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The author of this paper examines what position the most prominent 12th-century Russian ecclesiastic writer and orator, the author of numerous festal speeches and parables, Cyril of Turov takes up on and what aesthetic value he attributes to ecclesiastic feasts. In the paper, it is also studied why he considers it important and “soul-saving” to read and to know sacred books while he also speaks of the psychology of reading.
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The article shows how mid-6th century Byzantine governments tried to exercise an indirect control over the steppe region stretching from the banks of the Danube to the north of the Black Sea by means of diplomacy. This area is a traditional living environment of horse-nomadic groups. The Byzantine government did not simply practise a “balance of powers” policy between the large nomadic groups in the area – like the Kutrigurs and Utigurs, both mentioned by Procopius of Caesarea and Agathias of Myrina – but held a network of contacts right across these larger entities. The specific political and economic conditions of the 6th century obviated the rise of another “nomadic empire”.
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The famous embassy of Zemarchus to the western ruler of the Turks is quite a well-known story. In this paper an attempt is made to clarify some details of the journey, with special focus on methods and manners of communication. Did Byzantine diplomacy make use of some of its old skills in dealing with the Altaic peoples, or, as many scholars have already supposed, was there a new process based mainly on experiences with Sasanian Iran and other Iranian peoples?
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The Bohai state existed in the modern southern part of the Russian Far East (Primor’e region), North Korea and Northeastern China from the late 7th to the early 10th century. Bohai influenced many states and tribes that existed close to this state and played an important role in international relations between Silla, Japan and the Tang Empire. At the same time, Bohai was subjected to important cultural influences from other countries and in some cases followed their rituals and diplomatic traditions. Many specialists from Japan, Russia, China and the two Korean states have done research on various aspects of Bohai history and culture. However, most of these scholars failed to pay attention to Bohai’s influence on the role of ritual and the status of states in its international relations. Western specialists have also neglected the investigation of this field. Bohai and Silla (another Korean state in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula) had hostile relations over two hundred years because they could not agree on their respective status vis-à-vis each other. For example, Silla did not want to recognise Bohai as a sovereign and independent state, although Bohai was recognised as such by China, while Silla was a vassal of the Tang Empire. This article critically analyses the relations between Bohai and Silla and elucidates the origin of the conflict between the two countries using Russian and Korean publications.
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Nicetas Choniates is the most significant and well-known Byzantine historian of the 12th century. This paper deals with this author’s passages about the Hungarians, in particular with the representation of the Hungarians. The analysis is based partially on sporadic data found in the orations of Choniates, and chiefly on the related pieces of his History. A close inspection of our sources leads to two basic conclusions: 1. The representation of the Hungarians by Nicetas Choniates is fundamentally influenced by the contemporary Byzantine stereotypes, although sometimes one can feel a more open-minded approach towards strangers, characteristic of his time 2. In the text of Choniates, the Hungarians also represent the mere ”crowd”, as the other non-Byzantine nations do, and their representation is often subordinated to the author’s conception of history.
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The Mynas codex, a composite manuscript from the mid-tenth century (Párizs, BnF, suppl. gr. 607) preserves a set of historical excerpts on the sieges of various towns from a range of Greek historians. My study explores the relationship of these excerpts with the „historical encyclopaedia” of Emperor Constantine VII (r. 945–959) which is known as the Excerpta Constantiniana (EC). The common view maintained by the scholars of Byzantium denies the close relationship between the two on the basis of the traditional means of textual transmissions. The presumptions on which the denial is based are refuted by the comparative analysis of the method of excerpting historical narratives in EC and in the Mynas codex, respectively, through examples from Prokopios and Arrian. The similarities between the two projects with regard to the methodology provide a more stable basis for assuming a strong relationship between them than the hypotheses do for denying it. The distinctive elements of the particular methodology include the observance of the continuous complete historical narratives in the sequence of the excerpts, the attempt to avoid summaries and major rephrasing as well as the omission of coherent sections that belong to the set of fifty-three imperial thematic subjects.
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A Bizánc és a Kijevi Rusz közötti fegyveres összeütközések 860-tól 1043-ig ívelő történetéből kiemelkedik Szvjatoszláv kijevi nagyfejedelem (964–972) 968-tól 971-ig tartó háborúja. Legfontosabb forrásaink, a kezdőszavai után Poveszty vremennih let (PVL) néven ismert óorosz évkönyv, Leo Diaconus Historiája és Scylitzes Synopsisa a háború előzményeiről keveset mondanak. 965 nyarán bolgár követek érkeztek Konstantinápolyba Niképhoros Phókas császárhoz (963–969), hogy a Péter bolgár cárnak (927–969) járó adót követeljék. A császár elutasítva őket megtámadta Bulgáriát, de néhány erőd elfoglalásán túl nem merészkedett (Leo 61.12–63.4).
