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The Almaty History Museum was opened in 2002. It is a leading research, cultural and educational institution in Almaty. The museum's exposition presents the history of Almaty from the period of the first settlements in the city and its environs to the present day. Separate sections are devoted to the formation of Kazakh statehood, the Verny period, and the history of modern Almaty. The museum complex includes the Boraldaiskiesaki Kurgans Archaeological Park, where an open-air museum will be created in the future. The museum's collections contain more than 35,000 items that tell about the city's 1,000 years of history. The museum regularly holds exhibitions, international conferences, and round tables on historical and cultural heritage issues.
Almaty today is the largest metropolis in Kazakhstan, a financial, economic, scientific and cultural center, endowed with the special status of a city of national significance, having a long history that has experienced periods of prosperity and decline. The history of Almaty reflects the entire complex, multi-layered, centuries-old path taken by independent Kazakhstan. This city is a unique accumulator of history and the creator of many historically significant events. The reconstruction of the history of Almaty gives our contemporaries the opportunity to meet with the material and spiritual heritage of the past, allows us to understand the present more clearly and more clearly and look to the future with optimism. The main task set by the Almaty Mayor's Office to historians is to determine the age of the city and its place of origin.
First of all, a lot of work has been done to identify and preserve historical and cultural heritage sites in the city. Among them stands out the majestic necropolis of the nomadic elite — Boroldai.
By Decree of the Mayor of the City No. 1/185-390 of March 28, 2006, the territory occupied by the burial mounds with an area of 430 hectares was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Almaty History Museum to create an open-air museum — the Boroldaisakskiyekurgans Archaeological Park, which will include the actual archaeological park and the ethnic park “Monuments of Nomadic Architecture and Life of the Kazakh People”.
The Boroldai burial ground in the north-west of Almaty, between the Ulken Almaty rivers in the east and Boroldai in the west. In the north, it borders the urban village of Boroldai, and in the south by BAK and consists of 47 burial mounds. The monument has so far preserved its cultural and natural landscape, has avoided construction and destruction, and is the only Early Iron Age monument preserved in a large metropolis. The uniqueness of the burial ground is not only in its preservation. A number of dominant burial mounds (80-150 m in diameter, 10-14 m in height), which are the backbone of the necropolis, make it possible to characterize it as a dynastic royal burial complex.
As the first reconnaissance showed, there are various non-mound objects around the mounds: fences, memorial rings, and altars. For a more complete understanding of the monument, it is necessary to carefully explore the entire area of the burial ground, including unmound formations hidden under the layers. All this gives reason to raise the issue of preserving not only the burial mounds, but also the entire territory of the complex and creating an open-air museum on this area. The idea of preserving this unique monument arose a long time ago. Over the past decades, the issue of preserving the necropolis has been raised more than once, but this is the first time that a proposal to create an archaeological park in its place has been put forward.
The creation of the Archaeological Park is due to the fact that modern types of open-air museums cannot be only nature reserves; they should be active means of communication between the population and the cultural environment. One of these forms that have recently appeared is archaeological parks, which combine archaeological conservation zones of a monument and various forms of static and museum exhibitions.
An archaeological park is an optimal form of preserving natural, historical and cultural heritage, a qualitatively new phenomenon in relation to other types of open-air museums. The form we propose is formulated as museums where objects are located at their place of creation, arranged with those transferred and recreated.
It is planned to organize three zones on the territory of the archaeological park. The first of them will consist of the necropolis itself, including mounds that are to be explored and fully restored, i.e. the mounds will be carefully excavated and then museumified. Museumification involves the documentary reconstruction of not only the cultural landscape and the appearance of the burial mounds, but also the internal structure and burial complex.
The restored archaeological sites will organically fit into the natural environment, and visitors will get acquainted with the reconstructed archaeological sites. The remaining burial mounds of the future park — 47 Saka and Usun burial mounds — should be preserved in their original form. In the second zone, which is free from the conservation regime and does not contain authentic archeological monuments, life-size models of archaeological sites from different eras will be created. The same zone will house an exhibition on Kazakh traditional nomadic culture — the ethnic park “Monuments of Nomadic Architecture and Life of the Kazakh People”.
In an area free from authentic monuments and museum expositions, the third zone surrounding the necropolis and museumized sites, a garden and park zone will be set up, where the main tourist facilities will be concentrated.
In general, it was planned not only to restore the natural and cultural landscape, create an archaeological park at the archaeological site with the complete reconstruction of ground and intra-grave structures, but also to organize appropriate museum and tourism infrastructure.
In 2007-2010, an entrance group, an administrative building, and a fence on the territory of the archaeological park were built, and the access roads to the park and the paths leading to the administration building were asphalted. The park was landscaped and landscaped. A feasibility study for the Boraldaisaki Kurgans archaeological park project is currently being developed.
Over the past decade, a large cultural heritage study program has been launched in Almaty. The foothills of the Zailiysky Alatau were developed by man back in the Bronze Age, in the XVIII-VIII BC, when these places began to be inhabited by tribes of the Andronovo culture.
