Mayak site

The first mention of the ancient settlement was made in 1648 in the construction book of the city of Korotoyak called “Mayak ancient settlement”. ^[1] The name is not fixed in the traditions of the local population, and its etymology is not clear. It was suggested that it was connected with a beacon on this cape for riverboats, but after a survey of the place of the remains of the beacon was not found. ^[2] .

In the 2nd half of the 17th century , the Uspensky cave monastery was founded on the cape, during the construction of which part of the stone blocks of the ancient city walls were used.

Finds from the settlement were put into scientific circulation in 1890 , when several things from the catacomb burial were found and published. The first studies were conducted by local historians who were interested only in burial. ^[3]

Archaeologists A. I. Milyutin conducted full-scale excavations in 1906 and N. E. Makarenko in 1908-1909 . ^[4] . From 1975 to 1982, the Soviet-Bulgarian-Hungarian expedition led by S. A. Pletneva was engaged in the study of the monument ^[5] . In 2008, the excavations were resumed by the expedition of the Belgorod State. University .

Archaeological finds show us the process of penetration and connection of cultures, and this is manifested throughout the territory of the Don Region and even of the entire Khazar Kaganate . Trade routes passed through these territories. Beads made in Byzantium , as well as finds of amphorae , etc., have been found. There are similar finds in the territory of the Mayatsky settlement. Found pottery with an admixture of sea sand, made in appearance made by steppe-brachicran. Other categories of items (from weapons to jewelry) were also distributed throughout the Khazaria. ^[6] The lack of forest led to a widespread development of clay and stone, these materials became the main ones during the construction of the Mayatskaya fortress. The method of creating a place for a structure, the “island,” is identical to that used in the construction of similar buildings on the lower Don , in Sarkel , in Semikarakor , as well as the fortress on Silent Pine . The features of the Mayak Fortress, which are not characteristic of the fortresses of the more western regions of the forest-steppe zone, make it possible to assume that they built in the traditions adopted in the central region of the Kaganate. Perhaps with the participation of new architects who are well acquainted with the construction technologies in Transcaucasia , the Crimea and Danube Bulgaria .

The fortress was a castle of the Khazar aristocrat, Tudun , sent by the Khagan to the border of the state. Thus, the raw fortresses, to which Mayatskaya belongs, were to some extent castles of the feudal lords . ^[7] After archaeological work, scientists came to the conclusion that, in addition to the family of the aristocrat, the soldiers who came with him, bodyguards, Bulgars ^{[8] [9]} or Khazars ^[10] traces of Alan warriors were found in the settlement near the fortress, lived in the fortress, in all likelihood, these were several dozen warriors who lived in the settlement and carried out border guard service under the leadership of tudun and Khazar commanders. ^[eleven]

Runic inscriptions were found on the walls of the fortress. They are made so-called. "Don" letter, which so far, like all East European runes, remains undecrypted. The author of this classification, Kyzlasov, considered these inscriptions to be a monument of the Alano-Bulgarian script. ^{[12] [13]} S. A. Pletnev suggests that they could be used by the Khazars, since the same runic inscriptions were found in the Volga barrows, that is, on the ground where the Khazars are supposedly localized.

The leading hypothesis considers the Mayatsky fortress and the entire line of six fortifications with almost the same type of fortresses, built quite densely to each other, as strong points on the border between the Khazar (nomadic) and Slavic territories (in the archaeological sense, this is a Borshev culture , identified with the chronicle of Vyatka . ^{[ 14]} ). From this point of view, the fortresses are collection points for tributes, which also combined the functions of the parking lots of trade caravans. Between themselves, they were connected both by water and by land, passing along the right bank and in some places preserved to the present. ^[15] .

There is an alternative point of view, according to which the fortress was a defensive line that defended the north-western border of Khazaria from Slavic expansion. However, this view is less popular, as it is in bad agreement with written sources and ignores the fact that the fortresses are too small to protect the huge settlements adjacent to them. However, not all six fortresses were fortified enough to repel any professional sieges and attacks. ^[16] Such, for example, is the extremely western of them - the Red Settlement, with the height of its walls only one meter and four meters thick. ^[14]

The termination of the life of the Mayak settlement took place in the first half of the 10th century, and coincides with the decline of the Khazar Kaganate , as a result of which the Pechenegs began to dominate in the steppe. They cut off this territory from the southern possessions of the state and turned it into pastures.

Based on numerous anthropological findings, it can be assumed that the main population of the Mayatsky settlement was Alans (mixed forest-steppe variant). ^[17] In the burials of the burial grounds, an admixture of skulls with brachycranous features is found, especially for women of the Mayatsky burial ground, and for men buried in settlements outside the site of the settlement. The Alanian type was also revealed with a more pronounced dolichoquality in men at the burial ground and in women in the settlement. There is evidence of the presence of steppe brahikran in the territory of the Mayak Fortress, generally associated with the Bulgars ^[18] or the Khazars . ^[19] The found skulls of a mixed anthropological type - mesocranes - show a mixture of two main ethnic groups living in that era in the Don open spaces. ^[20] Despite the obvious brachycal “admixture” revealed by anthropologists based on the materials of the Mayatsky burial ground and settlement, the population on Tikhaya Pine, as in other regions of the variant, was dolichocran in the bulk, that is, it should be ethnically associated with the Alans . Of particular interest are some changes in the funeral rituals. So, it seems that the custom of the burial of people and animals in round pits, not typical of the Alans, appeared here under the influence of the steppe population. It is characteristic that at the Mayak cemetery there are no such burials at all, but at the settlement there are quite a lot of them. A similar rite in a more developed version was typical of the builders of Sarkel , where it dates from the 30-50s. IX century ^[21]

Together with the penetration of alien customs into the funeral rites of the Alans of the Mayak settlement, the “Babylon-like” (square in the square with a center in the center) of the sanctuary appeared. According to S.A. Pletneva, there was no fundamental difference in the religious beliefs of the steppe (Bulgars and Khazars) with the Alans. Honoring the fire, the worship of the sun-sky was common. ^[22] It is significant to note that in the Khazars of the ninth century. there was an original representation based on the bipolarity of the universe. This is convincingly seen in the study of amulets. ^[23] The idea of ​​bipolarity probably permeated public life and the state system in the kaganate. So, in Khazaria, Kagan and Bek ruled, the army was divided into two wings - left and right, the Khazars themselves were divided into whites and blacks. It is possible that on Mayatsky cape one can assume the existence, or rather, the "embodiment" of bipolarity in contrast to the fortress (actually a feudal castle), which belonged to the Khazar aristocrat, with the Alanian, in the bulk, settlement. ^{[24] [25]}

• Saltovo-Mayak culture
• The spread of Judaism in Khazaria according to archeology
• Khazar Kaganat

• V. S. Flerov “Cities” and “castles” of the Khazar Khaganate. Archaeological reality