Mongol-American Khovd Archaeology Project
Takhilt Xiongnu Cemetery

Excavations at Takhilt Xiongnu Cemetery

Archaeologists working in northern East Asia have correlated the historical phenomenon of the Xiongnu with a relatively consistent material culture which spreads east-west across most of present day Mongolia as well as into portions of northern China and southern Siberia. The definition of such an archaeological entity must, however, be tested for degrees of variation within, the exact extent to which it spreads in all directions, and the level of consistency or ambiguity at the peripheries and regions of interaction. The degree of similarities and differences between the cemeteries, and those interred there, should first be considered without ethnic assumptions or historical biases which are so often incorporated into materials analyses. The Khovd Archaeology Project will focus on a peripheral region related to studies of the Xiongnu and their interaction with local groups.

Square tomb with ramp at Takhilt cemetery (the edge of the Altai mountains) The Altai region of Mongolia presents one peripheral region of this early Iron Age material culture. The Chinese historical records tell of strong trade and diplomatic relationships between the Xiongnu and the region south of the Altai later known as the Silk Road. This area of modern-day Xinjiang, rich with oasis agriculture, full of mountain natural resources and thriving with trade, was deemed the “right arm of the Xiongnu.” However, scarce archaeological investigations of this period in far western Mongolia have been conducted, and we are thus dependant upon minimal evidence for knowledge of the western frontier zone between the Xiongnu, the Wusun nomads further west and the Silk Road to the south. Only one grave at a cemetery near the town of Möst and a handful of tombs at the site of Takhilt in Khovd aimag have been excavated.

In 1960, the well-known Mongolian archaeologist Ts.Dorjsuren identified approximately 60 tombs in a long stretch of sandy area between two small hills called “Bunkhan” near the county seat of Mankhan in Khovd aimag. He excavated two small burials at either end of the cemetery marked by stone rings on the surface and each of which lay directly to the east of larger mounded square tombs with ramps. Between 1987 and 1990, archaeologist D.Navaan excavated two of these larger square tombs which were very similar to the mounded tombs which Dorjsuren had excavated at the famous site of Noyon uul decades earlier. These excavations yielded two burials over eleven meters deep with complex wooden chambers, decorated coffins, gold and Takhilt Tomb: 1987-88 (Navaan 1999) bronze trappings, and fragments of chariots. Such findings match the earlier discoveries at Noyon uul in central Mongolia and Ilmovaya pad’ south of Lake Baikal as well as more recent excavations of large ramped tombs in the cemeteries at Gol Mod (Mission 2003) and Tsaraam (Minyaev and Sakharovskaya 2006).

Of particular note to these square tombs are the presence of several (between one and six) small circular burials to the east and/or west sides forming a tomb complexes (Minyaev and Sakharovskaya 2002). While seen at almost every cemetery which has square tombs, these satellite graves are not found flanking all such tombs, nor is there a consistency as to which side they appear on or the exact number of satellite burials present. The tomb complexes at Gol Mod 2 stand out amongst the instances of satellite burials because of the unusually large numbers in each case, as many as twenty seven (Miller et al. 2006). Gol Mod 2 cemetery was also the first instance in which parallel lines of stone pairs running east-west were seen lying to the north of many of the tomb mounds, adding even more possible features to the array of Xiongnu tomb complexes. Though both square tombs and smaller circular burials have been excavated separately at Takhilt, a complete tomb complex has yet to be investigated at the site in the manner of excavations at Tsaraam and Gol Mod 2.

During a survey of Takhilt cemetery in September of 2006, 132 graves were noted, more than double the number originally estimated by Dorjsuren four decades ago. The difference here comes from careful and methodological approaches to investigating a site, as well as the guidance from previous knowledge gained during surveys at Gol Mod 2 cemetery (Allard et al. 2002) of the numerous features possibly associated with such a site. The low number of satellite burials per square tomb at Takhilt (average of two to three) matches the average number of satellite burials at other sites, with the exception of Gol Mod 2. However, the extraordinary discovery of stone lines behind several tombs at Takhilt show that such features were not exclusive to Gol Mod 2 and could possibly be seen at other cemeteries, most of which have poor surface visibility, through further intense investigations.

In summer 2007, the Khovd Archaeology Project will work on cleaning and excavating two small tomb complexes: one small square tomb with ramp (7x7m) with a single satellite grave, and one medium sized square tomb (13x13m) with three satellite burials and seven stone lines to the north. The goal of excavating these tomb complexes is manifold. The materials discovered here may then be compared to those in central Mongolia at Gol Mod 1 and 2 and at Tsaraam and Ilmovaya pad’ in Buryatia (all four locations of which have had excavations of square tombs and smaller satellite burials) to analyze the relationship between different regions of the greater material culture attributed to the Xiongnu and the degree of variation between the various tomb complexes. The excavations at Takhilt will also be the beginning of archaeological investigations in the Khovd area. Preliminary surveys of central Khovd in September 2006 also found and documented several Xiongnu cemeteries, some of which were new discoveries, amongst low valley foothills as well as in high mountain passes of the Altai. Excavations at Takhilt, in addition to future excavations at these other nearby sites, may be compared to all the remains of the early Iron Age to form a broader regional analysis approach to the greater Altai area of Khovd. This area already shows great potential for research related to the material culture and history of the Xiongnu as well as their interaction with those groups further west and south in the region of the Silk Road

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