Magomed A. Tangiev

Centre for Archaeological Research at the Institute for Humanitarian Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the Chechen Republic, Grozny, Russia

E-mail: maga995@list.ru

Keywords: the Middle Ages, Chechnya, funerary sites, cemeteries, funeral rites, funerary structures, inhumations, pit graves.

The article focuses on studying medieval burial grounds consisting of pit inhumations and located on the territory of the Chechen Republic. The author offers a brief overview of these funerary sites and burials and analyzes funerary goods and rites presented in them. The burials are individual inhumations in simple narrow elongated pits in the extended position on the back with arms straight and heads West (with rare exceptions). The paper emphasizes that the pit inhumation rite is characteristic of the planar and piedmont zones, while in the mountain and alpine Chechnya stone cysts for individual burials and underground, semi-underground and surface long-functioning vaults for multiple burials are typical. The author addresses the place of medieval pit graves of Chechnya in the context of funerary sites in neighbouring territories (North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Dagestan) and concludes that these funerary sites reflect the pagan ideas of the local population.

DOI: 10.31857/S086960630013722-3