bone ornamented lining on a quiver, a bokka headdress, which make up the "imperial culture" of the nomadic Golden Horde steppe, according to V. A. Ivanov, were brought from the east, presumably Mongols, but in the XIII-XIV centuries they became so widespread among the nomads of Eastern Europe that they completely lost their ethnicity ^{[9, p. 204]}. Such a phenomenon can be considered the realization of the desire of the conquered peoples to be like their conquerors.

The Mongols are associated with the northern orientation of the buried, the bokka headdress, earrings of the "question mark" type, burials in decks and coffins, characteristic of monuments of the so-called Bashkir-Berkut type ^{[29, pp. 34-38]}.

According to G. N. Garustovich, side hats, earrings in the form of a question mark and "Mongolian" mirrors leave no doubt that the bearers of Bashkir-Berkut mounds "clearly thoroughly "cooked" in the steppe ethnic "cauldron of the Golden Horde". But the researcher considers the western (ZYUZ) and eastern (SV) orientations of the head, hollowed decks and nomadic accessories over the bones (stirrups) to be Kipchak features of the pre-Mongol time. "In addition, the location of the Bashkir-Berkut mounds is completely consistent with the place of modern settlement of Bashkir-Kipsiaks" ^{[6, p. 154]}.

The Kipchaks of the Middle Irtysh region in the XI-XII centuries buried the dead under earthen mounds, in rectangular dirt pits without horse burials. The tombstone structures are represented by wooden boxes made of scaffolds without a bottom and hollowed-out decks. The bones are located elongated on the back, the orientation of the head to the west with deviations prevails, there is a northern and southern orientation. There are remnants of tall headdresses resembling the famous bokki, which appeared among the Kipchaks back in the XII century and became especially widespread already in the Mongol period ^{[21, pp. 192-193]}. The burial mounds of the Kipchaks of the X-XI centuries in Altai are earthen mounds built over burials made in simple rectangular pits or at the level of the ancient horizon, in an elongated position on the back, with the head to the northeast, accompanied by a stuffed horse or a boneless horse ^{[22, pp. 222-223]}. Bashkir-Berkut burial mounds correspond to all these signs of the Kipchak funeral rite. Obviously, signs such as burials in the decks and orientation of the head to the northeast also appeared among the Kipchaks in pre-Mongol times, but they spread widely already in the era of the Golden Horde. Now these signs can be considered as an imitation of the funeral rite of the Mongols.

Both wooden coffins (10%) and decks (40%) were used in the burials of nomads of the Steppe Urals of the IX-XI centuries, having inter-grave structures, although it was not possible to determine the exact type of wooden structure in more than 50% of cases ^{[20, pp. 23-24]}. In the burials of nomads of the Steppe Trans-Urals of the XII–XIV centuries, having inter–grave structures, wooden coffins were recorded in 30% of cases, decks - in 30% of cases, frames - in 10% of cases ^{[20, pp. 26-27]}. In V. P. Kostyukov's sample in the Southern Trans-Urals, in 15 graves (5.14%), deceased people lay in decks ^{[11, p. 25]}. The position of the buried is stretched out on their backs, with their heads to the west with seasonal deviations, usually in wooden decks with a lid, is characteristic of a number of burials under the earthen mounds of the Bakhtiarovsky I burial ground (on the left bank of the Akhtuba River in the Leninsky district of the Volgograd region, 16 km northwest of the Tsarevskoye settlement), dated from the finds of the Golden Horde silver coins the end of the XIII – the middle of the XIV century. ^{[12, pp. 154-155]}.

Thus, the use of decks is characteristic of both the funeral rite of the Kipchaks and the funeral rite of the Mongols. In the Southern Urals, decks appeared even before the arrival of the Kipchaks, especially the Mongols. But here we mean the steppe zone of the Urals and Trans-Urals. On the territory of Bashkortostan, there are no burials in the decks of the pre-Mongol time. Such burials appear in the Golden Horde time, which is obviously connected with the migration of the Kipchaks to the north caused by the Mongol invasion.

Conclusion

The Bashkir-Berkut burial ground is located in the settlement area ("the basin of the R. B. Ik and adjacent lands") of the southern group of Kipchak clans, the basis of which is the Kara-Kipchak genus ^{[14, p. 116]}. The cited work by R. G. Kuzeev shows "the antiquity of the Kara-Kipchak family, its distant ethnogenetic connections with the Turkic-Mongolian ethnic world of the Altai-Sayan Highlands and adjacent regions" ^{[14, p. 177]}. The materials generalized by R. G. Kuzeev "indicate the ethnic origin of the Bashkir Kara-Kipchaks from the medieval Polovtsian tribe Toksaba – one of the ancient tribes of Desht-i-Kipchak, who had a Turkic-Mongolian origin" ^{[14, p. 178]}.

