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Даргавский могильник является одним из уникальных памятников на юге России. где сохранились немногочисленные. но информативные находки из органики. В 2019 г. в ходе раскопок Терским отрядом ИА РАН катакомб № 97 (IX в.) и 98 (втор. пол. VIII - перв. пол. IX в.) для палинологического анализа отобрано три образца: № 1 - содержимое кожаного мешочка (катакомба № 97). № 2 - бусина из помета (катакомба № 97) и № 3 - грунт из стеклянного стакана (катакомба № 98). По данным палинологического анализа установлено содержимое кожаного мешочка (мука или зерно) и стеклянного стакана (напиток. содержащий культурные злаки. или хлебное изделие. накрывающее стакан). принадлежность бусины. изготовленной из помета мелкого рогатого скота, определен сезон погребения в катакомбе № 97 (два первых летних месяца). Наличие хелицер клещей в мешочке и телиоспор головни в стакане может свидетельствовать о зараженности запасов вредителями и патогенными грибами. Результаты определения шерсти из катакомбы № 97 позволяют предположить, что на погребенной была верхняя одежда из овечьей шкуры. Изученные находки тесно связаны с дохристианскими представлениями оставившего могильник раннесредневекового населения о непосредственной связи мира мертвых с плодородием и урожаем. The Dargavs cemetery is one of the unique sites in the South of Russia that has preserved few but informative organic residue. In 2019 during the excavations of catacombs No. 97 (9 century) and No. 98 (second half of the 8 - first half of the 9 century the Terskiy team of the Institute of Archaeology, RAS, selected three samples for palynological analysis. Sample No. 1 is contents of a small leather bag (Catacomb No. 97); Sample No. 2 is a bead from animal droppings (catacomb No. 97) and Sample No. 3 - soil from a glass tumbler (catacomb No. 98). The palynological analysis established the contents of the leather bag (flour or grains) and the glass tumbler (a drink containing cultivated gramineous plants or some bread stuff placed over the glass tumbler), the origin of the bead made from droppings of goats or sheep. The season of the burial in catacomb No. 97 was determined as the first two summer months. Presence of the chelicerae of ticks in the bag and teliospores of blight in the tumbler suggests that the stored food was contaminated with pests and pathogenic fungi. The determination of wool in catacomb No. 97 suggests that the buried person wore an outer coat made from sheep skin. The examined finds are closely related with pre-Christian beliefs of the early medieval population that has left this cemetery concerning direct links between the world of the dead and fertility and harvest.

Las catacumbas romanas, lugares de enterramiento de los cristianos de los primeros siglos, proporcionaron a partir del último tercio del siglo XVI una gran cantidad de reliquias al cristianismo, ya que se creía que las osamentas halladas en sus galerías pertenecían a santos mártires víctimas de las persecuciones del imperio romano. Este fenómeno de donación tuvo continuidad hasta finales del siglo XIX, centuria en la que generó casos de estudio de gran interés, en los que los personajes involucrados en las donaciones, las condiciones materiales y de traslado de las osamentas, y la recepción de las mismas en las poblaciones a en donde arribaron, hablan de la vigencia de una práctica asociada al culto a las reliquias que tuvo como centro a Italia como centro de exportación; y Francia y México como territorios beneficiados con numerosas donaciones. Una selección de donaciones de cada uno de los países ya mencionados, proporciona un marco de referencia para comenzar a trazar las primeras líneas de estudio de este fenómeno internacional suscitado, en varios casos, en medio de las luchas políticas y sociales que llevarían a dichas naciones a cimentarse como Estados modernos, donde a pesar de las controversias entre el poder religioso y el poder civil, la veneración a santos mártires tuvo presencia e importancia.

