Suuk-Su

Suuk-Su

 

(also Suuksu), a medieval burial ground of the sixth to tenth centuries on the southern coast of the Crimea, between Gurzuf and the western slope of Mount Aiudag, partly located on land of the Artek Pioneer camp (previously a Suuk-Su estate).

Much of the burial ground was excavated by N. I. Repnikov at the beginning of the 20th century. The burial vaults and niched burial pit of the sixth and seventh centuries yielded such articles as fibulae, belt assemblies and buckles, earrings, and amber and carnelian beads. Very little was found in the slab graves of the eighth to tenth centuries—a circumstance reflecting the spread of Christianity to the Taurika region. The burial ground cannot be definitely attributed to any ethnic group; some scholars believe it is connected with the Crimean Goths, while others associate it with the hellenized Sarmatian and Alani population of Taurika.

REFERENCES

Repnikov, N. I. “Nekotorye mogil’niki oblasti krymskikh gotov.” In the collection Izv, imperatorskoi arkheologicheskoi komissii, fasc. 19. St. Petersburg, 1906.
Kropotkin, V. V. “Mogil’nik Suuk-Su i ego istoriko-arkheologicheskoe znachenie.” Sovetskaia arkheologiia, 1959, no. 1.
Iakobson, A. L. Srednevekovyi Krym. Moscow-Leningrad, 1964.