Recent Examples on the WebThis kurgan is located in what is known as the Siberian Valley of the Kings, meaning that no other sizable find related to Scythian culture has ever been found as far east as this.—Francesca Aton, ARTnews.com, 8 Oct. 2024 Heyd and a large group of his colleagues had set out to survey Yamnaya kurgans, or burial mounds, in eastern Europe.—Meghan Bartels, Scientific American, 3 Mar. 2023 Trifonov and his team suggest that the Maikop people who built the kurgan used the tubes to drink beer from a communal vessel.—NBC News, 19 Jan. 2022 The straws, along with one of the beer vessels, were found at the Maikop kurgan, a prehistoric burial mound in the northern Caucasus in Russia.—Ashley Strickland, CNN, 18 Jan. 2022 For the past four years, a joint Russian-Swiss team of archaeologists has been excavating a kurgan, or burial mound, in the Russian republic of Tuva in southern Siberia.—Andrew Curry, National Geographic, 22 Sep. 2020 University of Sydney archaeologist Gino Caspari and his colleagues searched for Scythian burial mounds, or kurgans, in high-resolution satellite images of a 110 square kilometer (68.4 square mile) area of the Xinjiang province in northwestern China.—Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, 26 Dec. 2018 An ancient problem Looting is an old tradition on the steppe—as old as the oldest kurgans themselves.—Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, 26 Dec. 2018 The two apparent plague victims were buried together in a kurgan: a wooden chamber beneath a mound of earth.—Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, 12 June 2018
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'kurgan.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
Russian, of Turkic origin; akin to Turkish kurgan fortress, castle
Share