The rescue operation of the Kolikho dolmen (located in the Tuapse region on the Black Sea coast, Russia) has been completed successfully. The dolmen was found by accident after the seasonal flood in 2008. It was buried beneath 3 m-thick river deposits and left untouched since the Bronze Age. This is the first case in Caucasian archaeology.
The burial chamber was full of partly disarticulated human remains. All of them were put in the chamber through the hole in the façade slab. Radiocarbon dates of human remains (72 persons) covers the period between 1800 and 1300 BCE with no signs of chronological gaps. In other word, the dolmen was in use for about 500 years.
The grave goods complex is small and consists of pottery, bronze javelin head, bronze spiral earring, bone belt buckle, few stone flakes and a sandstone disk with carvings on both sides. On one side of the disk are somewhat 'astral' symbols, while on the other side are possibly marks of calibration near the rim of the disk. The sandstone disk looks like a sort of device or the Caucasian version of the Nebra disk.
Doomed to be totally destroyed due to seasonal flood the dolmen was finally disassembled, packed up and transported to State Historical Museum in Moscow to be restored and presented to public in 2010.
MORE ON WHAT THE NEBRA DISK WAS USED FOR HERE.
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