Dargavs or otherwise of the dead city in Russia is considered one of the most mysterious places in the world. The ancient city is hard to find, because it hides between one of five Caucasian mountain ridge. Dargavs - actually an ancient necropolis, which is full of graves and crypts. Now nobody knows exactly why people here used to bury their loved ones ...
The city is surrounded by many legends and myths. Not so long ago people were afraid of this place, even the leg to load, because they believed that it may not return alive. Some sources mention that the oldest crypts built in the sixteenth century, in the event of fever epidemic taken many people's lives.
Mystical Dargavs city is located in North Ossetia, southern Russia. The necropolis Fiagdon river valley have to go dangerous and winding roads. Mountain Valley, which is located in Dargavs, stretches 17 kilometers, and it is surrounded on all sides of the 4000-meter peaks.
Historical sources for the first time in the area mentioned in the fourteenth century, when the modern Ossetians ancestors settled on the mountain ridge. Land else was so expensive that they were forced to build the village most of the unsecured winds and other senses in the wrong place. Nevertheless, once the site was the largest population throughout eastern Ossetia.
Necropolis looks like a medieval city in ruins: on grass overgrown hill in one place stands a small houses. It came closer to see that they live in neither the spirit. Living here has never lived. These homes were built for the dead. Each crypt is found in human bones and skulls.
Grass overgrown hill on which is situated Dargavs city, dotted with small, white buildings. Those white, to residential homes similar structures are stone crypt. Total necropolis are nearly 100 such crypt, which looks as if it were built according to a detailed plan. The complex stands at the end of towering observation tower, the upper part fallen. It is said that the tower was built in order to be able to maintain and protect the resting souls. Graves here formed as a hut with a taper to the top of the stepped roofs.
Some larger crypts have 2 or even 4 floors, has lower levels of the sides or in total without roofs. Larger crypts are pyramid shaped, cross-vault edges to hold the roof. Smaller crypts have half-cylinder-shaped arches. Pyramid and cone-shaped roof looks as if the steps. The walls are built of stone blocks and reinforced with lime and clay mortar. The walls are carved square openings for windows, through which the dead bodies were loaded.
Valley residents loved ones were buried in crypts with clothes and other necessary items. Each family had a crypt: the higher it is, the more it is a member. In some crypts were underground chambers or several floors, depending on the number of times there is buried. Dead city is also a crypt for single people, as well as those who have lived separated from the city.
Interestingly, in the crypts to find the remains were buried in coffins that resemble a boat. At one such boat was even found a paddle! So far, it is unclear why it was used specifically to boats, because there were no nearby rivers or other large bodies of water. According to one theory of the soul of the deceased have to cross the river to get to paradise as after death trekking in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Another interesting thing that each of the front of the boat is well. They found a lot of coins. It is believed that the North Ossetians burial of loved ones in the well threw coins. It was believed, if the coin hits the bottom of the well to the stone, it is the soul of the deceased reach heaven.
Legend has it that a man who dared to walk in the cemetery of them would not return alive. It is believed that this was the main reason why the locals almost never did not visit Dargavs. Another legend tells of the abducted soldiers very nice girl from a far country. The soldiers no way failed to agree on the ownership of the captives, so in the end it killed him. The murder of the gods punished the inhabitants of the mountain and they were condemned to die slowly from a strange disease graves.
However, many historians believe that the sixteenth - eighteenth century Ossetia had fever epidemic taken tens of thousands of lives. Ossetian population from 200,000 at the end of the eighteenth century fell to 16,000 in the middle of the nineteenth century. To protect integer from lethal infections, these crypts have been present entire families in which there was a patients. Once access to these crypts, rather they never returned back. People lived in crypts until the end brought to the modest local food stocks, and after the death of their bodies in the same household remained to rot.
Ossetia justifies a series of similar cities of the dead, but Dargavs - most impressive, because there remained very much the crypt with human remains. In addition, the necropolis built on an area of natural scenic. Soviet times, it came for sightseeing and Necropolis was possible to see the purchase of a ticket. Dargavs rich in monuments remaining from the Bronze Age and late Middle Ages. Archaeologists here looking for and finding a lot of valuable information, as hundreds of years ago lived in Ossetia, local people. Nowadays, this mysterious historical site abandonment. Tourists rarely visit. Perhaps because of the historic area is very difficult to travel ...