О странном наследстве в III книге «Артхашастры» Каутильи
The article studies chapter III.6 of Arthashastra. The author maintains that it deals with a ritual practice, rather than juridical one.
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The article studies chapter III.6 of Arthashastra. The author maintains that it deals with a ritual practice, rather than juridical one.
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Wallachian and Moldavian coins are among other foreign currencies which circulated in Bulgarian towns in 14-15 cc. The Wallachian coins are rare in Bulgarian territory, except Dobrudja with numerous finds of the Wallachian ruler Mircea I the Old’s coinage. These finds are connected with his military activities aimed at seizure of the Despotism of Dobrudja. Some individual coins are documented in the capital Caliacra (22 items), Varna (14 items), Tyrnovo (6 items), Shumen (5 items), Vetren (2 items), Balchik (2 items), Ovech (1 item), Cherven (1 item). Moldavian emissions are even rarer finds: Varna (9 items), Caliacra (2 items), Shumen (2 items), Fisek (1 item), Sini vir (Shumen reg., 1 item), Ovech (1 item).Unlike individual finds, collective monetary finds reflect the nature of monetary circulation and wealth of the urban population. Half of the hoards yield decorations along with the money. Besides homogenous assemblages in Vardun (Tyrgovishte reg.), Tyrnovo and Caliacra І, the number of Wallachian coins in hoards, as a rule, is not big. Concentration of such hoards close to the Danube points to trade contacts between population of both banks of the river. Almost all collective finds with Wallachian coins are dated by the late 14 c. – the time of the Ottoman conquest of Bulgarian lands.
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Galitian Rus’ in 14 c. had a well-functioning monetary system. The Lvov mints in 1353-1394 while emitting silver groszes always followed the same proportions of pure silver contents (2:1) to the Prague grosz. In 1353 – 1382 Lvov mints emitted Galitian-Russian denarii as well, 60 pieces (or kopa) of which equaled the purchase power of one silver Galitian-Russian grosz. With the beginning of emission in Krakow in 1394 of crown semi-groszes, with lower foot compared to the Czech coins, the contents of silver in the Galitian-Russian grosz changed. Metrological calculations of silver content in groszes produced in Lvov in 1395-1399, as well as in Lvov semi-groszes minted in 1399-1408 show that, starting with 1395, every exchange of the local currency into the Prague grosz fixed an additional payment („additio”) of 20% to the Lvov coins. Quite unexpectedly, truncated Prague groszes of Waclaw II, Ian I of Luxemburg and Carl IV were massively present on Galitian markets in 14-15 centuries.
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The paper is a research of two silver vessels of approximately equal weight (cca. 981 and 985 g) – a Byzantine cup of 12 c. found at village Berezovo in the Russian North, and a plate of 14 c. from the Low Volga region. The inscriptions in Russian and Turkishscratched on the two medieval toreutic wares, respectively, tell that they were used as promissory notes with different maturity dates. Such promissory notes demonstrate the size of the credit market in Eastern Europe at the time of the Ancient Rus’ and the Golden Horde.
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Archaeological publications pay much attention to stone churches of 12th – 13th centuries found on the territory of the early Russia. However, among numerous contributions on religious constructions of stone of the mentioned period, there are very few descriptions of the contemporary old Russian wooden churches. There had been few stone temples in Russia before the Mongol invasion, while wooden churches were much more common. The article contains analysis of archaeological and written evidence pointing to existence of a wooden church on the fortified settlement Osovik (the territory of the former Smolensk principality) in 12th – 13th centuries. Archaeological evidence includes some objects of cult: small personal bronze crosses, bronze encolpion crosses, etc. Yet, the most important evidence supporting the existence of a church on this settlement in 12th – 13th cc. are numerous bits of oxidized sheet bronze with traces of rivets in some places, and what is still more important, fragments of bronze bells. To substantiate the fact that there could have been a wooden church built in Osovik, the author recurs to some facts of Smolensk principality’s history in 12th – 13th cc.
