Archaeological investigations of the Golden Horde estate in Bolgar

As a part of a joint expedition of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow) and the Institute of Archaeology named after A.Kh. Khalikov of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences (Kazan), excavations are taking place in the central part of the UNESCO World Heritage site of Bolgar (10th-15th centuries AD). The excavation area is located 50 meters southeast of a large monumental structure known as the “Khan’s Palace,” which was erected after the Mongol conquest of Volga Bolgaria. It was precisely during the Golden Horde period that Ancient Bolgar reached its peak of prosperity.The investigated area lies within the boundaries of the early 10th-11th century urban citadel. Here, in pre-Mongol period layers, fragments of a large wooden wattle and daub building, identified during archaeological excavations by T.A. Khlebnikova in the 1980s, could potentially be preserved. The function of this structure remains undetermined to this day. Researchers have previously hypothesized that this structure, together with a moat, could have formed part of the defensive line of early Bolgar (10th – early 11th centuries). Currently, the territory of the Bolgar citadel remains largely unexplored archaeologically.

Before the start of fieldwork, specialists from the Institute of Archaeology named after A.Kh. Khalikov conducted a magnetometric survey of the site. The excavation area is 120 square meters. Layers datable to the period of the Kazan Khanate, when Bolgar entered a decline, have currently been identified. Based on the location of objects, it can be inferred that the excavation area is situated at the territory of a Golden Horde period urban homestead (second half of the 13th – 14th centuries). The nature of the finds (a hoard of silver dirhams from the second half of the 13th century, the presence of ceremonial imported pottery from Iran, China, Byzantium, Central Asia, a Western European merchant’s lead seal), along with the abundance of fired brick and red loam among the construction debris, may indicate the considerable wealth of the inhabitants of the Golden Horde homestead uncovered in the excavation area. The layers from the pre-Mongol period and the objects discovered underground are yet to be studied in the near future.

Student trainees from Ural Federal University (Yekaterinburg) under the guidance of N.E. Zhigalova, along with residents of the town of Bolgar, are actively participating in the excavations. The work will go on until mid-August.

A.G. Sitdikov (Kazan), D.Yu. Badeev (Moscow)