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Taldysai detachment of central kazakhstan archaeological expedition of the institute of archeology. A.kh. Margulan Settlement of metallurgists taldysai of the late bronze age

The settlement of Taldysai is located in the tract of the same name at the confluence of the rivers Ulken Jezdy and Bala Jezdy in the Ulytau administrative district of the Karaganda region. The settlement was opened in 1992 by local residents after the spring spill of the river. Since 1994, the Taldysai detachment of the Central Kazakhstan Archaeological Expedition of the A.Kh. Margulan Institute of Archaeology has been conducting a comprehensive study of the monument, including field and laboratory studies using methods of natural sciences and experimental modeling.

At the settlement, production and housing complexes with remnants of heat engineering structures (HES) of different technological and household orientation were identified and investigated. Here, metallurgical furnaces of two main structures were used: shaft and ground, as well as transition between them - semishaft.

Shaft HES: in three investigated production and housing complexes - eastern, western and northern - pit-furnaces of the shaft type were single-section (5 HES) and three-section (2 HES). Thermal structures of this type, deepened into the ground up to two meters or more, had long horizontal chimneys, a complex air-conducting system and worked without forced blowing. Copper sulfide ore was redistributed in shaft-type thermal units - its annealing and copper smelting.

Ground HES – these are small furnaces with a slight deepening of the hearth of the furnace into the ground, worked on forced blowing with the help of bellows. They made up the most numerous type of structures with various options. Subtype 1 (6 HES) - ground type furnaces with stone and clay walls. One of them had a clearly decorated circle with a diameter of 60 cm, lined with stones, with a filling of a dark burnt ash layer, a depth from the top of the stone walls to the bottom - 30 cm. Another had stone-clay walls and a hole in the wall for the nozzle at the floor level. The remaining 5 HES were depressions with stones released into mainland clay to a depth of 10 cm from the floor level. Subtype 2 - domed furnaces (5 HES). They were clay monoliths of a rectangular-oval shape with rounded sides. The clay dome furnace in a filled well probably belongs to the same subtype. The furnace cavity is filled with small burnt pebbles, cleaved stones, bones. One end of the furnace was inserted into a bone scoriaceous tube.

Semishaft furnaces – structures with various versions of chimneys and a depth in the ground from 0.5 to 1 meter; in the design of these HES there are elements of both shaft and ground furnaces (4 HES). Of these, an oval-shaped furnace is distinguished as a subtype, arranged in mainland clay to a depth of about a meter, with a short chimney and vertical and horizontal air supply channels.

Experiments conducted by I. A. Rusanov confirmed the identification of such thermal structures with copper smelting furnaces for copper smelting from oxidized ores and burning and smelting copper from sulfide ores.

HES of different types were combined into production and housing complexes, testifying to the appearance in the era of late Bronze in Jezkazgan-Ulytau mining and smelting center of specialized settlements of metallurgists. Similar shaft-type structures were also identified at the settlements of the North Betpakdala mining and smelting center - Atasu, Myrzhik, Akmaya, Akmustafa. Terrestrial-type structures are more widespread - they are known in different regions of Eurasia.

Taldysai thermal structures of the ground type (furnaces, crucible devices, fireplaces) have a resemblance to the structures of furnaces of the Middle and Late Bronze and the beginning of Late Bronze Era in different regions of Northern Eurasia. Similar HES studied in the Southern Trans-Urals at the fortified settlements of Sintashty and Arkaim. However, it should be borne in mind that only their basic models were borrowed, based on the similarity of the technology of metallurgical redistribution. The metallurgists of Saryarka, working in other environmental conditions with a limited possibility of producing charcoal, had Jezkazgan deposits rich in copper sulfide ore as a raw material, so they were forced to significantly modify the HES structures, transferring them mainly to natural, not forced air injection.

The entire metallurgical cycle is presented at the Taldysai settlement: copper smelting from ore, casting products, their blacksmith refinement. Workshops functioned on the monument throughout the late Bronze Age, starting with objects of Petrovsky culture (or Nurtai type of monuments of Central Kazakhstan) to Alekseevsky-Sargarin and, possibly, Dongal. Not only copper smelting, but also copper smelting was carried out here. The archaeological collection of the settlement is represented by different categories of finds. These are, first of all, remnants and wastes of copper melting and smelting: copper ore (malachite, azurite) and lead ore (galenite), slags and plated clay, matte, ingots and splices, blanks (wire, plates, tools, etc.), finished copper products (whole and scrap): knives, arrowheads, socketed and rod-shaped punches, copper jewelry coinage, chisels, plate adz and slicks, stitches, needles, hooks, fasteners, copper bracket, boiler handles (?), beads, plaques, channelled and rod bracelets and earrings, as well as fragments of stone and clay moulds with knives blanks, arrowheads and chisel blanks. A significant part of the collection consists of fragments of ceramics, stone and bone products.

The most representative category of finds are weapons represented by arrowheads made of stone, bone and copper and a slat of a cast mold made of agilite. Copper arrowheads are morphologically diverse and chronologically mark different stages of the functioning of the monument throughout the II thousand BC. All of them belong to the classes of forged and cast. Among the forged by the nature of the nozzle, arrowheads with a protruding and hidden socket, representing the early Alakul period, stand out. All products were molded, and then subjected to extensive blacksmithing.

