KHUSEINBEK KESHENE

KHUSEINBEK KESHENE, an artifact of history and architecture dating back to the 1st half of the 14th century and is located to the SW of Selo Chishmy of Chishminsky Raion on the terrace above the floodplain of Akzeirat Lake (former river bed of the Dyoma River). It was described by P.S.Pallas, R.G.Ignatyev, V.S.Yumatov, V.V.Velyaminov‑Zernov, and G.V.Yusupov, and studied in the 1950s by B.G.Kalimullin, and in 1985, by G.N.Garustovich. The Keshene is a square building at its base (8.5 m), topped with a dome (5.28 m high). The walls (1.1 m thick) are made of limestone blocks. The entrance is 1.07 m wide and 2.45 m high and is in the S. The walls have arched window openings. There are nine burials (one of a female, two of men, and six of children), above, on the male and female tombs there are slabs. The central grave has an oval‑shaped stone wall, a stone slab with an epitaph written on the headboard. The dead are buried in wooden coffins, on their backs, their heads pointing W, but their faces turned towards S. In one of the children’s graves there were found horse teeth. The materials of this artifact are stored in the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography. The K.K., according to the epitaph, was erected over the grave of the Muslim missionary Huseinbek. It belongs to the early Muslim burial artifacts of the Bulgarian type.