2,000-Year-Old Burial Mounds Excavated in Kazakhstan

ASTANA, REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN—According to a Live Science report, archaeologists from Ozbekali Zhanibekov University and the Turkistan Regional Administration have excavated three 2,000-year-old burial mounds in southern Kazakhstan. The researchers found that two of the mounds had been looted in antiquity. Aleksandr Podushkin of Ozbekali Zhanibekov University said that the recovered artifacts are thought to have been made during the period of the Kangju state, which was made up of groups of Sarmatian, Xiongnu, and Saki peoples who lived along the Great Silk Road between the fifth century B.C. and the fourth century A.D. The Kangju state is known to have traded with Rome, China, and the Kushan Empire to the south, he added. The objects include two gold crescent-shaped earrings, which have been dated to the first century B.C. and are inlaid with jewels and decorated with clusters of grapes, and a large, circular bronze mirror resembling those made in China during the Han Dynasty, which ruled from 206 B.C. to A.D. 220. A Roman-style fibula, beads of various sizes, a jug, a shoe, a belt buckle; and an arrowhead for hunting birds were also recovered. The artifacts will go on display at the National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan. To read about a 2,700-year-old mound burial found in eastern Kazakhstan, go to "Iron Age Teenagers."