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Mesterházy K. szerint a kora Árpád-kori bizánci és balkáni eredetű csüngőket eredetileg fülbevaló részeként, utóbb (talán rongálódás miatt) csüngőként használták. E tanulmány tárgyáról, a pilinyi csüngőről eddig csak bizánci eredetét állapították meg, párhuzamait nem ismertették. Előbb bemutatom feltételezett párhuzamait, funkcióját, és az azzal kapcsolatban felmerült kérdéseket igyekszem tisztázni.
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Die trachtgeschichtliche Studie möchte ein – gegenüber dem bisher bekannten – vollständigeres Bild von einer spezifischen Variante der awarenzeitlichen Frauenkleidung bieten, die vor allem die Kleider schmückt oder zu ihnen gehört und durch Zierden aus bleibendem Material und kleinere Gegenstände erkennbar ist. Es handelt sich um eine Tracht, deren Wurzeln sich in der spätantiken, mediterranen und germanischen Welt finden lassen. Die betonten und leicht erkennbaren Stücke/Bestandteile dieser Tracht befinden sich an dem Teil der Kleidung unterhalb der Taille. Es handelt sich um den mit Beschlägen und Riemenzunge verzierten lang herabhängenden Gürtel, die an der linken Gürtelseite hängende Kapsel, Tasche oder Scheibe, Geräte (Messer, Schlüssel, Nadelbehälter aus Blech, Spinnwirtel), großgliedrige Bronzeketten bzw. große bunte Perlen oder Metallbeschläge als Schmuck von Textilbändern oder Lederriemen und schließlich die Metallschnallen und Riemenzungen der Lederriemen zur Befestigung des Lederschuhwerks oder der Strümpfe.
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Die Studie stellt auf Grund zweier neuer Funde aus dem Theißgebiet die Vogelfibeln aus gepidischer Zeit, ihre Trageweise und ihr Beziehungssystem vor. Des Weiteren zeigt sie einen bereits früher bekannten vogelförmigen Gegenstand aus dem gepidischen Gräberfeld Szentes- Berekhát, der neueren Untersuchungen gemäß ein Gussmodel ist, also die lokale Herstellung der Kleinfibeln beweist. Der Artikel geht auch auf die Eigenheiten der gepidischen Fibeltracht ein, die der Merowingermode nicht folgen. In den letzten Jahren kamen bei den Fundrettungsgrabungen des Archäologischen Instituts der Loránd- Eötvös-Universität Budapest im Theißgebiet auch zwei Fibeln ans Licht, die zu den seltenen Gegenstandstypen der germanischen Periode des Karpatenbeckens gehören. Die erste Vogelfibel wurde im Juni 2004 in einem Grab des gepidenzeitlichen Gräberfeldes von Hajdúnánás-Fürjhalom- dűlő (Ostungarn, Komitat Hajdú-Bihar) gefunden (Objekt 444/620, Abb. 1.1–4), zusammen mit einem zweireihigen Beinkamm und Perlen. Die aus Messing gegossene Fibel (s. Anm. 4) hatte eine Vogelform mit stark gebogenem Rücken und war auf dem Bauchteil mit parallel gravierten Linien verziert.
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Girdle-hangers represent one of the most characteristic elements of the female graves in the Merovingian culture. Concerning their structure and decoration a great variety can be observed. A particular variant was identified in the Carpathian Basin characterized by the decoration with hinged plates. The present paper is an attempt to catalogue and analyze the finds of this kind coming from the Gepidic Period, based on the published material. The few discoveries belonging to the Early Avar Period are also included. Emphasis is placed on the typology, chronology and geographical distribution as well as on the possibilities of reconstruction and interpretation of the female dress accessorized with girdle-hanger.
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The paper discusses the system of late Avar bronze casting workshops of the Carpathian Basin, their specialisation and the problems of the distribution of bronze objects. Comparing the strong specialisation, which seems certain also from the experiences of practical archaeology, with the strong probability that most of the late Avar casts were re-moulded, the extensive attitude of the Avar period workshop practice becomes conspicuous. The lack of mass produced objects refutes the existence of a regular circulation of bronze objects independent of the producer. The reconstructed system rather implies the activity of itinerant artisans. Thus the concept of “workshop” in the late Avar Carpathian Basin actually means the complexity of know-how and material goods concentrated around a master without having a spatial relevance. The organization of work is different from the system of localised workshops of the West European Merovingian and Carolingian periods.
