Jewelry for men, weapons for women found in Çorum burial mound

ÇORUM - Anadolu Agency

Jewelry, weapons and souvenirs from 4,500 years ago have been found with skeletons during archaeological excavations in Resuloğlu, an ancient burial mound in the central Anatolian province of Çorum. The findings provide significant information to the academic world.

The excavations have been carried out in the ancient site by Ankara University under the inspection of the Çorum Museum Directorate.

Professor Tayfun Yıldırım, head of excavations, said they carried out a surface survey in the same field in 1996 and discovered the burial mound. Excavations in the site have been continuing since 2003 and so far, findings have obtained from the early Bronze Age and the Kingdom of the Hatti.

Yıldırım said the settlement that started 4,500 years ago continued until the Seljuk and Ottoman era. He said they discovered the early Bronze Age burial mound in the excavations, and that more than 300 people had lived there.

“It is a very rich burial mound. The burials provide us with very important information about their beliefs of the afterlife 4,500 years ago. The burial gifts have been a good source of information about local beliefs. We knew there were royal tombs in [Çorum’s] Alacahöyük but no systematical excavations had been carried out regarding the tombs of locals. We were able to reach findings about local tombs after systematic research for the first time in 2003. These people dealt with farming and agriculture, and they also knew a lot about mining at the same time. When we looked at the burial gifts, we saw many different gifts were left in the tombs, ranging from many earthenware to metalware,” Yıldırım said.

Yıldırım said the objects found in the tombs revealed people in the region had ties with people in the Caucasus and Mesopotamia.

“For example, we have found axes in the Caucasus-type tombs here. We have especially found ornaments, which we can relate to commercial relations with Mesopotamia and Syria,” he said. Yıldırım said Resuloğlu was not a static society.

“When we go back 4,500 years ago, we can see these people were not at all part of a static society. They had found ways to follow fashion in the outside world. Here, they had tried to adopt art tastes from the outside world. There are some very important findings, especially of women’s jewelry and accessories, showing they closely followed fashion. The jewelry we have found in burial mound were not only used by women but also by men. Some skeletons of men have bangles around their feet and necklaces around their neck. We have also found weapons with female skeletons,” he added.

“When you look inside a tomb today, if you find a weapon you may think it belonged to men. But here, in some of the graves of respected women and women between the ages of 50 and 55 we have discovered they had weapons as a symbol of status. There are also staff heads, mace heads and daggers. They show women loved weapons at the same time, too,” Yıldırım said.

Yıldırım also said more than 1,500 artifacts unearthed since 2003 were delivered to the Çorum Museum.