EnglishIn the Christian era, along the Via Aurelia Antica, there were some catacombs, known thanks to the ancient sources. While two of them - San Pancrazio and Calepodio – have been discovered during the past years, two others – two Felici’s and Processo and Martiniano’s ones - have never been found. This article proposes an updated view of the situation, also examining other private areas that present interesting historical-archaeological characteristics, specifically the areas occupied by the Schoenstatt Sanctuary, by CONSEA s.r.l. and by the Piccolomini Foundation. What emerges is a varied picture based on the analysis of scientific texts, but also on inspections and on the examination of archival documentation. The knowledge of the territory is therefore essential to be able to try to reconstruct a context that may have remained partly unexplored and partly, unfortunately, destroyed over the centuries, modified by urban stratifications. italianoLungo la via Aurelia Antica, a partire dall'epoca cristiana, si sviluppano alcuni nuclei catacombali, noti attraverso le fonti. Mentre due di essi – San Pancrazio e Calepodio – sono stati scoperti negli anni passati, altri due – quello dei due Felici e di Processo e Martiniano – non sono mai stati rinvenuti. Con il presente articolo si propone una lettura aggiornata della situazione, esaminando anche altre aree private che presentano caratteristiche storico-archeologiche interessanti, nello specifico la zona occupata dal Santuario di Schoenstatt, dalla proprieta CONSEA s.r.l. e dalla Fondazione Piccolomini. Quel che emerge e un quadro variegato, che si fonda sull'analisi di testi scientifici, ma anche su sopralluoghi effettuati e sull'esame di documentazione archivistica. La conoscenza del territorio si rivela, quindi, fondamentale per poter provare a ricostruire un contesto in parte rimasto forse inesplorato e in parte, purtroppo, distrutto nel corso dei secoli, modificato dalle stratificazioni urbanistiche.

The first part of the paper develops a summary analysis of the Syracusan epigraphic evidence to trace the indications for a progressive transition from traditional custom to new epigraphic habits and formulas of a mature Christian community, considering both the documents coming from communal cemeteries and private hypogea. In the second part we consider firstly the issues related to the conditions of conservation and physical accessibility of the epigraphic material and the implications of this for epigraphic study, summarising the history of the main corpora and publications. Secondly, we illustrate the ongoing research activities within the I.Sicily and Crossreads projects, aimed at the inclusion of the Christian documentation of Syracuse in a digital epigraphic corpus of ancient Sicily, outlining the prospects and advantages for research. The third part of the paper focuses on one of the Crossreads sub-projects, dedicated to investigating aspects of the materiality of the Sicilian epigraphic documents, through the systematic and in situ acquisition of chemical data using non-invasive methods (X-ray fluorescence). These analyses, combined with the high magnification imaging with a digital microscope, make it possible to investigate, at least as a preliminary, aspects relating to the provenance of the stone materials and to the techniques used in the production of Christian funerary epigraphy in Syracuse

Since the Middle Ages, Italy has been one of the most important countries on the road map of Polish travelers and pilgrims, which has had an impact on the number of written memories and accounts. Because Romantic travel writing largely inspired by Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s The Italian Journey has already received many studies, I focused my attention on the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this article I present the image of Rome – the See of Peter presented in selected texts, while their artistic value was not the criterion for choice. In addition to Kraszewski’s acclaimed, erudite Kartki z podróży, Kremer’s Podróż do Włoch, the “bundle of travel memoirs” by the once popular Stanisław Bełza, and memoirs of pilgrimages are also included. The wanderers in the Eternal City followed at least several routes marked by the memorabilia of European cultural heritage marked by the legacy of antiquity and Christianity, national monuments and the hall of the successor of St. Peter, because according to the maxim often quoted in the analyzed texts: “To see Rome and not to see the Pope is a ridiculous thing.”, Od średniowiecza Italia była jednym z ważniejszych państw na mapie wojaży polskich podróżników, pątników, co nie pozostało bez wpływu na liczbę spisywanych wspomnień, relacji. Ponieważ romantyczne podróżopisarstwo inspirowane w znacznej mierze Podróżą włoską Johanna Wolfganga Goethego zyskało już wiele opracowań, uwagę skupiłam na drugiej połowie XIX i początku XX stulecia. W niniejszym tekście przedstawiam obraz Rzymu – Stolicy Piotrowej prezentowany w wybranych tekstach, przy czym ich artystyczna wartość nie stanowiła tu kryterium wyboru. Obok cenionych, erudycyjnych Kartek z podróży Kraszewskiego, Podróży do Włoch Kremera, „wiązki wspomnień podróżnych” popularnego niegdyś Stanisława Bełzy uwzględnione zostały również wspomnienia z pielgrzymek. Wędrówki po Wiecznym Mieście przebiegały co najmniej kilkoma szlakami: śladami europejskiego dziedzictwa kulturowego wyznaczonymi spuścizną antyku i chrześcijaństwa, tropem ojczystych pamiątek oraz przed tron następcy Świętego Piotra, bowiem w myśl często przywoływanej w analizowanych tekstach maksymy: „Widzieć Rzym, a nie widzieć papieża to rzecz niedorzeczna”.