According to Arab sources, the Kipchak (Turkic) Toksoba tribe entered into an alliance with the Mongols. This did not happen by chance, because the "Toksoba tribe from the Tatars" itself ^{[28, pp. 539-542]}, i.e. has Mongolian origin. The Toxobich horde in the XII century roamed the steppes between the Volga and the Dnieper ^{[25, p. 277]}, more precisely – between the Don and the Seversky Donets ^{[25, p. 278, fig. 4]}.

The relocation of the ancestors of Bashkir Kipchaks from the right to the left bank of the Volga is reported by "Shezhere Bashkir tribe Kypsak". This happened "during the reign of the Tatar Khans," when the Kipchaks, "crossing the [river] Itil", settled on Yaik and Sakmar ^{[3, p. 95]}. In Southern Bashkiria, legends and legends "about the arrival of the Kipchaks from across the Volga during the establishment of Mongol rule" were spread more recently, generally coinciding with the information of the Bashkir-Kypsaks shezhere ^{[3, p. 203]}.

Thus, elements of Mongolian culture (for example, burials in decks) in Eastern Europe could have appeared long before the Mongol invasion in the XIII century. The appearance of burial mounds in the decks in the Southern Urals can be associated with the migration of the population not from Southern Siberia or the Mongolian steppes, as N. A. Mazhitov believed, but from the right bank of the Volga to the left. But in the end, if we keep in mind the Mongolian origin of the Toksobichi, the carriers of burials in the decks came to Eastern Europe from Southern Siberia. Perhaps they really came to the Southern Urals "as part of the Tatar-Mongols." But this was not the first, but rather the last wave of the Mongol invasion.

Plano Carpini writes that the Mongols, having returned from Hungary, "came to the land of the Mordvins, who are pagans, and defeated them by war. Having moved from here against the Billers, that is, great Bulgaria, they completely ruined it too. Having moved further north from here, against the Baskart, that is, great Hungary, they defeated them too" ^{[26, p. 48]}. The legend of "Usergena" says that only after the Mongols "beat the Bulgars and Russians", they "returned back and subjugated the Bashkirs" ^{[4, p. 120]}.

Obviously, during the Mongols' campaigns against Russia and Central Europe in the Volga-Ural region, there were uprisings among the Mordvins, Bulgars and Bashkirs, for the suppression of which the Mongols had to make another campaign, which may have caused the return to Desht-i Kipchak. The Polovtsy of the Northern Black Sea region, who recognized the power of the conquerors who needed to replenish their army, could be involved in the punitive campaign. Thus, together with the Mongols, the Cumans came to the Southern Urals, some of them settled in the territory of modern Bashkiria. They may have been on police duty there. The Kipchaks of the Toksoba tribe enjoyed the confidence of the conquerors, because they not only had Mongol origin, but also entered into an alliance with the Mongols, helping them to conquer Desht-i Kipchak. In their new homeland, the Toksobichi left the Bashkir-Berkut mounds.

The presented material allows us to draw some conclusions. Firstly, there is no doubt that the carriers of the burials in the decks came to the Southern Urals from Southern Siberia or Central Asia. Secondly, even if the bearers of the burials in the decks were not Mongols, they came to the territory of modern Bashkortostan as part of the Mongol invasion. Thirdly, the burials in question, according to all other signs, do not stand out from the total mass of burials in the mounds of nomads of the Southern Urals of the Golden Horde period. It also does not seem appropriate to single out Bashkir-Berkut mounds as a special type of monuments.

The work was carried out within the framework of the state task on the topic "Cultural integration of the population of the Southern Urals in antiquity, the Middle Ages and Modern times: factors, dynamics, models" No. AAAAA-A21-121012290083-9

^[1] The dating of Bashkir-Berkut mounds of the XIII-XIV centuries was fixed in the reference literature ^{[19, p. 343]}.

^[2] In the earthen mound 8 (Mongolian time) of the Teleutsky Vozvoz I burial ground 40 km from Barnaul, "the deceased was buried in a wooden block stretched out on his back, with his head to the west. Although the burial was disturbed by robbers, several items of burial equipment and remnants of clothing were still found" ^{[10, pp. 328-329]}.

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