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The article studies peculiarities of the early medieval bronze casting craft in the Northern Russia. The author particularly focuses on the publication and interpretation of a small round bronze Scandinavian fibula (fig. 1) found on the Rurikovo Gorodishche. This fortified settlement located 2 km south of Novgorod was a large commercial and industrial East-European settlement in 9th – 10th cc. Its ornamentation follows the Elling style and is similar to clasps from Birka of I A1 type by Jansson’s classificatin (Jansson 1984: 60-61, Abb. 8: 2) The most remarkable feature of this fibula is not its rare style, but rather that it has never been used according to its destination, i.e. as a clasp. The author tends to regard this fibula as a stamp for casting a series of such things. To make a fibula according to a certain model they usually used folding clay moulds. An available genuine thing was used to imprint the face side with the ornament on one of the mould’s folds, while the back side was imprinted on the other. The article explains why the fragments of clay moulds for manufacturing of decorations with raised ornamentation largely spread among the German and Finnish peoples are such a rare find on the Old Russian medieval settlements.
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The article brings a comprehensive description of glass objects found in late nomadic (9th – 14th cc.) burials on the Northern Black Sea Coast and in the Azov Sea basin. The author infers that the nomads had a sporadic acquisition of glass objects, which were used to replace semi-precious stones. Their material value was comparable to that of precious metals and stones. The assortment of these products is rather limited. These are beads, bracelets and decorations on clothes. No glass crockery has ever been found in burials. Judging by a large variety of chemical types and geo-chemical sub-types, the nomads got glass from many regions: various centers of the vast Byzantine Empire, Kiev Russia, Volga basin, the Caucasus, Trans-Caucasus and Middle Asia. This multi-colored picture reflects their mobile way of life and wide international and commercial relations.
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The article examines a range of analogues of a gilded silver lotus-shaped plaque found in 1978 on Costeşti settlement in Moldavia. Similar plaques connected with the jeweler’s art of the Golden Horde are found in Volga basin, Crimea, Moscow region and Romania. A peculiar “negative” of open-work plaques with a filigree decoration is a smooth image of a similar flower against a filigree background on Monomakh’s crown. The base of Monomakh’s crown, without a later top and fur trimming, follows the same tradition as the Golden Horde’s plaques and find analogues in Mongol ethnographic headdress.
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The article presents a historical review of the situation in the North Black Sea region during the blossom of the Pontus Kingdom under Mithridatus VI. It examines different aspects of relations between the Pontus and the local barbarian unions. Mithridatus’s attempt to consolidate the barbarians in the North Black Sea region must be regarded here as his main policy aimed to continue fight against Rome. Ultimately, the King of Pontus managed to form a “united Greek-barbarian block” only to exist until Mithridatus and his coalition suffered their first defeat from the Romans.
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The article treats the issue of four important polises in the Northern Black Sea area: Borysthenes, Olbia, Nymphaeum and Germonassa, founded by natives of Miletus and, possibly, of other Ionian towns, and therefore culturally and ethnically homogenous. They all are classical colonies founded by the first wave of Greek settlers; they all played important roles of economic, political and religious centers of their regions. Each of these polises has been systematically researched for a very long time. The comparative analysis showed that the early stages of existence of these regions marked significant differences in what concerns the nature and ways of development of the rural neighborhood of the Greek urban centers. It is also obvious that the reason behind such differences are to be found in the structure of the local population around these Greek polises, namely in its economic, cultural and demographic characteristics. Later on, with enhanced social and economic basis of the Greek colonies in coastal Scythia and in connection with the enhanced domination of the steppe Scythians in hinterland, increasing influence upon formation of the ancient rural areas in the Northern Black Sea region had the military-political factor of relations, not only between the Greek and the local ethno-political unions but also between the ancient states themselves.
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The article is an attempt to generalize and study mystical cults in Classical Ancient Tyra based on archaeological evidence from its territory. The mystical cults included secret religious rites and mysteries practiced by the adepts of both Greek and Oriental cults (from Asia Minor, Syria, Persia and Egypt). These included cults of the following deities: Demeter and Cora-Persephone (the Eleusinian mysteries), Dionysus (the Orphic Dionysus Zagreus and Eleusinian Iacchos-Dionysus), Cybele (the Magna Mother of gods with the center in Pessinunt, also known as Aphrodite the Syrian) and Attis (her deified minister of religion), Isis, Osiris and Serapes (with the center in the Egyptian Alexandria) and Mithra Taurochton (spread from Persia across the Roman Empire). Based on the analysis of records (epigraphic inscriptions, sculpture, coroplastics and glyptics) we may infer existence of mystical cults in Tyra during the Hellenistic and Roman times. Some temples of these deities seem to have existed in themenos on the territory of this polis.
