چکیده:
The burial process of the deceased is among the most tangible evidence for
reconstruction and understanding the culture of human societies, which
includes both material and spiritual dimensions. Study of material evidence
in archaeological excavations can contribute to partial interpretation of
ideological motifs. In this context, recognizing burial practices and
interpretation of objects within the grave is a manifestation of human
culture and philosophical ideas of the other world, customs, religious beliefs
as well as social structure and complexities. There are a few studies available
in this field with regard to Great Khorasan, with strategic importance and
proximity of several cultural zones around Great Khorasan Ancient Road,
although archeological excavations in recent years have resulted in specific
material evidence. The current paper includes a structural study of burials
in late Bronze Age with a comparative approach encompassing cenotaph,
primary, secondary and common human-animal tombs as well as the origin
of burial cultures. An assessment of evidences indicates similarity of burial
practices of Khorasan in late Bronze period with the advanced culture of
BMAC in Central Asia, which has been documented in Afghanistan,
Pakistan, South East Iran, Caucasus and south Persian Gulf littoral zone.
خلاصه ماشینی:
The majority of data concerns western regions of Central Asia with respect to identification of the Bronze Age burial culture in the east zone such as Great Khorasan since from the beginning of excavations in early 1930s, Russian archaeologists analyzed and interpreted cultural materials through researches using sociological approach (Artamanov, 1968, Alekshin, 1983: 137) and then with new archaeological approaches from 1960s onwards (Firouzmandi and LabafKhaniki, 2006: 67).
Examples of this practice in the final phase of Bronze Age have been reported from the cultural zone of Khorasan and neighboring regions, including ShahrakeFiroozeh site (Basafa, 2014: 257- 266), GoharTepe (Moradi, 2013: 98-100 and Tables, 4-27, 4-28 and 4-29) and ShahreSukhteh, which are known as bowl graves (Keshavarz and Nezami, 2015; Sajadi, 2009: 138;SeyedSajjad, 2007).
Culture and Burial Practices According to archaeological researches in Khorasan, different burial cultures of the late Bronze period have been detected with close similarity with neighboring regions, including Central Asia (Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex), the Sistan and Kerman zone in Southeastern Iran, South and Southeast of Caspian Sea, Pakistan and even the cultural zone of Makran.
, 2011), TepeEshgh (Vahdati, 2014), Razeh (Soroush and Yousefi, 2014) and neighboring areas such as Tepe Hissar (Schmidt, 1933), BazgirTepe(Abbasi, 2015), NargesTepe (Abbasi, 2012), TurengTepe (Deshayes, 1968, Boucharlat and Lecomte, 1987) and Shah Tepe (Arne, 1945) in the Gorgan Plain, GoharTepe of Mazandaran (Moradi, 2013), Shahdad (Hakemi, 2006) and TepeYahya (Karlovsky, 2009) in Kerman, ShahreSukhteh (Keshavarz and Nezami, 2015; Sajjadi, 2009), GonurTepe (Sarianidi, 2008, 2007) and NamazgaTepe (Alekshin, 1983) in Turkmenistan, DashliTepe and SapalliTepe of Afghanistan (Sarianidi, 1984), the Miri- Qalat site in Makran (Besenval, 1997) and Pakistan (Dani and Durrani, 1964).