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Radiocarbon Dating of Medieval Buildings in the Mountainous Part of Ingushetia (Northern Caucasus, Russia)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2019

Vladimir Matskovsky Open the ORCID record for Vladimir Matskovsky [Opens in a new window] ,
Umalat Gadiev ,
Andrey Dolgikh ,
Alexander Cherkinsky ,
Polina Polumieva ,
Vsevolod Panov ,
Arseniy Kudikov ,
Nikita Lomakin  and
Ekaterina Dolgova
Vladimir Matskovsky*
Affiliation:
Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia Institute of Nivology, Glaciology and Environmental Science, CONICET, Mendoza, Argentina
Umalat Gadiev
Affiliation:
E.I. Krupnov’s Archaeological Center, Nazran, Russia
Andrey Dolgikh
Affiliation:
Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia The Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN), Department of Science and Innovation Policy, Moscow, Russia
Alexander Cherkinsky
Affiliation:
Center for Applied Isotope Studies, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
Polina Polumieva
Affiliation:
Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Vsevolod Panov
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography SB RAS, Centre of Cenozoic Geochronology, Novosibirsk, Russia
Arseniy Kudikov
Affiliation:
Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Nikita Lomakin
Affiliation:
Memorial International, Moscow, Russia
Ekaterina Dolgova
Affiliation:
Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
*
*Corresponding author. Email: matskovsky@igras.ru.
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Abstract

There are hundreds of preserved medieval buildings in the mountainous part of Ingushetia, including Christian churches, crypts, temples, sanctuaries, battle towers, and living buildings. The chronology of their construction period is still questioned, as there are no radiocarbon (14C) dates published for these buildings and their dating is mainly based on architectural features, a few historical sources, and sometimes on accompanying archaeological material. The aim of this study is to assess more precisely the period of their construction. To do this, we selected the 10 most prominent medieval buildings that contain wooden construction elements and sampled these wooden elements in order to apply 14C accelerator mass-spectrometry dating (AMS) followed by wiggle-matching. From two of these buildings, plaster and mortar were also sampled for 14C AMS dating. This is the first time that these kinds of analyses have been performed for medieval buildings from the mountainous part of Ingushetia. For 6 out of 10 buildings, we acquired sufficiently precise dates that helped us to clarify their construction period. For the other 4 buildings, the acquired dates are still informative but could be refined further with additional 14C analyses. The calibrated dates obtained cover the period from AD 662 until recent time with the majority of them concentrated in 15th–17th centuries.

Keywords

AMS datingdendrochronological datingmedieval architecturewiggle-matching
Type
Research Article
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 61 , Issue 3 , June 2019 , pp. 777 - 797
Copyright
© 2019 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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