Case file · Folklore / legend
Dargavs, the 'city of the dead'
Ninety-nine whitewashed stone crypts stand on a hillside above Dargavs in North Ossetia; local legend says that during plague in the 18th century the sick walled themselves in alive with food and waited for death.
1770 CE · 42.83, 44.42 · status: legend
The account
The crypts held generations of family burials from about the 14th to the 18th century, with bodies laid in boat-shaped coffins and personal goods. Legend says no one who goes in comes out alive. The year reflects the legend's setting in the 18th-century plagues and is approximate.
The sceptical view
Many burials predate the plague; the 'buried alive' story is a later explanation.