Personal adornments discovered in the Boian funerary contexts: necropolis of Sultana-Valea Orbului (Călărași County, Romania)
Personal adornments discovered in the Boian funerary contexts: necropolis of Sultana-Valea Orbului (Călărași County, Romania)

Summary/Abstract: The necropolis of Sultana-Valea Orbului (Călărași County) has been investigated by Done Șerbănescu (starting with 1974). Over 250 inhumation graves which were attributed to the Boian culture have been discovered. For this study, we analyzed the archaeological assemblage preserved in the Museum of Gumelnița Civilization from Oltenița (Călărași County) belonging to seven graves. The personal adornments are mainly manufacturated from Spondylus valve. The bracelets were made by an extremely unitary technological transformation scheme of raw material. On the external side, the median area of the valve was removed. The valve was also abrased on the internal side in order to remove the cardinal plateau. From a valve, a belt element was processed by the abrasion of the surface. A similar piece was made of clay. The most numerous beads of Spondylus valve have a bilobed/trilobed morphology with triangular section, convex extremities and convex-concave sides. The pieces are endowed with two/three perforations. The inventory is complemented by tubular beads and cylindrical beads. Ringlike elements were made from the bone, involving a very complex technological transformation scheme. Small cylindrical beads with a central perforation were made of malachite and green schist. Analyzed pieces showed different degrees of use-wear demonstrating that they were worn before the deposition in graves. The discoveries from the Sultana-Valea Orbului necropolis were compared with other Boian findings to determine if there is a typology of the funeral inventory specific to this culture.

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