The ancient country of cities in the Kama region

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

We are used to thinking that all the finds and remains of ancient structures are found somewhere far away, in the habitats of the "great" civilizations of the past. We have been taught to think that any place where ancient traces of human activity can be found immediately attracts the attention of scientists and archaeologists, excavations are carried out there, finds are described, scientific articles are published, journalists write about this. Indeed, even fragments of an ancient path through a swamp in one plank wide, found in England, were excavated by archaeologists for 10 years and allowed to draw far-reaching conclusions.

It turns out that this is not the case. Against the backdrop of the English swamp path, the indifference of Russian history and the media to the surviving remnants of ancient cities, in a huge amount discovered by archaeologists almost everywhere in the Kama region, is striking. Judging by the archaeological publications, there are at least 300 of them. Antiquities are so densely located here that you can come across them almost near every city and village! Some villages are located right on the settlements themselves and are surrounded by the remains of ancient ramparts. Garden plots are now located on the site of many ancient cities, and the summer residents themselves often do not know anything about this. Most of the antiquities discovered are described in scientific articles, but the public knows absolutely nothing about this. These data do not get into the press, they can be found by chance on sites dedicated to archeology, for example, "Archeology of Russia", "Yamal Archaeological Expedition", "Archaeological Museum of KSU".

Much less of such historical monuments have been excavated. Usually, the territory of a settlement or a burial ground is excavated only in the most promising places. And this is not because archaeologists are not interested or too lazy to dig. The territories of our ancient cities often reach tens of thousands of square meters. It takes a lot of money and time to carry out a full-scale excavation. Excavations of such monuments have been going on for 10 … 20 years, by the efforts of students and enthusiastic archaeologists - university teachers and museum staff. As a result, tens of thousands of items are collected, field reports are compiled. Then, as a rule, these gigantic quantities of archaeological finds are deposited in the depositories of museums. Field reports are published in special editions, and again we see nothing of this.

Now, probably, many people understand that the Russian authorities, like all their predecessors, are not interested in everything that concerns the present past of the Russian and other indigenous peoples of Russia.

How did our ancestors live?

According to archaeologists, people have constantly lived in the Kama region since ancient times. Finds dating back to 130 thousand years BC are described. The most interesting, from my point of view, the era of the early iron (from about 1500 BC) and the Middle Ages (from 500 AD to 1300 AD). A huge number of ancient cities and settlements date back to this time. For example, the monuments of the "Chepetsk culture". About 60 cities and burial grounds have been found in the Cheptsa river basin. They are located several kilometers apart. Only one of the cities, Idnakar, has been comparatively fully explored. Found the remains of furnaces for the smelting of raw iron, many household items, decorations, the remains of houses and much more.

The interpretation of the data obtained in this case does not differ in originality. It is believed that the people lived here wild, so the thought of some kind of specialization in the branches of the economy and developed ties is not allowed. The enmity of neighboring clans, mutual raids - this is, please, but the developed exchange trade between the city and rural settlements - this cannot be assumed.

According to modern science, the city of that time is the same village, only the inhabitants for some reason poured a rampart (sometimes up to 8 m high) and built the walls. So morning comes, the city gates are opened and the herd is driven out to the pasture, and in the evening they are driven back, the gates are laid with a bar and disperse to their unprepossessing barrack-type houses with an earthen floor and a hole in the roof for smoke. Their walls, of course, are smoky, and they themselves are, therefore, dirty. As an analogue of the layout of the dwelling, archaeologists quite seriously suggest the typical arrangement of the hearth and bunks in the plague.

So that's it. Having studied numerous archaeological materials, I responsibly declare: “The judgments about the primitiveness of the culture and life of our ancestors have no basis! Neither historical, nor archaeological, nor logical. " Historians refer to the fact that no traces of a developed culture of that time have been found in our region. So they were not looked for. It's true. Archaeologists, in turn, try to describe any find in the context of the "historical realities" of that time. So they nod at each other.

Let's finally deal with the chicken huts. Heating on black is a sign of poverty or a nomadic lifestyle. It is clear that a nomad will not be lucky with a clay oven. This applies to both the chum and the yurt. But is it so difficult to make a stove with a chimney in a capital wooden house? Couldn't our ancestors have dealt with this in the 13th century? It is known that they knew ceramics for many millennia before. Is it possible to make a multi-piece pipe from several short fired bushings? Can. But why do this if the adobe oven can be brought out in the form of a pipe above the roof. But until recently, in remote villages, they did just that. And it is not surprising that archaeologists have not found such chimneys.

