June marks the 30th anniversary of the discovery of one of the world's most famous monuments of the Bronze Age - Arkaim.
The solitaire in heaven developed so happily that it was in those June days of 1987 in the Bredinsky region that an expedition detachment worked under the leadership of the Chelyabinsk archaeologists Sergey Botalov and Vadim Mosin. Scientists did not yet know that tomorrow, in the territory preparing for flooding by the Karagan reservoir, they would discover a monument that would make their names known. Today, the discoverers remember how it was …
Citadel in the porthole
Sergey Botalov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of SUSU:
- In mid-June 1987, the Ural-Kazakhstani archaeological expedition of ChelSU began work in the flood zone of the Karagan inter-farm irrigation system, which is 100 kilometers south of Magnitogorsk. I must say that archaeologists are always watching with passion the plans of reclamation workers. That is why we repeatedly examined the area of the future reservoir, trying to find and fix the traces of the ancient people. Indeed, in a small valley where two rivers Karaganka and Utyaganka - the right tributaries of the Urals - meet, two Stone Age sites, three Bronze Age settlements and several burial mounds were found.
That early June morning in 1987 I will remember for the rest of my life. Our plane made wide circles over the river valley. I show the commander of our light AN-2 with the palm of my hand how to bank the plane so that it would be more convenient for me to take a photograph. The pilot smiles knowingly and sharply lifts the car first up and then turns along the fuselage axis. He shot in black and white with Zenit, and in color - with Kiev. In the vizier, finally, I see what we have climbed here to a height of half a kilometer. I manage to click twice and cock the shutter. The object floats by. The plane enters a new circle. I turn around and look at Vadim. He, usually reserved and calm, looks at me broadly and enthusiastically. Each of us clearly understood: the legendary moment of his life had just flashed. One of the monuments of the most ancient culture lay under us,the existence of which was not yet known to mankind.
And now the plane goes into the second circle. Below us are the clear contours of an irregular bi-part wheel with curved spokes. As if a giant brush of the artist decorated it with green June grass. And our pilots, shrugging their shoulders, look at us incredulously: "Is this your city?"
Promotional video:
It is probably really difficult for them with an inexperienced eye to discern ancient streets and quarters in these bizarre curves of the steppe relief, and in the dark green lenses of the pits - the apartments of ancient inhabitants. Meanwhile, we can already clearly see the contours of the bypass ditch, the collapse of the fortified entrances, the remains of buildings and the round wall of the citadel are visible. It is only later that two mutually perpendicular streets that cross the entire village, connecting the entrances with the central square, will become recognizable in photographs.
Already in those minutes it was obvious to us: we have before us a special monument, which can be found in the literature by various names: "proto-city", "quasi-city". Even on the ground, walking with Vadim around the circumference of the defensive wall, we realized that we were facing a monument of the so-called Sintashta type.
Its safety stunned us. According to the material extracted the day before from the pits, it was clear that the settlement existed more than 3500 years ago. Meanwhile, the defensive walls, once built of soil and wood, have survived to a height of up to one meter!
… The plane landed near the camp. Despite the early hour, the entire archaeological team was already on its feet. The main heroes of the occasion, their namesake friends, seventh-grade students Sasha Yezril and Sasha Voronkov, were also standing by the gangway. It was they who, the day before, were the first to notice the strange ramparts near the camp and brought me and Vadim Mosin to them.
At the evening meeting, it was solemnly announced: a monument of world culture was opened. There was no end to the exultation and questions of the children. And two Sasha were awarded a can of condensed milk as a prize.
Photo from the corn plant
Sergey Arkanov is the only photographer in the Urals who has the honorary title of archaeologist. That is, initiated into archaeologists.
In September 1987, he took, perhaps, his most famous photograph - "Arkaim", which was then published in the pages of many world publications and which became the official business card of the ancient city and the creative business card of the photographer himself.
