Гробове от ямни комплекси от ранната желязна епоха в Тракия

Early Iron Age graves from pit complexes in Thrace

Abstract

The graves and pit complexes from the early Iron Age, discovered in the last decade during rescue archaeological excavations, are the subject of the present article. At the present stage, the sites registered with such graves are 3: Koprivlen, Malko Tarnovo, and Nessebar. From the analysis made, it becomes clear that the burial works do not show any differences from the rest of the necropoli from that period. The elements of the burial rite are also identical: cremation, interring in the grave, the position of the dead in the grave, the burial inventory. In cremation, urns are used for the ashes and bones, while the skeletons from the funerals, done through interring, are in anatomical order, without any traces of secondary manipulations, such as re-burial, dismembering, or burial of a part of the body. Also, there are no marks, typical for ritual activities, connected with human sacrifices that are found in other pit complexes in Thrace. For the time being, the data available do not allow for these graves to be considered a result of other ritual activities made in the pit sanctuaries.