Arkaim

Arkaim (Russian: Аркаим) is a fortified archaeological site, dated to c. 2150-1650 BCE, belonging to Sintashta culture, situated in the steppe of the Southern Urals, 8.2 km (5.10 mi) north-northwest of the village of Amursky and 2.3 km (1.43 mi) east-southeast of the village of Alexandrovsky in the Chelyabinsk Oblast of Russia, just north of the border with Kazakhstan. They are the remnants of an ancient fortified city of round shape, with two concentric circles of walls sheltering around sixty houses and workshops.

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Demoule : The Indo-Europeans: Archaeology, Language, Race, and the Search for the Origins of the West

Jean-Paul Demoule - The Indo-Europeans: Archaeology, Language, Race, and the Search for the Origins of the West-OUP USA (2023)

Apart from the eponymous Sintashta site, the most mediatized site is Arkaim, discovered in 1987 and excavated by controversial archaeologist Gennady Zdanovich. No doubt in a laudable attempt to save it from being submerged by an artificial lake (he was successful in his efforts), the latter identified the site as a sort of original capital of the “Aryans.”

Soon baptized “Swastika City” or “Mandala City” and considered a Stonehenge-like astronomical observatory, the site has attracted the attention of a number of New Age gurus who preside over imagined pagan ceremonies every year on the occasion of the summer solstice; it has also fallen prey to certain far-right nationalist movements. Arkaim is now seen as the “City of the Aryan hierarchy and of racial purity,” the place where “the Old Russian high priest Zoroaster is buried.”

As Russian archaeologist Viktor Shnirelman has pertinently pointed out, this discovery, which coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Empire, allowed the “Slavity” of these territories (although they were only relatively recently conquered by the Tsars) to be reaffirmed through their “Aryan-ness.” Naturally, Russian president Vladimir Putin has made a point of visiting these sites.

And the circle is completed when it is claimed that the Indo-Europeans indeed came from the Far North before settling in the Urals.

We realize, therefore, that even in these faraway places, whose study requires a certain level of archaeological knowledge, issues that appear to be scientific are, in fact, anything but innocent. Thus, the identification of the Sintashta and Andronovo cultures with the original Indo-Iranians, before their southward migration, is biased from the very start. All the more so since proof of the “Indo-Iranian” character of these cultures is quite weak. The existence of hearths, even in graves, is reminiscent of the fire cult practiced by later Indo-Iranians. But, like sacrifices of horses, bulls, and sheep, it is a practice found in numerous parts of the world.

Beyond the caricature of Arkaim, the affirmation of ancient cultural ties between Russia and present day Turkish-speaking Central Asia (part of the USSR until 1992) is clearly a major issue regardless of whether the archaeologists involved are aware of it or not.

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This heightened nationalism projects a mythical and majestic Slavic past in which the archaeology of Arkhaim plays no small part.
- Lamberg-Karlovsky, C.C. (2002). Archaeology and Language. Current Anthropology, 43, 63 - 88.

Arkhaim has become a center for followers of the occult and Russian supernationalists, a theater of, and for, the absurd and dangerous. It is argued that it was constructed to reproduce a model of the universe; that it was built by King Yima, as described in the Avesta, the sacred book of the Zoroastrians; that it was a temple observatory; that it was the birthplace of Zoroaster, who is buried at Sintashta; that it is the homeland of the ancient Aryans; and that it is the earliest Slavic state. The swastika, which appears on pottery from Arkhaim, is proclaimed a symbol of Aryanism. Visitors come to pray, tap energy from outer space, worship fire, be cured, dance, meditate, and sing.
- Lamberg-Karlovsky, C.C. (2002). Archaeology and Language. Current Anthropology, 43, 63 - 88.

Lamberg-Karlovsky : Archaeology and Language : The case of the Bronze Age Indo-Iranians

Archaeology and Language, The case of the Bronze Age Indo-Iranians Carl C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, in : Bryant, E. F., & Patton, L. L. (2005). The Indo-Aryan controversy : evidence and inference in Indian history. Routledge. 152-3

Today the site of Arkhaim has become a center for followers of the occult and super-nationalist Russians. It has become a theater of, and for, the absurd and dangerous.

It is advocated by some that Arkhaim was planned to reproduce a model of the universe; it was built by the legendary King Yima, as described in the Avesta, the sacred book of the Persians and Zoroastrians; it was a temple-observatory comparable to Stonehenge; it was the birthplace of the prophet Zoroaster who at death was buried at Sintashta; it is a model for contemporary society of harmonious relationships between culture and the natural environment; it is the homeland of the ancient Aryans; and the oldest example of a Slavic state. Arkhaim also is identified with Asgard, the secret homeland of the Germanic god Odin; it is the “city of the Aryan hierarchy and racial purity.” The swastika, which appears incised on pottery from Arkhaim, is proclaimed as the symbol of Aryanism by Russian ultranationalists. Russian astrologers have also been attracted to Arkhaim. In 1991 a prominent astrologer, Tamara Globa, during the summer solstice at Arkhaim, announced that the memory of the site was preserved by the Indian Magi and its rediscovery was prophesied by the medieval astrologer Paracelsus.

Arkhaim attracts up to 15,000 “tourists” during annual holidays, particularly in the spring and summer. They come to pray, tap energy from outer space, worship fire, be cured of disease, dance, meditate, and sing. The thousands of visitors are a ready source of income supporting Dr Zdanovich’s research.

In a word, the Slavs have been in the southern Urals since time immemorial, they are as primordial as all other modern ethnicities inhabiting the region.

The wave of nationalism in Russia has given birth to numerous publications of highly dubious merit. Thus, Kto Oni i Otkuda (Who are They and Where From 1998) is a publication of the Library of Ethnography and sanctioned by the Russian Academy of Sciences. In this monograph one can read that the original homeland of the Vedas was in the Arctic and that the language with the closest affinity to Sanskrit is Russian.

The dissolution of the Soviet empire has given rise to a heightened nationalism which, in turn, projects a mythical and majestic Slavic past.

The archaeology of Arkhaim is playing an important role in the construction of nationalist myths. Today, wholly unwarranted claims are made for Slavs as the original Aryans, for the Slavic language as closest to Sanskrit, for a Slavic-Aryan origin in the Arctic, for the superiority of the Slavic-Aryans, etc.

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[Shnirelman writes that nationalist concerns in the former U.S.S.R. are creating] an explicitly ethnocentric vision of the past, a glorification of the great ancestors of the given people, who are treated as if they had made the most valuable contribution to the culture of all humanity.
- Shnirelman , v. a . 1995. Alternative prehistory. Journal of European Archaeology 3(2):1–20. quoted in Lamberg-Karlovsky, C.C. (2002). Archaeology and Language. Current Anthropology, 43, 63 - 88.

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We Slavs consider ourselves to be new arrivals, but that is untrue. Indo-Europeans and Indo-Iranians had been living here [in the southern Urals] since the Stone Age and had been incorporated into the Kazakhs, Bashkirs, and Slavs; such is the common thread linking us all.
- Gennady Zdanovich, in: Lamberg-Karlovsky, C.C. (2002). Archaeology and Language. Current Anthropology, 43, 63 - 88.

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