Dargavs
Dargavs
a mountain hamlet on the Gizel’don River in the Prigorod Raion of the Sovernaia Ossetiia ASSR.
The environs of Dargavs are rich in archaeological monuments from the Bronze Age to the late Middle Ages. An Alanic settlement with an extensive cemetery (burial ground) with stone boxes existed on the site of Dargavs from the seventh century to the I Ith. Medieval multistory battle towers have been preserved in Dargavs. There is a unique “city of the dead”—a complex of 99 aboveground two to four story stone burial vaults. A very abundant inventory of the 17th century to the 19th was revealed in these crypts in 1967–68, an inventory that shed much light on the way of life of the Ossetians and their ties with Russia.
REFERENCES
Uvarova, P. S. “’Mogil’niki Severnogo Kavkaza.” In the collection Materialy po arkheologii Kavkaza, issue 8. Moscow. 1900.Semenov, L. P. “Arkheologicheskie razyskaniia ν Severnoi Osetii.” In the collection Izvestiia Severo-Osetinskogo nauchno-issledovateiskogo instituta, vol. 12. Dzaudzhikau. 1948.
E. I. KRUPNOV