Mohuchahan: Early Scythian Age Burial Ground in Xinjiang

Abstract

The article considers the materials of the Mohuchahan burial ground of IX-VIII (VII) centuries BC located to the south-west of Urumqi in Hejing county in the South Tien Shan region. In 2011 and 2012 236 graves of Chawuhu culture were excavated at this burial ground. The earliest Mohuchahan burials are dated back to the X-IX centuries BC by Chinese and Russian researchers. In the Mohuchahan cemetery we can observe a fairly dense location of a large number of graves surrounded by fences, stone grave chambers with passages at the ends, the deceased positioned with bent legs and the head pointing northwest. Inventory analysis also confirms these specifics of groups. Nowadays it is the only representative complex in the eastern part of the Scythian world essentially supplementing the materials of Arzhan-1 and giving a new insight into the early Scythian culture formation processes. During analysis the similarity between early Mohuchahan burials’ funeral rites and graves inside stone rings from Kurtu-2 burial ground in the Mountain Altai (Eastern Kazakhstan) was noted. The Mohuchahan materials permit to conclude with a high degree of certainty that the Early Scythian time Biikenskaya culture funeral rite scheme could have formed in the Tian Shan region. The specific Arzhan-type cheek-pieces discovery in Kurtu-2 and Mohuchahan is of particular importance. This is not only a chronological marker but also an indicator of the Tian Shan region’s involvement in the predominantly European populated cultural community of Kazakhstan and Southern Siberia which existed not only in VIII-VII centuries BC but also in the IX century during the time of Scythian culture formation.