Vladimir I. Stefanov

Some researchers consider the Bolshoi Sintashtinskij kurgan (Sintashta river, steppe Trans-Urals) to be a grandiose architectural burial and temple complex, an elite burial site, a unique cultural site of the early Indo-Iranian tribes of the Urals-Kazakhstan steppes. The author’s analysis of the material remains from the kurgan, of the field documentation, data from excavation reports and published materials questions the unity of the burial and temple complex, and the conclusion that it belongs unequivocally to the corpus of Bronze Age Sintashta culture antiquities.