“It was September 1987,” Sergey recalls. - Imported equipment at that time was still a wonder. At the same time, on the occasion of a former regional committee photographer, I bought an American camera. I flew to shoot with him. And just imagine: a maize plane, flight altitude - from a kilometer, strong vibration … I was filming from the co-pilot's seat. And the time is already evening! I remember how I took measurements on the ground with the "Sverdlovsk-2" exposure meter. According to the exposure conditions, taking into account the vibration of the aircraft, the aperture should be 1/11, the shutter speed should be at least 1/400. The light meter shows that the film sensitivity should be at least 700 units. And I had only 130 films with me.
But there was no choice. After the flight, the filmed film had to be developed for an hour and a half or two. But even this time was not enough: the negatives turned out to be transparent, thin. At that time, a particularly contrasting developer was used, and such images were printed only on highly contrasting paper, which was not in our stores, and they got it to me through the APN, by great pull. But what about developing? And again a sign from above: I once read the magazine "Soviet Photo", which described a method of increasing contrast, the so-called method of "hungry manifestation." The subtlety was to roll a counter-negative soaked in the developer with emulsions to a clean glass. Using this method, I then pulled out the Arkaimov picture.
140 squares of ancient secrets
Vadim Mosin, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of SUSU:
- In the middle of June, we went to our camp "Utyaganskaya", taking with us a detachment of Chelyabinsk students and schoolchildren who were engaged in archaeological circles.
The road is long - 500 kilometers. We arrived in the evening. We unloaded the cars, set up a camp and tents. And after the first day of excavations, the older guys went to wander around.
The guys who returned from the walk were extremely excited and told us: “Go and see! There are shafts!"
The day before, when we drove into this site, I myself noticed that we were going through some kind of ramparts. I also asked the driver about this: were the corrals here, or what? Therefore, we reacted calmly to the findings of the guys:
- Come on, they say, have already seen …
And then Sergei suddenly exclaimed:
- Let's go and see!
And we went to watch together with the guys. We went to this shaft. Since we have been working at Sintashta for the last four years, after a few minutes everything became clear to us. However, to be convinced of the guesses, we took shovels, laid a pit, and received material: the ceramics were Sintashta, real!
But on Sintashta, only half was excavated - a semicircle. And here a whole circle appeared before us!
And in order to be completely convinced of our diagnosis, the next day we went to neighboring Izmailovka, where planes flew pollinating the fields. We agreed with the pilots to take us on board and make several laps with us.
The pilots set a condition: we will fly out only before work. And that means very early. As it turned out later, this decision was very successful for us: the lateral rays of the sun illuminated the ancient city in the most effective way. As a result, Sergey Botalov got the most successful picture, which today is invariably present on all Arkaim's sites.
And in order to dispel the last doubts, they laid the excavation directly on the dwelling. We were waiting for 140 square meters of unsolved mysteries. And just started digging, right there good luck! Found a mold for a sickle. There will never be such a find later in the entire existence of Arkaim!
At first, we decided to figure it out ourselves, and therefore for three weeks no one even knew about our discovery. The very next day after the discovery, we drew a plan. He became the very first archaeological account of Arkaim. By the way, then he was not yet Arkaim. With the rights of discoverers, we named this settlement Alexandrovsky.
On occasion, we sent a letter to Sintashta to our colleagues - Gening and Grigoriev. A plan and a picture of the settlement were attached to it, attributing: break, they say, the camp, because all the same, you will definitely not work there anymore!
The next person who learned about our discovery was Svetlana Yakovlevna Zdanovich, who worked ten kilometers from us in the settlement. She came to our camp, and we could no longer show her our ancient city. From what she saw, she was delighted. And, of course, she soon informed Gennady Borisovich Zdanovich about the discovery. Within a month or two, an expedition came here under his leadership.
And then large-scale excavations began, in which all the South Ural archeologists and their Kazakhstani colleagues took part. Then there was a long struggle for the preservation of the monument, the opening of Arkaim took place for the Russian scientific community, and then for the world. And this was already the merit of Gennady Borisovich Zdanovich. But that was already another, new history of Arkaim.
Well, today one can assume differently how the biography of this unique discovery could develop in general. However, its first page was just like that …
Author: Marat Gainullin