Field Report: Claudia Chang from the Talgar region of Southeastern Kazakhstan
This is our 22nd field season in the Talgar region of Southeastern Kazakhstan and our 12th year of excavation at the Iron Age site of Tuzusai (ca. 400 BC to AD 100). The first full week of excavation has been finished in a 6 m X 6 m block. We hope to expand our excavation trench this coming week after removing the stone fragments, and animal bones. This settlement site is a good example of an agro-pastoral site where the six to eight occupation horizons also cover the span of the Late Saka (eastern variants of the Scythians) and the early Wusun period.
During the first week of our excavations, the Republic of Kazakhstan suffered a great loss, the death of Bekin Nurmukhanbetov, the archaeologist who discovered and excavated Golden Warrior, the 3rd to 2nd Century BC youth, covered with a kaftan and leggings of gold plaques and armed with a sword, a dagger. Golden Warrior was excavated in 1969 in Issyk, the alluvial fan about 20 km from the Talgar fan. Bekin-Ata, a friend and colleague of ours since 1994, often asked us in what ways we thought Tuzusai as a settlement could be related to his splendid burial find. A question we also ponder, “How can a nomadic confederacy with an elite aristocracy be tied to a simple village society where farmers, herders, and some craftsmen lived in earthen pit houses or rectangular mud brick dwellings?”
As we have been excavating Tuzusai, I think often of Bekin-Ata’s question and also of his spirit of adventure and his deep, unabiding love for his country. I hope that we too will investigate Kazakhstan’s rich history with an eye toward the preservation of its cultural heritage as well as collecting valid scientific information for generations to come.
The grinding stone in situ
Our best context was found this Saturday; it appears to be an upright grinding stone with pieces of fired clay (from a fire place or tandir). We are not sure whether this upright grinding stone was part of a post mould inside a pit house or a dumping episode inside of the fill of a larger house or activity area. While we are certain that we shall never come across as splendid a burial as Golden Warrior, we are excavating material that represents the everyday lives of the common people of the Talgar and Issyk regions.
Read more about Claudia Chang's research on her bio page.