Сотникова С.В.Bronze age burials with knucklebones and archaic ideas about "luck» (archaeological materials in the light of ethnographic parallels)In the burial grounds of the Bronze Age of the Southern Trans-Urals (Sintashta Type, Petrovsky Type, Alakul culture, and Srubnaya culture) there are burials of adults and adolescents, where the number alchiks is amounted at several tens and even hundreds. Based on analogies from Kazakh and Bashkir ethnography, the author comes to the conclusion that the alchiks in the game were the embodiment of “success”. People of archaic thinking believed that they possessed it as long as they possessed these items. Moreover, “success”, “luck” were needed by person not only in life but also after death, so in the burial of the most successful players of the Bronze Age were placed whole leather bags with alchiks. The materials of Kazakh ethnography about the veneration of the grave of a successfull player in alchiks and the foreteller suggest that the burials of the most fortunate players even in the Bronze Age enjoyed special venerated.
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