THE HOSH MENZIL WALL IN THE VALLEY OF THE RIVER RUBAS
The Hosh Menzil wall is a new archeological monument, discovered in the lower reaches of the River Rubas, in the northern outskirts of the village of Rubas, Derbent region of the Republic of Dagestan. It received its name from the old settlement, which was in the place of its location - the village of Hosh Menzil (Pers. - a nice place ). The archaeological site is a section of a stone wall that preserved on a country road in the northern outskirts of Rubas. The paper presents material from the survey excavations of this monument, carried out in 2020. The purpose of the research was to determine the functional purpose of the construction, establish its dating and possible belonging to the set of defensive lines in the lower reaches of the River Rubas, mentioned in written sources from the middle of the 18th century. The relevance of the study is due to the development of the problem of the structure and layout of a large defensive complex of the middle of the 6th century - the Rubas fortification, located 2 km to the west, on the left bank of the same river. The tasks of excavating a new archaeological site were to reveal the structure and its layout, to determine the technology of its construction and the degree of preservation. The structure is a section of a stone wall, erected by the “shell (armor)” technology from processed stone blocks. The southern facade of the wall with a length of 3.6 m and an adjacent backfilling section, including rubble stone and lime mortar, have preserved. The stone blocks of the wall are laid using the “header-stretcher” technique. The base of the wall is placed on a stone embankment, consisting of rubble stone, filled with lime mortar. The height of the preserved section of the wall ism. The section of the wall is located on the left bank of the river, and oriented along its channel in SEE-SWW direction. The dating of the monument is determined by the features of the structure of the facade of the wall and the technology of masonry within the mid-6th century. According to preliminary data, the investigated object belongs to the construction works of Sassanian Iran in the Western Caspian region, aimed at strengthening the passages leading to the Caucasus and the Middle East.