Abstract
Article is devoted to results of rescue archaeological researches on the locus XXXIII located outside medieval shahristan of Derbent (Arab. Bab al-abwab) – 130 m from a northern city defensive wall. Cultural layers (layers 1–4 up to 2,4 m thick) including fragments of medieval pottery, the copper coins, fragments of glass vessels and bracelets, etc. of the Arab and Pre-Mongol periods (the 8th – beginning of the 13th century), have been excavated.
Medieval Muslim burials of two periods have been discovered: of the 15th–17th centuries (burials 1, 2 in stone cists) and of the end of the 8th – beginning of the 9th century (burials 3–26). These early Muslim burials have been made after the end of formation of a layer 4 and in the initial and average stage of a layer 3.
These early Muslim burials represent three types of graves: 1) undercuts (14 graves); the majority of them had the closing wall of adobe blocks; 2) pit graves (9 graves); 3) pit grave with the longitudinal walls of adobe blocks (grave 9).
Stratigraphic situation of these burials, dating of layers 3 and 4 respectively the 8th century and the 9–10 centuries, date the revealed burial ground narrow chronological range – the end of the 8th – the beginning of the 9th century. Such dating of the cemetery located in “territory of war” (dar al-harb) corresponds to the quiet situation on an Arab-Khazar border zone which has developed after 764 AD. The discovered necropolis is the earliest dated Muslim burial ground in Derbent.
Keywords
East Caucasus, Dagestan, Derbent, Bab al-abwab, Muslim funeral ceremony, early Muslim cemetery.
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