In the Maikop region, during the work in a gypsum quarry, a previously unknown dolmen was discovered. The burial turned out to be unbroken. The bulldozer bucket damaged the structure, and the work in the quarry is now frozen
The dolmen did not retain its original appearance. After meeting with the excavator, only two side plates remained in their place. And, nevertheless, this find can become historical.
The dolmen was discovered in a plaster quarry. The excavator driver began a new cut into the rock - an ancient structure appeared under the layer of earth. The dolmen did not retain its original appearance. After meeting with the excavator, only two side plates remained in place. And, nevertheless, this find can become historical. Archaeologists expect the burial itself to remain intact.
Archaeologist Nurbiy Lovpache restores the original picture by the fact that he survived the fight against the machine: a tiled dolmen - that is, one of the earliest. It was oriented traditionally - to the east. It had the shape of a truncated pyramid. In its ritual purpose, it was probably used more than once: only a superficial study suggests that at least four people and several animals were buried here.
Nurbiy Lovpache, head of the archeology department of the Adyghe Republican Institute for Humanitarian Research, says: “During excavations, in summer or spring, it will be found out what else is there. More precisely, it will be possible to determine the chronological level. An earthenware pottery vessel found here tilts the balance towards the Late Bronze.
Some of the items from the upper layer of the burial ended up on the surface when the dolmen was destroyed. An earthen vessel, a handful of bronze ornaments - these items were carefully collected by the workers and given to scientists. The find was reported to the Republican Department for the Protection and Use of Cultural Heritage Sites.
Mikhail Gavrilov, Deputy Head of the Department for the Protection and Use of Cultural Heritage Objects of the Republic of Adygea, says: “The Department, in fact, drew up an act of destruction of the archaeological site and issued an order to ZAO Nerudstroykom for a complete stop of work and for the entire complex of security and rescue archaeological measures on this newly identified object.
The work on the restoration of this dolmen and its further research, as well as archaeological exploration of the area for the search for new antiquities will be carried out at the expense of the company developing the quarry. Tentatively, the research will take six months. During this time, the mining of nonmetallic materials will be frozen here.
Dolmens are the most valuable monuments of ancient culture, and it is in Adygea and near it that there are so many dolmens as in no other country in the world
And what do we actually know about the dolmens of Adygea? Where did dolmens originate from in the Caucasus? Scientists believe that the dolmen culture originated in India. There are dolmens there too. Then, in two branches, it spread across the continent. The first branch went through the Mediterranean Sea, the Caucasus and northern Europe. The second branch went to the north of Africa, to Egypt, where people who built dolmens and were engaged in hunting and cattle breeding finally settled, moving on to agriculture.
In the West, dolmens were found in France, England, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Corsica, they are found in Palestine and other countries. However, the largest accumulation of dolmens on Earth was found along the Black Sea coast from Taman to Abkhazia and on the northern side of the foothills of the Krasnodar Territory and Adygea. Here the strip of dolmens is 500 kilometers long and 75 kilometers wide. The total number of recorded dolmens exceeds 2300 pieces.
If we talk about Adygea, then a large settlement of dolmen builders was found on the Doguak glade near the village of Dakhovskaya and was named Doguak-Dakhovsky. It contained a lot of household items, all kinds of products made of horn and bones, pottery forges, smelting furnaces, bronze knives and axes, ancient ceramics, stone arrowheads, beads and pendants. And most importantly, charcoal was found in large quantities, according to which it was possible to establish that the forge was fired here for the last time about 4050 years ago.
Many people were involved in the construction of the dolmens. The weight of one slab of an average dolmen is 4 - 7 tons, and in general the weight of a dolmen reaches 25 and more tons. When processing stone slabs, bronze, stone and wooden wedges were used. Slabs were moved on rollers. Dolmens were collected using scaffolding and levers.
A very interesting and one-of-a-kind dolmen, found in a mound on the banks of the Psynako River in the Tuapse region, near the village of Anastasievka. The place where he stands was used for ritual actions as early as the third millennium BC and was a sanctuary.
A stone corridor approaches the dolmen, partitioned off in several places by large slabs. Scientists suggest that it contains an imitation of the firmament. Here the laws of the solstice were studied and observations of the moon were conducted. This is a kind of ancient observatory. There are four more similar megalithic structures in the world. One in Ireland, one in Denmark, one in Portugal and the fourth in Spain. All dolmen buildings have one thing in common: they are facing the sunny or light side. This indicates that the dolmen builders worshiped the Sun.
Dolmens of the Western Caucasus are closest to dolmens located in countries along sea currents. These currents run in the Mediterranean from Gibraltar, along the northern coast of Africa and turn into the Black Sea. Ancient people, carriers of the dolmen culture, could have arrived in the Caucasus by sea.
Dolmens of Adygea
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