У статті наведено огляд мегаструктур біля
скіфських курганів-гігантів Огузу та Чортомлику та аналіз 19 вузлів (перехресть) давніх шляхів,
пов’язаних з насипами курганів, виявлених на супутникових знімках в центральній частині Дніпро-Молочанської степової області. Шість із цих
вузлів опиняються в смузі траси стародавнього
шляху, відомого в середньовіччі як Муравський.
The original appearance of the steppe surface of
the southern part of the eastern European plane was
transformed by the centuries of the anthropogenic impact.
Along with feather grass the traces of the ancient
roads have disappeared. However, the satellite images
still detect the areas around some kurhans having
kept the waggons traces. We can recognize them due
to the different color of vegetation as well as by the
coloration of the open soil. The antiquity of the roads
near kurhans is witnessed by the cases of tracks, covered
by the burial mounds, that were erected in the
Bronze Age. An additional indicator of the ancient
transport network on the maps of the 19th century are
wells or groups of pits in the open steppe, the number
of which should be associated with the need to water a
large number of cattle. The latter occurred during the
arrival of a trade caravan or a train of wagons. The
kurhans themselves are an ancient form of mass cult
buildings in the Eurasian steppe, which have attracted
both large main and secondary roads. Powerful tradition
of building kurhans, fading and restoring through
times, existed from the Eneolithic to the late Middle
Ages. The appearance of new mounds or the completion
of existing ones periodically renewed the system of
landmarks in the monotonous steppe.
The paper provides an overview of previously unknown
megastructures near the Scythian giant kurhans
of Oguz and Chortomlyk, which in the form of
light parallel stripes are recorded on satellite images.
These stripes are probably traces of trenches or the
foot of stone alleys, that were found to the east of the
edge of the Oguz and outreached 800—850 m, and from
Chortomlyk — 670 m. A search on various satellite images
of the similar light stripes near other kurhans did
not yield positive results. However, in the central part
of the Dnieper-Molocha steppe region, satellite images
luckily detected 19 nodes (intersections) of ancient
ways connected to the kurhans’ mounds. Some of these
nodes do yet not fit the complete road network of the
region. But six of these nodes appear to be in the area
of the route of the ancient path, known in the Middle
Ages as Muravsky (Murava Route). It leaded from the
Don basin, through the left (eastern) part of the basin
of the Dnipro River to Crimea through the Isthmus of
Perekop. Interestingly, this branch of the Muravsky
Trail crosses the Sirogozy ravine between the kurhans
of Kozel and Oguz. In previous reconstructions of the
transport network, the option of passing this branch in
the south of the Oguz, between the giant embankment
and Diyiv kurhan, was preferred. The other three intersections
lie in the lane of the old Chumaks’ Way or
the Crimean Way, marking a forty-kilometer section
between kurhans Kozel and Velyka Tsymbalka. From
the center of the Tavria Steppe at least four directions
of paths emerge towards the ancient Dnipro fordscrossings:
Rogachytsia, Lepetych, Cair (Nosakiv) and
Kіzikermen (Tavan).