Goal. The article aims to trace the origins and chronological position of pits and catacombs with left-sided burials and ‘North Caucasian’ ceramics. Materials. The paper describes burials with amphorae and red-ochre vessels from kurgans excavated in 1965, 1966, and 1986 in Kalmykia, as well as similar complexes from North Ossetia’s kurgans. Conclusions. The ‘North Caucasian component’ in the ceramics of the Ciscaucasian Catacomb culture marks the beginning of a ‘pure’ Ciscaucasian catacomb culture and attests to the participation of the Kuban-Terek culture in its formation associated with the common origin of both the Novosvobodnaya Dolmen culture and directly with the Corded Ware and Globular amphora cultures of Eastern Europe constituting the core of the Catacomb cultural complex. Mounds of the East Manych (Chogray Reservoir, Kalmykia) contain amphorae with asymmetrical handles with mugs and incense vessels, as well as red-ocher vessels with incense pots, that are untypical for the Coscaucasian Catacomb culture. The first researchers of this region noted the similarity between some vessels of the Ciscaucasian Catacomb culture (the so-called «Manych type») and ceramics discovered in the Novosvobodnaya dolmens and the alleged links between their burial rites as well. These facts were reflected in the hypothesis of the catacombs as a Renaissance form of the Caucasian dolmens, from which it follows that the Ciscaucasian catacomb culture has a local origin. These issues are closely related to the problem of the origin and chronology of the Catacomb culture in the Ciscaucasia and the North Caucasus for which a solution is proposed in this article.

The paper analyzes a total of 43 Scythian burials of the Northern Black Sea region dating back to late 5th - 3rd quarter of the 4th centuries BC with an accompanying burial of a horse or horses in the entrance pits of the catacombs and undercuts, or their replacements in the form of a horse bridle in the same areas, with due account of the anthropological defi nitions and dating of the complexes. It has been established that the accompanying burials of horses in the entrance pits of the Scythian catacombs at barrows and burial grounds are a reliable indicator of male burials, and in the case of burials in a catacomb with two entrance pits, additional male burials. In contrast to the accompanying horse burials in separate pits, which became widespread in Scythia during the 5th century BC, (and widely spread since the mid-5th century BC), the rite of burying horses in the entrance pits only appeared at the end of the 5th century. BC and was relatively widespread in the 2-3rd quarters of the 4th century BC. For this time period, such burials have mainly been discovered in the Lower Dnieper region and are only partially spread in the Dnieper-Danube interfl uve. For the 3rd-2nd centuries BC such burials have mainly been discovered in the Lower Dniester region and in signifi cantly smaller numbers in the Crimea, whereas there are no such burials in the Lower Dnieper region. Later, this tradition only preserved in the Late Scythian culture of the Crimea in the period from the 2nd – 1st centuries BC until the 3rd-4th centuries AD. They become especially widespread and diverse in the 1st-4th centuries AD.

The paper introduces material of two catacomb burials, discovered and investigated by the researchers of the Center for Archeological Research at the Institute of Humanitarian studies of Chechen Academy of Sciences during the archeological reconnaissance in the territory of Shali region of the Chechen Republic, on the land of one of the homeowners of the village Serjen-Yurt. The burial is located at the border of the Chechen plains and Cherny mountains, at their very foot, on a steep slope of the ridge, in the place of its transition into a flat terrace above flood-plain of the left bank of the river Khulkhulau. Remnants of three people (a man, a woman and a child) were revealed in the catacomb №1. In anatomical order, only the woman’s skeleton was found, while the bones of the other two buried were placed at the right side wall of the burial chamber. The woman’s grave goods included earrings, a neck ring (torc), bracelets, glass and cornelian beads, a “horned” buckle, etc. In an almost collapsed burial chamber № 2 remnants of a woman were found, the skeleton of which was purposefully destroyed. Among the remnants of the skeleton were her personal belongings: glass and cornelian beads, bracelets, a “horned” buckle, a pendant, bronze badges. According to the grave goods, the burials can be dated 8th – early 9th centuries. A feature of the investigated burial structures is that the long axis of the chambers was a continuation of the long axis of the entrance pit, while catacombs of the T-type were characteristic for the Alanian population of the North Caucasus of the 6th – 13th centuries.

