Mausoleum of Amanturla Kozhak

Mausoleum of Amanturla Kozhak.
General form.

The mausoleum of Amanturly Kozhalak ( kaz. Amantұrly қozhalak tama ) is a monument of history and culture of Kazakhstan . An example of the cult-funeral architecture of nomadic peoples of the Aral Sea region of the 19th century. Located near the Zharkuduk wells in the Beineu district of the Mangystau region , in historically traditional wintering places of the Kazakh clans Shamyshty-tabyn and Adai ^{[1] [2] [3]} .

The necropolis was discovered and described in 1979, during an extensive archaeological search expedition organized by the Kazakh Academy of Sciences to identify unaccounted monuments of architecture, after which it was taken under state protection ^[4] . A quadrangular base, decorated with a cone-shaped dome, the mausoleum was built at the end of the 19th century - for religious ceremonies over the grave of a batyr from the Adai clan, who had long been dead by that time, Amanturly Kozhak .

From typical structures of this purpose, the mausoleum is distinguished by a gliptic ornament applied to the walls outside and inside. According to scientists, when applying the ornament, drawing instruments were used. The use of drawing equipment in local architecture of small forms was an innovation for that time ^[3] , which allows thematically combining this building with other, larger, innovative buildings of the same period and localization, for example, such as the Mausoleum of Omar and Tour , and deeper understanding of cultural processes in the eastern Aral Sea area at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries.

According to legend, near the mausoleum of Batyr Kozhak, according to ancient custom, “ as a man ” his war horse was also buried ^[5] . This custom is Turkic. According to commentators, this indicates the Turkmen origin of the Adai clan ^[6] .