НАХОДКИ ПОЛОВЕЦКИХ КАМЕННЫХ ИЗВАЯНИЙ В СЕВЕРНОЙ ЧАСТИ ЕРГЕНЕЙ

FINDS OF POLOVTSIAN STONE STATUES IN NORTHERN PART OF YERGENI

In summer 2005 during prospecting along the Juraq-Sal river bank the workers of the Steppe archaeological expedition of the State Historical Museum found the fragments of 3 statues near Rassypnaia gully. It is notable that the fragments of two statues were found at the bottom of a pond. All the statues are made of different kinds of local sandstone. Statue 1 belongs to type V (by Pletniova S.A., 1974). The sex and type (sitting or semi-sitting) of the statue cannot be indicated definitely since it is fragmented. Statue 2, by S.A. Pletniova, belongs to type IV. Statue 3, despite a small size of the fragment preserved, can be obviously recognized as a male image.All the three statues more or less coincide chronologically. However, statue 2 may be a little earlier than statues 1 and 3, and date back to the 12^th century. G.A. Fiodorov-Davydov dates the EasternEuropean stone statues totally within the limits of the 12^th - the early 13^th centuries. L.S. Geraskova does not consider statues of the sitting type as later in relation to the standing ones, and generally attributes the statues of B array to the Polovtsy monuments within the limits of the 11^th-13^th centuries, with the period of flourishment in the 12^th century. Most likely the presence of three different-type statues in Rassypnaia gully can be explained by the supposition that formerly they had been displaced and moved to a steading. In this case the fact of the secondary use of the statues is recorded. They might be used in a village (in court yards) as “stonewatchmen” or for some household needs (as props of walls and fences, counterbalances, etc.). However, after a while the statues were removed from the inhabited territory and completely neglected.