One of the typical features of the funeral rite of the Alanian population of the Saltov culture is the sprinkling of the burial chamber floor with a layer of charcoal. Paired (male + female) burials on coal bedding S. A. Pletneva considered as burials of couples in which coal was a symbol of “posthumous marriage”. The presence of coal bedding in solitary burials in the catacombs Nos. 6, 9, 11, 13, 17 of Rubizhan and the catacombs Nos. 1, 10 of the Staro-Saltov burial grounds allows us to offer a different interpretation of this feature of the Alanian funeral rite. At these cemeteries, the dominant type of burial structure was the catacombs with a longitudinal chamber in relation to the dromos, which were used by the Sarmatian-Alans often for one-time rather than family burials. Thus, taking into account ethnographic materials on Ossetians, it can be suggested that the initial sprinkling of charcoal on the floor of the burial chamber was associated with the rite of endowing the dead person with a “part of the family fire”, which was to ensure the unity of the dead people with their living relatives. In this context, the sprinkling of charcoal from the family hearth on the floor of the burial chamber should be considered as a desire to provide the deceased with the necessary heat and light, and thus turn the grave into a full-fledged otherworldly home, which, if necessary, could accept new deceased relatives. This assumption is confirmed by paired and collective burials at the Upper-Saltov burial ground, in which coal bedding was made only under one of the people buried in the chamber. At the same time, bodies of people were laid on the coal bedding, regardless of their gender (male, female) and age (children, adults). The use of charcoal to dry the chamber floor in adverse weather conditions before placing the bodies of a deceased person cannot be excluded.

Over the course of the early modern period, parish, monastic, and pilgrimage churches across Catholic Europe and beyond eagerly sought to acquire the relics of ancient Roman martyrs excavated from the Eternal City's catacombs. Between 1648 and 1803, the duchy of Bavaria welcomed nearly 350 of these “holy bodies” to its soil. Rather than presenting the remains as fragments, as was common during the medieval period, local communities forged catacomb saint relics into gleaming skeletons and then worked to write hagiographical narratives that made martyrs’ lives vivid and memorable to a population unfamiliar with their deeds. Closely examining the construction and material presentation of Bavarian catacomb saints as well as the vitae written for them offers a new vantage point from which to consider how the intellectual movement known as the paleo-Christian revival and the scholarship it produced were received, understood, and then used by Catholic Europeans in an everyday religious context. This article demonstrates that local Bavarian craftsmen, artists, relic decorators, priests, and nuns—along with erudite scholars in Rome—were active in bringing the early Christian church to life and participated in the revival as practitioners and creative scholars in their own right.

Jugs are the most extensive category of earthenware from catacomb burial grounds of the Saltovo-Mayaki culture. They have the greatest variety of shapes among others types of ceramics. Thе present article is devoted to the study of the 211 jug shapes from six catacomb burial grounds of the Saltovo-Mayaki culture. The methodology is based on the historical-and-cultural approach to the study of vessel shapes, developed by A. A. Bobrinsky and supplemented by his modern followers. The aim of the study is to emphasize specific cultural traditions of pottery manufacture in different catacombs of the Saltovo-Mayki culture, as well as to consider such traditions among other populations that left burial mounds, and compare their historical and cultural interpretation. Based on the comparative analysis of traditions of jug shapes, the catacomb burial grounds studied here are divided into two groups. The core of the first group is formed by Dmitrievsky and Nizhnelubyansky burial grounds. Podgorovsky burial ground has many similarities with sites listed above. The second group consists of Starosaltovsky, Rubezhansky and Yutanovsky burial grounds. The grouping of burial grounds based on the traditions of jug shapes is fully consistent with their belonging to one of the two burial traditions of the Saltovo-Mayaki culture, which, according to G.E. Afanasyev, associated with different tribal groups of the Don Alans. Thus, different mass traditions of jug shapes, recorded in the Saltovo-Mayaki catacombs, have quite specific cultural and historical content. Such traditions indicate the skill differences among potters from different Alan tribal groups who settled in the middle – second half of the 8th century in the Middle Don basin, as well as the peculiarities of ideas about the exterior of vessels that existed in these communities.

