Photo: Bricks with hieroglyphs from Sarkel
In the 90s, on the right bank of the Tsimlyansk reservoir, a series of structures made of massive white stones suddenly emerged …
Subsequently, here, in the area between Tsimlyansk and the village of Khoroshevskaya, local residents began to find human bones and skulls. Actually, this is how, by chance, an impetus was given to the excavations carried out in 1999 by the Don archaeologist Pavel Larenko, as a result of which … the third medieval settlement on this patch of land was discovered.
The find has no unambiguous name, some archaeologists call it Sarkel-3, others - by the name of the nearest gully Kamyshevsky settlement. But it's not about the name. The ancient settlement "eaten" by the sea, as before, only threw firewood into the fire of riddles: why were these fortresses built? Is the Khazar treasure buried here? What did the authors of the hieroglyphs squeezed out of the bricks that make up the Sarkel fortress want to say? Several Volgodonsk researchers who were keen on Sarkel shared their views on this matter with "AiF on Don".
They dug up gold with an excavator …
As archaeologists assume, the first in the local area, approximately in 800, was built a beautiful white-stone fortress, now called the Right-Bank Tsimlyansk settlement. And later, in 834 - 837, on the opposite bank of the Don a second, more famous, settlement appeared - Sarkel (translated from Khazar - "white hotel", "white house"). But already here the first question awaits the historians without an exhaustive answer: why the Right-Bank settlement, built with all care, existed only … 30 - 40 years? Yes, it survived the raid of the steppe inhabitants, but why was it not subsequently populated again? And here we run into the second riddle: during the attack on the settlement, only women and children were exterminated in it. If we accept the version of some archaeologists that insidious enemies could guess the moment,when all the men for some reason left the fortress, the question arises: why then did they not return to their homes?
- At one time the version was discussed that the fortress suffered from a lack of water. After all, she was standing on a high bank - more than 40 meters above the Don! They say that you can't drag water to such a height, that's why the settlement was abandoned, - says researcher Anatoly Chalykh. - But it is unlikely that medieval builders were so short-sighted … Recently I examined a nearby mountain and noticed that there was … reeds growing on it. Studied it. It turned out that it has karst formations - voids in which water accumulates during the melting of snow. As a result, there are traces of a fontanelle in the gully adjacent to the fortress, so drinking water was not a problem in the castle mound.
And one more (third) riddle - treasures.
In the photo: A comb with scenes of hunting (or not hunting …) for strange monsters. From finds in Sarkel.
Promotional video:
“It is known that both Sarkel and the Right-Bank settlement performed not only a defensive function,” explains Anatoly Chalykh. - The fortresses stood on the Great Silk Road, and even in a place where several land roads converged. And Don made a bend just there and was shallow. Historical sources say that there were caravans crossing the Don, numbering from a thousand or more loaded animals! Fortresses guarded the path, but they also collected a toll from those passing by. Later, trade and crafts developed there … That is, there is no doubt: there was a lot of money in the fortresses, - continues A. Chalykh. - But where did they go ?!
Recently, it was suggested that in the 30s, the NKVD bodies nevertheless found in the Sarkel region, in a place now flooded by the Tsimlyansk Sea, a Khazar treasure. The families of local residents keep a memory: there were so many valuables that they were scooped up with an excavator …
In 2002, while exploring, however, not Sarkel, but the Khazar mounds located in the Kuban, the Russian archaeologist Alexander Semyonov went missing and has not yet been found. According to rumors, he went on the trail of "black diggers" who offered the scientist to buy from them 900 gold and silver solidi - coins that were in use in the Khazar Kaganate for the Hermitage. Allegedly, in order not to miss the moment, the scientist even decided to use the money set aside for the purchase of an apartment for these purposes. But when he tried to redeem the treasure, he disappeared …
Above the bay - "saucer-shaped object"
Riddle number 4 - an unusual shape, square, measuring 20 by 20 cm, bright pink bricks, from which Sarkel is laid.
“They really do not look like bricks in our traditional sense,” says Valery Platonov, director of the Piligram Center for Children and Youth Tourism and Local History, showing me one of the bricks.
Back in the 18th century, the Cossacks who dismantled Sarkel appreciated the purely practical value of bricks. Moreover, bricks were sold much more expensive than those that were produced in those days. The reason is their amazing strength. Even now, this brick, which has lain for 12 centuries (!), Can be put under a truck, and it will bear the weight. Moreover, the Volgodonsk enthusiasts have been looking for a quarry for more than one year, where they could extract the clay that was used to make wonderful bricks. Unsuccessful so far. But still another big secret is another feature of the bricks - some of them have intricate and very different hieroglyphs (see in the photo - a fragment of the wall).
“Recently, one of the public academies in Moscow made an attempt to decipher them for the first time,” says A. Chalykh.
But in scientific circles it was taken with skepticism. For example: one of the drawings in that academy was deciphered as follows: "Today we drank wine, the wine is wonderful" … But in general, scientists are still limited to the systematization of drawings.
And finally, one more mystery of Sarkel: it is over three medieval settlements that locals most often see … UFOs: “In August 2007, many saw in Volgodonsk, over the Komsomolets cinema, a certain metallic-colored piece. At first it hung motionless, and then it jerked with great speed and disappeared in a few seconds”; “Several times in Novy Gorod (Volgodonsk microdistrict), over the bay, we saw a saucer-shaped object that hung for 2 hours and then disappeared. I saw it too. There are many such admissions about the meeting with UFOs on the Internet forums of Volgodonsk in recent years.
- The appearance of a strange object over the Komsomolets cinema was really sensational - something hovered low above the ground at about 7 pm, - says the journalist Lyudmila Sycheva, well-known in Volgodonsk. - And every time, when what is called a UFO appears in the sky over the city, it comes from the side of the bay, from Sarkel flooded by Tsimla. And flies away in the opposite direction …
Fiction? Who knows …
Sarkel - disaster zone
Pavel Larenok, head of the archaeological expedition of the Rostov regional branch of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments:
- For me, the worst thing is that the complex of the Pritsimlyansk settlements, which are cultural objects of federal significance, is today a disaster zone. Tsimlyansk reservoir is now actively destroying its right bank, monuments are on the verge of extinction. As for Sarkel-3, everything that we excavated 9 years ago is no longer there, it went into the sea, and a corner tower with a very interesting aqueduct collapsed there. The solution is to annually carry out protective archaeological work, in order to at least excavate, photograph, and trace what is. But this is impossible due to lack of money …
And the most interesting thing in this complex for me is what the archaeologist Sizov saw in the 19th century. These are the remains of the towers erected in the fields, already outside the fortresses and protecting them. Since the fields were cultivated for vineyards, almost nothing remained of the towers - only fragments of blocks in some places stick out of the ground. But these towers make it possible to say that the entire complex was a unique (the only one in Russia) defensive system, a powerful fortification center! And therefore our assumption: Sarkel was no less than the summer capital of the Khazar Kaganate. Despite the fact that his winter rate was the city on the Volga - Itil, which has not yet been found.