A Third Century AD Burial Vault with Multiple Burials at the Cemetery of Opushki

Abstract

The cemetery of Opushki is located at 15 km to the east of modern Simferopol, in the central area of the Crimean foothills. The site has been being excavated since 2003. So far more than 300 graves of various types have been uncovered. They belong to the Late Scythian, Middle Sarmatian, and Late Sarmatian archaeological cultures. There is one cremation complex appeared as a result of the Germanic migration to the Crimea. The complex under present publication belongs to a large group of burial vaults with a short dromos (entry corridor) of the Late Roman period; this type of crypts is found in various cemeteries of the Crimean foothills. Burial constructions of this type are associated with the mediaeval Alans’ ancestors who migrated to the Crimea from the North Caucasus. Although the earliest crypts featuring dromos appeared in the foothill area of the Crimean Peninsula in the first half of the 3rd century AD, most of burials in these constructions were made in the fourth century AD. Burial vault no. 158 has two interesting features. It contains multiple burials typical for the Late Scythian vaults of the 1st and the first half of the 2nd centuries. Such a phenomenon is encountered for the first time in the Late Roman vault. According to the analysis of the grave goods, the complex under study is one of the earliest or even the earliest short-dromos vault discovered in the Crimea. It was constructed in the second half (or at the end) of 2nd or very early 3rd century AD and was in use throughout the first half of the 3rd century. The results of research of this burial construction supply new materials for the solution of highly disputable problem of the Crimean vaults with short dromos origin and of the reconstruction of ethnic processes in the Crimea in the Late Roman period.