THE KEEPER OF ANTIQUITY: IN MEMORY OF ARNABAI NURZHANOV

Abstract

The article attempts to describe the scientific research of the outstanding Kazakh archaeologist Arnabai Nurzhanov. His scientific activity can be characterized as an interdisciplinary study of bygone eras, embodied in material culture, artifacts, ritual complexes and sacred monuments. In his research, he created a verifiable empirical base of the encyclopedic type, systematizing historical facts about the archaeological cultures of the Middle Ages – the most important era for the history of Kazakhstan. It was during this period that the cultural landscape and baggage with which Kazakhstan emerged into the New Time was formed. Under the leadership of Arnabai Nurzhanov, the Department of Medieval Archaeology of the A.Kh. Margulan Archeology Institute of performed the following tasks: research of residential quarters, necropolises, sacred monuments and artifacts, ritual complexes on the territory of medieval cities of Kazakhstan as spaces of symbolic systems of economic, religious and social relations; study of the processes of the emergence and formation of the urban culture of Kazakhstan in its interaction with the nomadic civilization of the medieval Turks. Unfortunately, this article is also an obituary, a memoir about our work, and an attempt to say goodbye to the teacher.