Archaeological studies at the Butact 1 complex, conducted in 2003, revealed the earliest layer dating back to the Bronze Age. The settlement is located on the southeastern outskirts of Moscow. Almaty in the Medeu tract, on a flat terrace on the right bank of the Zharbulak River. The Bronze Age dwelling was a square-shaped semi-dugout, measuring 11x11 m. Massive wooden logs were dug into the center of the house, the roof was gable, and the walls were plastered with clay. Among the items found are stone equipment — grain graters, pestles, mortars, as well as bronze needles, punctures, and beads. The ceramic material is represented by flat-bottomed vessels of different sizes.
In 2006, the Early Iron Age burial ground Ulzhan 2, located in the Ulzhan microdistrict on the right bank of the Ulken River in Almaty, was explored. The burial ground consists of five burial mounds, stretched out in a chain along the north-east-south-west line. The mounds of the mounds consist of earth and stone. The burial ground is located among residential buildings, and the area is being actively developed. Thus, on the north side, a residential building was cut into the embankment of mound No. 4; the soles of the embankment were cut off during the construction of buildings. The mound itself is a rather complex architectural structure, consisting of a burial chamber and an embankment in four layers. The embankment layer may reflect the number of feasts, after each of which a new layer was poured in. Since 2009, research has been underway at the Almaty settlement (Almaarasan). Academician K.M. Baipakov identifies it with a settlement explored at the end of the 19th century by the famous orientalist V.V. Barthold. At present, entire neighborhoods have been excavated, and the explored dwellings have been museumized. Work is underway at emergency archaeological sites.
The year 2014 brought a number of interesting findings. When studying two emergency burial mounds in the Kok-Kainar burial ground in the north-west of the city, interesting artifacts were found. Two women's graves were found in Mound No. 1. One of the burials was completely intact. (Photo4-6). The wooden burial box contained the remains of a young woman, and the funeral utensils typical for this burial were located nearby. Three beautiful ceramic burial vessels and a large bronze mirror, the mystery of which is still racking their brains over by archaeologists not only from the Almaty History Museum, but also from the Institute of Archaeology named after A. A.H. Margulan.
In addition, various pieces of jewelry were found: bronze hairpins and a ring. The walls of the grave pit were plastered with specially imported gray clay. On top of the grave was a peculiar burial structure made of pax bricks, supported by wooden poles. In the neighboring mound No. 2, at a depth of four meters, there was a man's burial site, looted in ancient times. Fortunately, two unique fragments related to the buried man's costume were found: a gold plate depicting an eagle in a heraldic pose and a golden leopard figurine, which in all likelihood adorned the top of the buried person's headdress. On top of this grave, archaeologists recorded the remains of a grave structure, as well as a fragment of the vault that covered the space above the grave. This vault was calcined, which means that a fire was burning there. At the moment, museum specialists are conducting laboratory studies of archaeological finds.
All these studies have created a completely new scientific situation that made it possible to talk about the age of Almaty. Already twice, in 2006 and 2010, scientists discussed the city's age in the format of scientific and practical conferences, presenting to the public facts about Almaty's 1000-year history. As a result of the 2010 conference, Almaty scientists came to the following conclusions: the 10th-11th centuries can be considered the time of the emergence of the city of Almaty.
The medieval city actively lived in the 10th-14th centuries and fell into decline in the 14th-15th centuries during the inter-dynastic wars of the Genghisids and as a result of the destructive campaigns of Timur and Timurids. Sedentary life here, however, continued to exist and develop in the 14th and 19th centuries, especially during the formation of the Kazakh Khanate, in the second half of the 16th century. Founded in 1854 on the site of ancient Almaty, the city of Verny (Almatinsk) —Alma-Ata—Almaty is an important part of the city's millennial history, which opened a new page in Almaty's history.
Thus, the activities of the Museum of the History of Almaty in preserving and developing cultural potential characterize it as an important structural element in the development of the city's economy associated with the construction, restoration and museumification of the rich historical heritage.
Gulmira Bilyalova,
Head of the Department of Ancient and Medieval History of the Ivernese Period
Almaty History Museum
In order to support the Kazakhstan-2050 Strategy — “Mangilik El”, the programs of the Leader of the Nation N.A. Nazarbayev “Cultural Heritage” and “People in the Flow of History”, the Adyrna National Ethnographic Association with the support of the Department of Internal Policy of Kazakhstan. Almaty is hosting an international scientific and practical conference on the topic “The history of the millennial Almaty: archaeological and written information” dedicated to the 1000th anniversary of Almaty.
The purpose of the conference is to collect and study the facts of Almaty, to study information about the historical significance of the city, as well as to argue and prove the antiquity of Almaty.
Gulmira Bilyalova, an employee of the Almaty History Museum, made a presentation on the topic “The experience of the Almaty History Museum in preserving the city's archaeological heritage”.