Emma D. Zilivinskaya
Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Moscow (eziliv@mail.ru)
Keywords: the Middle Ages, Volga region, the Golden Horde, barrows, mudbrick enclosures.

The article deals with the so-called underbarrow mudbrick enclosures making up a fairly large body of funeral structures of the Golden Horde time. They have been linked to settled nomads influenced by the sedentary population of the Golden Horde cities. This assumption, however, seems to be untrue. These heavily shrunk mudbrick structures are by no means connected with nomads’ barrows and by layout are akin to mausoleums. It seems likely therefore that they were small mudbrick mausoleums situated in cemeteries on the outskirts of the cities and on the steppes.