In 2003 the Alagir archaeological team of the Institute of History and Archaeology (IHA) at North Ossetian state University named after K. L. Khetagurov (now the IHA Republic of North Ossetia-Alania) excavated the Gusara I burial ground in the Alagirsky district of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania. The destroyed and looted part about 70 square meters of the burial ground was studied. In total, three underground catacombs were excavated. They contained a few, but quite expressive archaeological material (fibulae, buckles, beads, etc.). The studied catacombs were made in T-shaped type I. There are two varieties of burials according to the details of its constructions. The first variety: entrance pits are narrow and long; the bottom of the entrance pit and the chamber are at the same level, the dromos is not expressed, the vault of the chamber is flat. The chambers are small, most likely intended for the burial of a single person. Presumably, the buried were put with their heads to the left of the entrance. The second variety: the entrance pit is short; a step separated the bottom of the entrance pit from the bottom of the chamber; the dromos is expressed; the vault is designed as an arch; under the buried is traced a bed of organic origin. The buried lay with their heads to the left of the entrance; an artificially deformed skull was fixed. According to the funeral rite and inventory, investigated underground catacombs belong to the early medieval stage of the Alan culture in the North Caucasus during the 2nd half of VI – the 1st half of VII centuries A.D. The investigated archaeological inventory is close to the materials as early Alan culture so the Hun time. The purpose of the article is the introduction into scientific activities the archaeological materials of Gusara I.

Taking as its starting point the argument that obsession with Utopia has begun to decline, this paper considers what might replace the concept in the twenty-first century. The paper continues by dr...

The discovery of the mortal remains of the apostle Peter in the Vatican caves, in the 1940s, has aroused several doubts among scholars. In any case, there is consensus on this not being Peter&rsquo, s first burial site on the Vatican Hill. The recent studies on Maria Valtorta&rsquo, s mystical writings have shown that they contain a lot of data open to check through disparate scientific disciplines. Every time this check has been done, unexpected results have been found, as if her writings contain data not ascribable to her skills and awareness. Maria Valtorta describes also Peter&rsquo, s first burial site, which, she writes, was not on the Vatican Hill. The analysis of these particular texts, checked against the archeology of Rome in the I century and its catacombs, has allowed us to locate Peter&rsquo, s first burial site in a hypogeum discovered in 1864 but not yet fully explored, near the beginning of Via Nomentana, in Rome. A mathematical estimate of the probability that Maria Valtorta, by chance, invented the data that lead to this particular site shows that it is very small and reinforces the conclusion, already reached with archeology, that casualness is very doubtful. The full exploration of this hypogeum would assess the reliability of this alleged Peter&rsquo, s first burial site.

Remains of small phasianid birds from several Pliocene and Pleistocene localities in the Northern Black Sea Region and Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, Czech Republic, and Hungary) are traditionally, based on similar proportions, assigned to Plioperdix pontica (Tugarinov, 1940). Our study of the bone material from Ukraine has shown that they in fact belong to several taxa of Galliformes. The remains from the localities of the Kuchurganian faunal assemblage (MN 14) can be attributed to Eurobambusicola turolicus Zelenkov, 2016, and supposedly to “Plioperdix” hungarica (Janossy, 1991). Plioperdix pontica is characterized by morphological similarity to modern Coturnix and is represented mainly by bone remains from the Odessa catacombs locality (upper part of Zone MN 15) and several localities of Zone MN 16, including Rebielice Krolewskie-2 (Poland). In the Middle Villafranchian localities (for example, Kotlovina; as well as Etulia-3, Moldova; Zone MN 17) remains of another unnamed form, which reliably differs from P. pontica in most skeletal elements, prevail. Previous descriptions and diagnoses of Plioperdix pontica, which were based on mixed bone materials of various taxa, are revised. Problems of the taxonomy of small Neogene–Pleistocene phasianids from the Northern Black Sea region and Eastern Europe are discussed.

