The Arkaim settlement consisted of two circles of houses and had a well-defined ring structure, the outer diameter of which was 150 meters, and the inner diameter was about 85 meters. The ancient fortress city was built of wood: spruce, pine, birch, aspen, which in those days grew in abundance on the territory of the Karagan valley, as well as mud from the river banks of B. Karaganka and Utyaganka. It is surprising that the people of Arkaim did not use natural stone, which is rich in this area, when building their houses and erecting powerful defensive ramparts of the settlement. The shafts were large chopped stands filled with carefully compacted earth and lined with raw clay on the outside. The inner shaft was 3 meters wide and up to 7 meters high. The outer rampart was 5 meters wide and 5 meters high with four trapezoidal entrances oriented to the cardinal points. In addition, a defensive moat up to 3 meters deep was built around the outer side of the settlement.
According to archaeologists, the barrage ramparts, together with wooden superstructures, had a very impressive appearance, reaching a height of 10 meters. At the moment, excavations have been carried out of the pits of two spacious dwellings - each of 110-180 sq. m. As already mentioned, ARKAIM had a ring structure and was clearly oriented according to the stars, with its complex configuration reminiscent of a mystical multilevel Mandala (in Sanskrit "wheel" or "circle", in which stable harmony is achieved). In the ancient city there were two circles of dwellings with a total of 67 units. Of these, 40 houses are in the outer, more massive, circle and 27 in the inner. Neighboring dwellings are located radially and molded to each other like honeycombs, having one common wall. The houses of the inner circle rested against the wall. The dividing element between the inner and outer circles was the city's only concentric street with a log deck and a reasonably arranged storm sewer with cesspools. Rainwater seeped freely through the wooden pavement and went into the bypass ditch. The people of Arkaim skillfully used timber, blocks of raw clay and burnt bricks for the construction of dwellings. The spacious houses had 6-10 rooms for 60-70 relatives, wells, cellars, containers for storing grain and vegetables, ovens for heating and cooking. In many dwellings, there were industrial furnaces for burning pottery and smelting metal. This is evidenced by the miraculously preserved traces on the soil bottom of the excavation pits in the form of deeply burnt and sintered clay spots,dark dents from the rotten pillars that once supported the roofs of buildings are barely noticeable.
I was especially interested in the large 25x27 sq.m. area located in the central part of ARKAIM. It was not only perfectly leveled, but impregnated with a special cementitious mortar. The corners of the square square were clearly oriented to the cardinal points, and ancient ash-panes from fires were preserved in a circle, in the center there was an altar for sacred actions. Judging by this, the central square was a kind of open-air observatory temple, where the wise Arkaim priests-magi performed some mysterious sacred rituals and performed ritual sacrifices. After all, if the Circle symbolizes the Universe, then the Square (in this case, the area of ancient ARKAIM) is the symbol of the Earth. It is possible that on this truly magical square, located in the center of two concentric circles, not only the townspeople gathered during religious festivals,but tribesmen from all over the area.
According to the calculations of the archaeologist B. G. Zdanovich, who was the discoverer of this unique architectural monument, the population of ARKAIM was about 2500 people. For a settlement of the Bronze Age, the figure is very impressive !!! By the way, ARKAIM is older than the famous Stonehenge (and ARKAIM is a much more multifaceted structure), it is a thousand years older than the legendary Troy and a number of other cities of the Bronze Age, two centuries older than the Egyptian pyramids, and in importance is not inferior to the cultures of Minoan Crete and Mycenae. I would like to mention one more interesting fact.
Promotional video:
The unique ARKAIMO-SINTASHTA civilization existed at about the same time as the no less mysterious Harappa civilization, which flourished in the Indus River valley.
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When exploring the area adjacent to the Arkaim citadel settlement, archaeologists found traces of several unfortified villages and agricultural areas where cereals were sown and livestock were raised. Even the remains of an ancient irrigation system have been found. I will dwell in more detail on the burial grounds located on the left bank of the B. Karaganka, one and a half kilometers to the north-east of the settlement.
The people of Arkaim buried their deceased relatives on the opposite bank of the river, for they believed that the water course was a reliable dividing line between the World of the Living and the World of the Dead. At the moment, 5 burial mounds have been investigated. The Arkaim burials are quite peculiar in their architecture. They are deep burial pits with hollow burial chambers, ledges and wooden beams. On top of the pit floors, earth embankments were made or adobe vaulted domes were erected. The dead were buried mainly in the position of a sleeping person, lying on its side, and often they showered the corpse with red ocher. Moreover, the burials in the grave pits were not only single and paired, but also in groups.
On the basis of the investigated remains, archaeologists established the growth of a resident of ARKAIM, which was about 170 cm. In some burials, household items were carefully placed next to the deceased: bronze knives, sickles, chisels, adze axes; needles and awls; spear and arrowheads; harpoons and fishing hooks; horse harness accessories; bronze jewelry in the form of beads, pendants, bracelets; ceramic pots, etc. - everything that could be useful to a person in the World of the Dead. I was extremely struck by the guide's message that almost all the people buried here were no older than 29-30 years.
I wonder what is the reason for this phenomenon ?! After all, the ancient inhabitants of the Karagano-Utyagan valley lived in rather comfortable conditions: healthy steppe air; clean rivers with lots of fish; agricultural land where millet, barley and wheat were grown; vegetable gardens; pastures for livestock; timber for the construction and heating of spacious dwellings; rich ore deposits to smelt metal; clay for making dishes and, finally, the abundance of medicinal plants growing in this area !!!
Excavations of the Arkaim settlement continued from 1987 to 1990. A painstaking work was carried out to reconstruct the ancient technologies, culture and life of the mysterious proto-urban civilization of the Bronze Age, which flourished in the South Urals about 4 thousand years ago. At the moment, archaeological excavations in ARKAIM have been stopped, and the unique monument of ancient culture has been conserved.
Author: Irina Panina