Objects of the Nestorian cult from Talas and Shu Valleys
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52967/akz2023.1.19.84.98Keywords:
archaeology, artifact, Taraz, Shu valley, pectoral cross, Nestorianism, early Middle Ages, Karakhanid Khaganate, hillfortAbstract
The article for the first time introduces artifacts found on early medieval settlements – Taraz, Aktobe, Kysmyshy, with Christian symbols. The study of Nestorianism in the region has been going on for more than a century, in many ways, interest in the historical past of the region arose due to the massive finds of tombstones with images of crosses and Turkic-Syrian inscriptions. On the threshold of the arrival and consolidation of Islam at the turn of the 9th–10th centuries, a competitive environment of multiculturalism was created on this segment of the Great Silk Road. Christianity was just one of many world religions to which a part of the urban population related. A wave of Christian migrants arrived in the region in the 13th–14th centuries, this time from the East, and can be clearly traced by gravestones from necropolises, much fewer than the number of body crosses – pendants from burials. The topic remains extremely relevant due to a new wave of interest, new finds at the Ilibalyk settlement in the Ile Valley in recent years. While the history of the Nestorian patriarchate, metropolia and large dioceses is well known, then individual artifacts are still revealing the history of Nestorianism of the Shu-Talas interfluve fragmentally, even for the stage of the relative flourishing of Christian culture in the 8th–11th centuries. Artifacts are: ornamented parts of a glazed ceramic lamp, a cross and a relatively large cup-shaped vessel with impressions of equi-pointed crosses complement a fairly solid list of archaeological and accidental finds from the region that bore the legendary name of the country "Argu".
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