Graphic Reconstruction of Field Archaeological Documentation According to Archival Data

Abstract

The work on graphic reconstruction of field documentation has been conducted as part of the project for studying the heritage of the large-scale archaeological surveys implemented by expert teams headed by professors I. V. Sinitsyn and U. E. Erdniev in the early 1960s. From 1961 to 1972 a number of famous archaeological monuments were explored, namely the burial sites of Lola (I / II), Arkhara, Elista, East Manych, etc. The distinctive feature of the explorations, as compared to the pre-war ones, was that those were rescue excavations, i. e. the monuments were endangered with total destruction and, thus, all of them without exception were excavated. The construction of the Chogray Reservoir’s dam and subsequent flooding of the East Manych valley proved one of the largest projects during the revival of the republic. The East Manych burial site comprised seven mound groups that were investigated from 1965 to 1967; a total of 329 mounds containing 1 541 burials were excavated. The vast and diverse materials have been published in a series of scholarly articles and monographs issued by various publishers, so the qualities of printed illustrations (schemes, drawings, photographs) varied as well. Some of the published photographs were of low quality and looking at them one could hardly trace the general silhouette of an object with the minor elements and ornaments being totally unperceivable. The paper states the low-quality illustrations may have contributed to the fact that the exploration results from the East Manych mound groups are somewhat underrated. In the course of the conducted work on filling the gaps that had appeared during the publication of the results from the 1967 archaeological investigations of the East Manych mound group (the right bank; VMPB-67) a database of archaeological findings from the burial site was created; the findings were once again - processed, systematized, described, their corresponding drawings and photographs were made. Careful studies of the archival materials (in-field diaries) indicated that those are informative enough to identify the actual sizes of mounds and burials. The unpublished schemes of burials from the site under consideration have been reconstructed according to the in-field diaries and the research report - by the aid of a new method for reproducing schemes involving the use of diverse data and latest technologies. As a result, the materials once viewed upon as incomplete sources have been re-introduced into scientific discourse. Further development and sophistication of the method shall allow to conduct similar work for sources on explorations of other burial sites which would enable to conduct research at a totally new level. The advantages of the method comprise ease of editing schemes and high processing speed; in addition, data storage and communication in electronic format is easier and more practical than those in print or other formats.