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New scientific theories have appeared on a joint of archeology and natural sciences; further development has received the title «Theory of Catastrophes». It is probably necessary to reevaluate the origin and cultural values of apocalypses religions and traditions of catastrophes in ancient mythology and rituals. The Bronze Age marked emergence of new cultures. Some of them were so peculiar that archeologists cannot speak either about evolution, or about a smooth development of one culture into another. Their emergence could indeed be forced by some extraordinary phenomena that can be explained by the “theory of catastrophes”.
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The article substantiates theses supporting the cultic function of the barrow Revova 3, which bears obvious cosmogonical symbols.The beginning of the construction of the barrow dates back to the Eneolithic. The main burial (19) followed a special ceremony: the body was dismembered, its members being joined in vertical anatomic order thereafter and fixed in sitting position in the burial. There were no finds in the burial. The first mound of light loam (11-12 m in diameter, 1.0-0.7 m high) was raised above it. On its top, a circle of stones (9.5-10.5 m in diameter, about 1 m wide) of different size was laid around the mound’s border. The second Eneolithic (plundered) burial was made in the center of the mound, west of the main burial. It was covered by stone blocks and surrounded by a stone ring. The entire complex of the early barrow is typical of the Usatovo culture.The archaeo-astronomic data for the latitude of the barrow (47.3°) testify that the details of the stone circle with its extensions, as well as breaches-passages in the ditch fix the most important solar and lunar azimuths. The orientation by head, as well as the orientation of the funeral structures, sacrificial pits and fires are linked to these directions, mostly the solar ones. It suggests that the stone structures were used as specific reference points in funeral and calendar rites of the population that built the barrow. Building of the early construction complex was finalized by some additions to the barrow’s second light mound, which later housed four pit (Yamnaya) burials (4, 7, 15, 16) made in accordance with the spatial-temporal ideas reflected in the earlier structures of the barrow.
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The study of the economic system of the earliest nomads which inhabited the Eurasian desert-steppe belt in 5000—2000 is a relevant task of contemporary studies. The data on the organization of living space and the role of social groups of early prehistoric pastoralists in the exploitation of open steppe resources are scarce. The paper presents a new methodological approach to searching camps of the earliest pastoralists. The application of this approach enabled the archaeologists to discover numerous seasonal camps in the Sal-Manych Ridge located in the western part of the Eurasian steppes, including Eneolithic camps dated to 4200—3600 BC. The study of the occupation layers at the sites, evaluation of the productivity of pasture systems made it possible to categorize such sites as short-term seasonal camps occupied by pastoralists, evaluate the role of social groups in the organization of innovative seasonal migrations and reconstruct their subsistence system. The camps emerged as a result of developing pastoral economic strategy in the Lower Don region and the abutting areas reflecting the role of special social groups of pastoralists who managed to organize seasonal moves and address the issue of exploiting pastures located beyond the permanently occupied area.
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The article presents results of a complex study of the Neolithic-Eneolithic burial ground Ksizovo 6 (Upper Don region, Russia). The goal of the study is to give anthropological and archaeological description of the Ksizovo 6 data along with attempt on its socio-cultural reconstruction. Human remains were studied by using classical craniologic method, which gives a possibility to make craniometric description of the skulls and conduct a comparative analysis. In addition, we used osteometric and osteoscopic methods. The other important components of the research are the study of the limb proportions, reconstruction of the body’s length, estimation of bone massiveness, documentation of traces of pathological changes on bones and development of muscular relief (enthesial morphology).As a result of our study, we revealed a number of Europeoid features on skulls from Ksizovo 6: an elongated braincase, low face height and prominent horizontal profile. Morphological analysis of the postcranial bones revealed the relative elongation of the forearm and tibia, as well as a pronounced flattening of the tibia. The reconstructed body length for man was 162—170 cm, for women 155—163 cm. A mark from a blunt object strike with the traces of healing was found on one of the male skulls. The presence of stones and a bear skull in burials is discussed in connection with burial customs of the Neolithic-Eneolithic population of the Upper Don region.