It will not stand for 800 years in the rain, frost and winds, it will fall apart into small shards. Yes, and archeologists find mainly the place of the hearth on the calcined soil. The rest - what was on top, they just think out. So it is, they themselves write about it. However, I have no doubt that there were tubeless hearths. In baths, smithies, summer kitchens and other non-residential premises.

The last clue of historians is that our ancestors allegedly simply did not know the principle of stove draft. But, not knowing the principle of furnace draft, it is impossible to smelt either iron or copper. The cheese-blowing oven is inflated with the help of furs and natural draft, for which its mouth was lengthened and narrowed. So they knew the principle. And they applied this principle without fail, because in our frosts it is a matter of survival.

Now that we have laundered the soot that historians have "smeared" with our ancestors, we will deal with the earthen floors. It's the same story with them. Archaeologists do not find wooden floors. And if in the middle of the alleged dwelling they dug up the remains of wooden blocks, then this, of course, the ceiling fell there, because historically there were no floors. But even the nomads lined the floor in the yurt with skins and cloth. The earthen floor in our strip is mud, dampness and cold, then disease, death, extinction. We are not Egypt, where you can sit on mats all year round.

But was it so difficult for our ancestors in the 13th century to acquire wooden floors? It's not difficult at all. As early as the beginning of the 20th century, in some villages the floors were made of wood blocks. Such a block was a massive log, split lengthwise by wedges into 2 halves. This technology is older than the Sumerian civilization. Undoubtedly, our ancestors, who lived in the forests and knew how to make excellent steel axes, owned it perfectly. These floors were also very durable and warm. What we are now doing out of our poverty and haste, from boards 4 cm thick, is a very faint resemblance. Therefore, we have to insulate such floors in every possible way. Frozen and dirty people in our climate simply could not master vast territories and build numerous cities with huge ramparts that have existed for centuries.

So everything was different. Our ancestors walked clean (no one denies the existence of baths), lived in warm houses, ate natural, hearty food and drank clean water. They dressed nicely and warmly (furs, leather and linen fabrics are only local production, not counting imported goods). And in general, they lived very well.

Now, when our ancestors no longer look dirty and frozen, I really want to deal with the industry, which allegedly appeared in the Kama region only since the time of the Stroganovs and Ermak. It is known that our ancestors have long smelted iron using the raw method. You often read that this is a primitive and low-performance technology. This is not entirely true. Or rather, not at all.

The modern method of producing steel from pig iron has existed for no more than 150 years. Prior to that, all the steel that was produced by industry was obtained using practically the same raw-blown technology. The only difference is in the increase in the size of the furnace, the height of the pipe, mechanical bellows. This was done in order to raise the temperature in the zone for the reduction of iron from ore. With traditional cheese-blowing technology, only 20% of the iron contained in the ore is recovered. Indeed, the yield of iron from ore has increased. However, these innovations had a very small economic effect, since with the increase in temperature, most of the iron turned into rather poor quality cast iron, which was practically not used.

And still, industrialists continued to move in this direction, since the main focus was on increasing production volumes and making a profit. So they first brought the temperature in the reduction zone to completely cast iron, skipping the temperature zone of obtaining, in fact, steel (this is how blast furnaces appeared), and then learned how to separately burn out excess carbon, sulfur and phosphorus from cast iron (this is how converter furnaces appeared). All this was done in huge quantities.

It would seem that this is progress. But let's figure it out. Answer yourself to the question: "Is the motor cultivator in your garden a backward technology?" Of course not. But it is terribly ineffective compared to a modern tractor! The correct answer to this question is that everything has its place and time. The principle of necessity and sufficiency should work.

Is the current method of obtaining steel accessible even to one small town of 500 inhabitants? No. The cheese-blowing method is simple and affordable. It allows one person from 20 kg of ore, which is almost everywhere, with minimal effort to get an iron grill weighing about 500 grams, and from it by forging to make anything - a knife, arrowheads, agricultural tools, an ax and, finally, a sword of a quality that is still impossible for modern production.

How many people know that blooming iron has never been painted at all. It just doesn't rust. When you hear admiring remarks about damask steel or Japanese multilayer blades, you should know that all this is obtained only from blistering iron smelted using raw-blown technology. Thus, the technology for obtaining iron by our ancestors was not primitive. It provided strategic security, autonomy, flexibility, quality and availability that are currently unattainable.

Russian politicians should learn from their ancestors, otherwise everyone is dreaming of world cooperation, and they are constantly being bred to the role of a stoker-laborer …

Alexey Artemiev, Izhevsk, 6-04-2010