There is a unique nature reserve on the territory of the Southern Urals, on a par with Stonehenge and the pyramids of Egypt. An archaeological monument of federal significance, the source of civilization, which opened up the secrets of four thousand years to scientists. All this is the ancient city of Arkaim, accidentally discovered in 1987 during the construction of the Bolshe-Karagan reservoir.
Tourists who expect to see ruins here, as in Greece or Egypt, will be disappointed, because the settlement itself is hidden under a layer of earth. After archaeologists studied the city, it was decided to cover it with earth in order to protect it from destruction. However, a few kilometers from Arkaim, archaeological work continues. For thirty years, archaeologists have made unique discoveries and made interesting finds, most of which are kept in the local museum "Science and Man". The museum, like all the simple infrastructure of the reserve, is located in the middle of the steppe in the Kizil region. People from all over the country come to get acquainted with the originals of ancient history. The guests of the reserve were Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev.
Magnitogorsk is lucky in this regard - Arkaim is located just 180 kilometers and two hours from the city of metallurgists. This means that there is an opportunity to personally follow this detective in time. Moreover, the staff of the Science and Man Museum regularly update the exposition, which includes not only artifacts from local excavations, but also other antiquities of interest to both historians and a wide range of guests.
Until mid-September, visitors to the museum can see the exhibition of locks and keys "For Seven Locks". The exposition includes more than eighty items from the private collection of Igor Dachenkov, which are exhibited in the Castle Museum of the Dubna science city near Moscow. This is not the first collaboration between the two museums - in 2012, the Science and Man Museum brought to Dubna exhibits found during the excavation of the reserve.
- The first lock invented by man was the most common rope - to tie, fix, thereby protect it from strangers, - says the chief curator of the museum, historian Natalya Tatarintseva. - Over time, the locking technique has improved. By the way, humanity owes the profession of a locksmith to the origin of castles. In German, "Schlussel" is the key.
At first, the castle was a purely utilitarian thing. And then it became a decorative art. Indeed, the exhibition features elaborately decorated locks and keys, which had not only a practical but also a decorative function. For example, tiny collars for pocket dogs. Here are the very first keys made hundreds and thousands of years ago. Including genuine Roman key rings, which could have belonged to soldiers of the Roman army.
There are here impressive-sized barn castles of Ancient Rus, outlandish castles from India and China, as well as boxes with "secret" locking mechanisms. By the way, the music that sounds when opening such boxes worked as an alarm - it was impossible to open it silently.
The exhibition presents two interesting exhibits: the key to the Vasilkovsky fortification of the Kiev fortress and the castle from the Ancient Bulgar. Each copy is a handicraft work performed in a single copy. By the way, as the museum staff say, ancient locks are much more reliable than modern ones, which can be opened almost with a nail.
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“It is noteworthy that the found castles are in excellent condition, which means they were not in the ground,” says Natalia Tatarintseva. - They were accompanied by keys made in a single copy. Therefore, gates with such locks were easier to break with a cannonball than to forge a key.
By the way, in the collection you can see one of the monastic castles that withstood a cannonball hit.
There is another unique exhibit in the museum - a perfectly preserved skeleton of a nomadic woman who lived in the 2nd-3rd centuries AD.
A sensational find was made in 2015 by archaeologists of the Arkaim Reserve and Chelyabinsk State University. Excavations were carried out in the Kizil region on the territory of the burial ground discovered in the 90s of the last century. The skull has a pronounced elongated shape, and along the perimeter of the head - from the forehead to the back of the head - a dent is visible, which suggests that the head was deliberately pulled with ribbons and planks. This tradition is typical for many nomads of the steppes who lived in the first millennium BC. The reason for this ritual arouses curiosity: it is possible that it was done for beauty or meant belonging to a high social status. In any case, artificial skull deformation is still used by some African and Australian tribes. She died at about 25-35 years old and at that time was already considered a mature woman. Last year, the appearance of the Sarmatian nomad was reconstructed, and now, after thousands of years, one can assume what she looked like.
Meanwhile, scientists continue excavations in the Land of Cities. In August, in the southern part of the settlement, archaeological work was completed on an area of 192 square meters. The collected collection includes more than a thousand items, including large fragments of vessels, metallurgical slag, stone tools, rough ingots of copper and bronze. For the first time, fragments of copper ore and finished bronze items were found - a fishing hook and a metal rod. The brightest materials will soon be on display at the museum.
Daria Dolinina