Aksarayskoe Gorodishche

 archaeological site, hillfort

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The archaeological site called Aksarayskoe Gorodishche is located immediately north of the village of Lapas and to the northwest of the former settlement of Aksaraysky in the Astrakhan Oblast of Russia. The medieval settlement was located at the confluence of the Ashuluk and Akhtuba rivers, part of the Volga river system. The site was subject to a survey in 1995-1997 and partial archaeological excavations in 2000 and 2004. Most of the identifiable remains (in many cases aided by satellite imagery) are burial mounds (a medieval necropolis constitutes the mound on the northern edge of modern Lapas) and a series of perhaps at least ten mausoleums, most of them rectangular brick-build buildings within larger rectangular enclosures with clay walls. Local legend possibly identifies the old settlement as a town called Dawlat Khan, supposedly a fortification protecting Old Sarai, the original capital of the Golden Horde. The site is some 43 km (by road) from Selitrennoe Gorodishche (apparently New Sarai) and some 13 km from the relatively unexplored Akhtubinskoe Gorodishche at modern Komsomolsky. It is suggested that the mausoleum complex can be connected to either site, and constituted part of the burial space of the khans of Golden Horde. Since the coin finds from the site were dated to 1312-1342, the site may be related to either Old or New Sarai, or both cities.