Murtazali S. Gadzhiev

In 2000, a rock grotto with two destroyed rectangular-arrowed entries was investigated near Derbent. Two lengthened pits and square dip were revealed in the grotto. The grotto is interpreted as a Zoroastrian rock funeral complex (Mid. Pers. daxmag) with two daxmas (pits for exposing bodies) and astodan (repository for bones). Similar monuments of Sasanian times are known in Iran – in Fars (Kuh-i-Rahmat, Hussein Kuh). Dating of the Derbent daxma (6th–7th cc. AD) is based on analogies. The small building with an entrance and corner hearth was built close to the grotto in the 13th–15th cc. A.D. On the floor level, a grave of an adult male in a shallow pit surrounded by an ashen-clay band was discovered. Two copper coins lay on both sides of the skull. A silver coin was found in the layer of the room (shirwan-shah Farruh-Yasar’s tenga of 875 A.H./1470-71 A.D.). The bricked-up grave 2, containing a secondary burial of neatly assembled bones of an adult male skeleton without anatomical order and interpreted as astodan, was discovered in a small natural rock niche near grave 1. The building compared with “house of the dead” (nasaxåne, zåd-o-margxåne) of late Zoroastrians indicates the presence of their community in Derbent and allows to include the Eastern Caucasus in the area of settling of Zoroastrians during that time.