In May-August of 2019, Terek comprehensive archeological expedition (LLC “Research and production center «DARS»”), Caucasian expedition (Institute of archeology of RAS) and Chechen expedition (Institute of humanitarian studies of AS of Chechen Republic), with the financial support of PJSC “Gazprom” (LLC “Gazprom Invest”, Saint-Petersburg) and LLC “Kirus” (Grozny), conducted secure-and-preserve digs of burial grounds Oktyabrskiy I and Kievskiy I of the early Alanian culture on the construction site of the main gas pipeline “Mozdok-Grozny” in Mozdok district of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania. At Oktyabrskiy I burial ground, the following burials were studied: 122 mound and non-mound burial complexes of the 3rd – first half of the 5th century AD, on Kievskiy I – 40 complexes of the second half of 4th – first half of the 5th century AD, and one burial of the 14th century AD. The vast majority of the burials were made in catacombs of the Type I (the long axis of the chamber is perpendicular to the long axis of the entrance pit). The studied sample of burials supplements the results of excavations of 2018 and makes the studied monuments supporting for the territory of the Middle Terek at the time indicated. The population, which abandoned the burials of the type Bratskiy I mounds, Oktyabrskiy I and Kievskiy I, participated in cultural and historical processes in the territory of the West Peri-Caspian region, where their presence in the second half of the 3rd century AD has been recorded in the Tersko-Sulak interfluve since the middle of the 4th century AD – in southern Dagestan, as well as on the northern outskirts of the Kislovodsk basin.

This work introduces into scientific circulation a collection of birds of prey claws and their bronze imitations found in the catacombs of the early medieval burial ground near Verkhnii Saltiv village . Amulets made of the hawk family claws (steppe eagle — catacomb no. 30 BCM-IV, golden eagle — catacomb no. 71 BCM-IV) were found in the fourth section of the burial ground catacombs. Bronze amulets imitating the birds of prey claws are represented by 13 specimens originating from catacombs no. 15, 36, 60 BCM-I and catacombs no. 13, 37, 67, 96, 99, 119, 137 BCM-IV. Claw-shaped bronze amulets, depending on the extent they repeat their prototypes, are represented by three types: Type 1 (8 items) is represented by products that realistically reproduce the birdss claw, due to the fact that the eyelet for hanging the amulet imitates the joint at the base of the claw. Type 2 (4 items) is represented by examples that repeat the shape of the claw, but are equipped with a rounded flat eyelet, typical for most Saltiv bronze amulets. Type 3 is represented by a single item in the shape of a simple bent plate repeating the form of the claw with a punched hole in the upper part. Complexes, in which amulets made of claws of birds and their bronze imitations are found, are dated from the end of the first quarter of IX century (catacomb no. 30) — second half of IX century (cat. no. 15 BCM-I, cat. no. 99, 119, 137 BCM-IV). In most cases the amulets were included to the teenagers’ implements. Only in the catacombs no. 96 and no. 99 they were found in the burials of young women. The amulets are often placed close to the human waist at the right pelvic bone. Only in the catacomb no. 13 the amulet was found close to the chest of a buried teenager and in the catacomb no. 60 it was at the head. The inclusion of bird claws and their imitations in the costume was supposed to provide protection for a human against the impact of supernatural forces and to obtain certain qualities of a certain bird of prey (sharp-sightedness, speed etc.). Due to the fact that in Ossetian and wider Indo-European mythology, birds were markers of the upper world, these amulets should be considered as symbols of the sun, heavenly fire, and their wearing should be associated with the cult of the sun.

The vertical type of catacomb graves unusual for Scythian funeral practises is discussed in the paper. If numerous types of Scythian catacombs and their subcategories in the Northern Pontic Region have the vertical-horizontal layout, where the entrance pit has the vertical-horizontal layout, and the dromos and the connected catacomb have exclusively horizontal layout, the burials under discussion have only the vertical layout. The oval entrance pit to these small burials is located directly above the large oval or sub-rectangular chamber. From our viewpoint in these cases we have the catacombs of fundamentally different construction which we term the «vertical type» of Scythian catacombs. Only 25 vertical-catacomb burials have been discovered so far. Taking into account the total number of about 4500 burials dated to the 5th—4th cent. BC discovered in the steppe region, the infrequence of this type of burial type constituting only 0.6 % of the total number of burials becomes quite obvious. Eleven burials are concentrated in the Lower Dnieper region, whereas one is located in the Lower Dniester region and thirteen in the Crimea. This type of catacombs belonges to the common population, the females and children burials predominate, males grave are very few. This type of burials appears in the Crimea in the first half of the 5th cent. BC and no later than the end of 5th — beginning of 4th cent. BC appears in the Lower Dnieper region. For most of the 4th cent. BC exists both in the Crimea and in the Lower Dnieper region. During the almost whole 4th cent. BC such graves exist both in the Crimea and in the Lower Dnieper region. Apparently, the group of Crimean Scythians who practiced the burial rite in vertical catacombs, to the beginning of the 4th cent. BC has completely developed the stable route of seasonal migrations of the circulation type in the meridional direction.