Another diagnostic category of products are knives made using forged and cast technologies. Taldysai knives cast in bivalve forms characterize the Eurasian series of tools and weapons, they are characteristic of antiquities, primarily Abashev, Sintashty, Potapov, Early Srubnaya (Pokrovskaya), Petrovskaya, Srubnaya (developed stage), Alakul, Krotov and other cultures. In knives from Taldysai, the rib stiffener is expressed only on one side, which is more characteristic of the early series of Eurasian cultures of the late Bronze Age. Another characteristic feature of Taldysai knives is a weakly expressed or only intended crossings and a rather long, but not deep interception. The shape of the cutter, crossing and interception is given to the tools by blacksmith molding. Such a prominent role of forging in the formation of double-blade knives is the legacy of the technologies of the Circumpontic Metallurgical Province (CMP), which, of course, have become basic in the metalworking of the above-mentioned cultures.

Among the gatherings and in the sediments of the early phase of the Taldysai settlement, four rare knives - cutters - in the antiquities of Late Bronze Era originate. These copper blades are trapezoidal in shape, sealed firmly in clay handles, which were probably specialized tools for cutting leather.

Almost the entire cycle of metallurgical production was carried out at the Taldysai settlement: copper smelting from ore, its refining, casting of products and their blacksmith refinement. A study of the chemical composition and technology for the manufacture of metal products showed that their main amount was made of metallurgically "pure" copper in the technology of casting + forging. Particular emphasis on forging was certainly associated with the use of "pure" copper.

The metallurgical specialization of the inhabitants of the settlement, like the entire Jezkazgan-Ulytau region, was dictated by the richest deposits of oxidized and sulfide copper ore in the region. The production and housing complexes identified at the settlement reflect the developed paleoeconomic infrastructure with mining, metallurgical and metalworking specialization, as well as the development of ceramic, leather, bone-cutting, woodworking industries.

Research carried out at the settlement contributes to solving the debating problems not only of Jezkazgan-Ulytau mining and smelting center, but also of the ancient copper metallurgy of Kazakhstan as a whole.

References

Ermolaeva A.S., Yerzhanova A.E. Harakteristika raskopannyh ob"ektov nizhnego sloya poseleniya Taldysaj // Artyukhova O.A., Kurmankulov J., Ermolaeva A.S., Yerzhanova A.E. Kompleks pamyatnikov v urochishche Taldasaj. Vol. 1. – Almaty: A.Kh. Margulan Institute of Archaeology, 2013. 135–167.

Ermolaeva A.S. Petrovsko-nutrtajskie zhilishcha-masterskie na poselenii Taldysaj // "Current problems of the archaeology of Eurasia": materials of the International Scientific and Practical Conference. October 18-19, 2016 Baitanayev B.A. (editor-in-chief). Almaty: A.Kh. Margulan Institute of Archaeology, 2016. p. 126-141.

Ermolaeva A.S., Yerzhanova A.E., Dubyagina E.V. Teplotekhnicheskie sooruzheniya nazemnogo tipa na poselenii Taldysaj // Scientific and technological progress: current and promising directions of the future: a collection of materials of the VI International Scientific and Practical Conference (August 18, 2017). Volume I. - Kemerovo: West Siberian Scientific Center, 2017. p. 22-38.

Ermolaeva A.S., Dubyagina E.V., Kalieva J.S. Sopla kak pokazatel' ispol'zovaniya nazemnyh teplotekhnicheskih sooruzhenij na poselenii Taldysaj // Vestnik of the Kazakh National Pedagogical University. Series Historical and socio-political sciences. ‑ 2017. ‑ № 3 (54). ‑ p. 183–188.

Ermolaeva A.S., Kalieva J.S., Dubyagina E.V. Kul'turnaya atribuciya zhilishcha-masterskoj na poselenii Taldysaj na osnove analiza keramiki // Samara Scientific Vestnik. 2018. Volume 7. No. 3 (24). p. 269-275.

Ermolaeva A.S., Kuzminykh S.V., Pak D.S., Dubyagina E.V. Predmety vooruzheniya epohi bronzy iz masterskih litejshchikov poseleniya Taldysaj (Central'nyj Kazahstan) // Stratum plus. ‑ 2019. ‑ № 2. ‑ p. 109–120.

Rusanov I.A., Ermolaeva A.S. Metallurgiya medi na poselenii epohi bronzy Taldysaj (rekonstrukciya drevnego proizvodstva) // "Archaeology of Kazakhstan during an independence era: results, prospects": materials of the International Scientific conference, dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the 20th anniversary of the Institute of Archaeology named after A. Kh. Margulan. Almaty. December 12-15, 2011 Volume I. Almaty, 2011. p. 36 - 58.

Ermolaeva A., Kurmankulov J., Erjanova A., Rusanov I. Die Siedlung Taldysaj – Ein Denkmal der technischen Kultur der alten Stamme der Region Zezkazgan-Ulytay (Zentral Kazakhstan) // Unbekanntes Kazachstan. Archäologieim Herzen Asiens. – Bochum, 2013. – p. 441–454.

 
 
   
 
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