Archaeologists have uncovered ‘golden shoes’ and a jeweled headdress inside an ancient burial in Kazakhstan, offering new clues about a wealthy noblewoman from the Hunnic period who lived roughly 1,500 years ago.
The grave was found at the Karakabak-10 cemetery on the Mangyshlak Peninsula in western Kazakhstan, an area long tied to burial mounds of nomadic elites.
The discovery is detailed in a study published in the journal Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia. The research was carried out by A.E. Astafyev of the Mangystau State Historical and Cultural Reserve in Kazakhstan and E.S. Bogdanov of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Known as Burial 11, the grave held the skeleton of a young woman laid on her back with her head pointing north. Grave robbers had broken into the site at some point and apparently removed her skull, though enough of her bones survived for researchers to reconstruct her burial position.
‘Golden shoes’ uncovered in the ancient Kazakhstan burial
Near her ankles, researchers found two shoe straps, each fitted with a buckle coated in gold foil over a carved wooden base, with small gold-covered tips at the other ends.
These buckles, the study said, were never actually worn for walking. Researchers believe they were made only for the burial, since they show no signs of everyday use.
A separate gold buckle, shaped like a bird of prey with spread wings, was also found in the grave. Its style matches a group of artifacts known as the Shipovo horizon, named for a site in Russia’s Volga region.
Such golden shoes and accessories found in the Kazakhstan burial are considered unusual for the wider region around the Caspian and Aral seas, the study noted.
Jeweled headdress featured gold masks resembling ancient Gorgoneia
The woman’s headdress included dozens of small gold plaques, two carved wooden masks covered in gold near her temples, and a larger gold-covered face believed to be a forehead ornament resembling gorgoneia, a decorative motif from Hellenistic Greek art.
Similar masks have turned up in the Volga region and near the Black Sea, though the wooden temple masks have no known match elsewhere.
Researchers dated the burial to the second half of the fifth century or the first half of the sixth century, and believe the gold items were made at a nearby settlement called Karakabak, based on similarities to objects earlier found at a site called Altynkazgan.
Unlike other burials at the same cemetery, this one showed little sign of what researchers call Pontic fashion, a style linked to communities near the Black Sea. That absence, along with features of the carved masks, suggests the woman may not have been of local origin.
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