Maikop kurgan

The Maikop kurgan (also Maykop), excavated by Nikolay Veselovsky in 1897 near Maikop, Adygeja, Kuban, Southern Russia, is the eponym of the Early Bronze Age Maikop culture of the Northern Caucasus. Dating to the 4th millennium BC, the kurgan had a height of about 10 m and a circumference of about 200 m. It revealed two burials, the central one with rich grave goods, including golden and silver bull figurines.

Golden bull figurine. Middle of 3rd millennium BC. Maykop kurgan.

Literature

• Philip P. Betancourt, The Maikop Copper Tools and Their Relationship to Cretan Metallurgy, American Journal of Archaeology (1970).
• Philip L. Kohl, The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia, Cambridge World Archaeology (2007), ISBN 978-0-511-26695-9, pp. 73ff.
• Brian Murray Fagan, The Oxford Companion to Archaeology (1996), ISBN 0-19-507618-4, p. 398.

See also

• Kurgan hypothesis
• Bronze Age Europe

External links

• artefacts from the Maikop kurgan (metmuseum.org)