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The article is based on the results of a planigraphic examination of Scythian barrows implemented by the author in order to explore the social and clan relations within the Scythian society. The planigraphic analysis is a study of the arrangement and depth of burial construction components within a single kurgan. This kind of analysis has shown that there is a strict pattern in the arrangement of graves within a kurgan depending on their depth and, also, on their placement: either in the same row with the principal kurgan tomb or in the next row, in the eastern part of the kurgan; or in the western part of the kurgan ‘behind’ the main inhumation.The western half of the kurgan contained the shallowest graves of servants and horses, farthest from the center. Of the graves located in the same row with the principal ones those in the south (and on the right) had a higher status than those in the north (on the left). Like principal burials, the southern ones had accompanying horse graves; they were also marked by funerary feasts and additional earthwork of a large-scale. The female graves were predominantly placed in the eastern part of kurgans, in the second row. There were exceptional female burials marked by all the accoutrements of prestigious male graves that seem to indicate the ambivalent position of women, recorded in the ethnographic data.
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This article analyzes the social structure of the population that occupied the territory of the Stavropol height and the area of Caucasian Mineral Waters in the 3rd—1st centuries BC. The following features characterizing some separate social strata are considered: size of constructions, architectural features of tombs, numbers and typological diversity of grave goods, presence (or absence) of articles from precious metals and Greek or Roman imports among the grave goods, presence (or absence) of ground burials around tombs. These features are typical for the culture of a mixed population that mostly consisted of an enclave of the western Koban tribes headed by descendants of the Scythians remaining in the Cis-Caucasian region after their exodus to the northern Black Sea region. Vertical and horizontal stratigraphy of the society can be observed. The vertical column of this society consists of 5 strata: 1 — rulers; 2 and 3 — nobility of the first and second levels; 4 — plain warriors and their families; 5 — slaves (possibly, prisoners). Horizontal stratification can be noticed in spatial distribution of funeraty complexes of different types, which, most likely, points to the heterogeneous ethnic composition of the Bearers of Tomb Culture).
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The article investigates probable routes of dissemination of Northern Black Sea products in the Trans-Volga and Southern Ural steppes and forest-steppes, as well as the possibility to link them with the “Herodotus path”. The distribution of finds indicating links to the Northern Black Sea Coast (details of bridle, mirrors, some types of ornaments and armor) suggests that there was a trade route in the area under consideration in the early Iron Age, which began in the Samara Luka area, followed into the Samara River valley, between Sakmara and Ural Rivers and into the Trans-Ural region. It is possible to interpret this route as a segment of the path to the lands of the Issedons and Argippeans, which was described by Herodotus. The possibility of the existence of this itinerary of the trade route is confirmed by the existence of caravan roads in the Middle Ages and New Times. The functioning of this route in antiquity could be ensured by the location of several crossings across the Volga, located on the section between the Samara Luka and the Akhtuba branch.
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The object of study was the first series of Spartocid bronze coins. The fact is that the rulers of the Bosporus, much earlier than other princes of the Hellenistic world, established the emission of credit money from a base alloy. Under Paerisades I and Spartokos III, two series of bronze coins of different denominations (obol, tetrachalkus, dichalkus, chalkus, lepton) were issued. The population actively used credit money, which was accepted by barbarians too. However, bronze coins, ousting gold and silver from circulation, began to depreciate. This was due to both their unrestricted emission and massive falsification of one of the denominations, tetrahalkus. The situation on the monetary market was further complicated due to the Egyptian competition, which significantly reduced the demand for Bosporan bread. As a result, the Bosporus trade elite lost the opportunity to maintain their trade with Mediterranean nomads at the same level. The union of the Bosporus and Scythia ceased to exist. The decline of the Bosporus at that time should be explained by financial shocks and the movement of tribes in the Northern Black Sea region.
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