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In Fejér county, Daruszentmiklós, F-005 site an Avar Period settlement (7th–8th century) was excavated. 341 pieces of dog bones originated from 36 objects: Skeleton or skeleton part of 7 individuals and few parts of 35 individuals were found. The animals were 2 infants, 2 juveniles, 37 adultus and 1 maturus age individuals. Most of the dogs were slim, medium size sheperd dogs belonged to the Canis familiaris intermedius type. There were a few individuals from the Canis familiaris matris optimae type. The number of dog bones from Avar Period is small, so the dogs from Daruszentmiklós are remarkable.
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This paper attempts to outline the evolution and taxonomy of vetālas, one of the fabulous creatures that populate the religious culture of ancient and early mediaeval India. Sometimes misleadingly identified as “vampires”, vetālas had an important role in tantric rituals aiming at magical powers and performed in cremation grounds. Three such rituals are examined in this paper on the basis of both tantric and literary texts, all involving vetālas who sometimes appear as animated corpses, sometimes as jinn-like servants, sometimes as fully developed fabulous creatures bearing the characteristic marks of their species, which marks can also be assumed by deities. In the appendices a Kashmirian stotra to Bhairava appearing as a vetāla is edited and translated, and two vetāla doorkeepers are presented from a 12th-century Hoysala temple.
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The inhabitants of the steppes around the Black Sea and the nearby areas of the wooded steppe must be recognised as having played a special role in the events that occurred during the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. These populations were known not only by their peculiar living conditions but also various cultural models, even though the pastoral nature of their economy and the continuous movements related to it were of fundamental importance. The steppe was also an extensive link that facilitated contacts with the nomads present beyond the southern course of the Volga and Ural rivers, in the vast territories of the Central Asian zones up to the border with China. Toward the end of Late Antiquity, the ethnic make-up of the inhabitants of those territories changed. The Indo-European nomads were replaced by the groups of Turks-Mongols that arrived in subsequent waves from the Asian steppes. These included the Huns, who in 375 had destroyed the state of the Goths on the Black Sea and, having settled after 420 in the woods and plains crossed by the river Tisza, continued to go beyond the Pannonian limes to strike the areas closer to the border. The intensity of these incursions increased after 434 when Attila unified the nomadic tribes under his command, creating a vast empire of the steppe whose centre was located between the Tisza and the middle region of the Danube. The Huns also cooperated with the subjugated communities, first and foremost the rest of the Goths, Gepids and other Germans who had remained in their residential areas, but also the Alani and the Jazigs. It was only after the defeat of 451 on the Catalaunian Plains, the failed Italian expedition of 452 and the sudden death of Attila in 453 that the Hun Empire completely fell apart. The final blow was struck on the Nedao River in southern Pannonia by the forces united under the command of the Gepids in 454 or 455. What triggered a new shift of Germanic populations, considered the final phase of the period of the “Great Migrations” of peoples, was the ingress of the Langobards into Italy in 568. This alliance of Germanic tribes had appeared at the beginning of the 6th century on the shores of the Danube and, taking full advantage of the collapse of that sector of the limes in 526, began to occupy Pannonia. In the face of the danger represented by the Avars, and the new nomads who began to occupy the entire plain crossed by the Tisza, the Langobards decided to abandon Pannonia, leaving it to the Avars on the basis of a peace treaty.
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In 1998, during the archaeological excavations in the Kremlin of Kazan (Tatarstan) a harness mount was found in a mixed layer of the 16th century. It was made of silver, ornamented with a rosette and gilt background. This type of mounts frequently occurs in ancient Hungarian graves of the Carpathian Basin from the first part of the 10th century. The author tries to prove that the Kazan piece must also have been made in Hungary and transported by merchants to Volga Bulgaria. The trade between medieval Hungary and Volga Bulgaria is often mentioned in written sources and well documented also by the presence of archaeological finds of Hungarian origin in former Volga Bulgaria and 10th-century Muslim coins of Bulgarian provenance in ancient Hungarian graves of the Carpatian Basin.
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The paper is a critical review of Przemysław Urbańczyk’s monograph on Mieszko I, but rather than being a systematic discussion of the whole work, it focuses on those issues discussed in the book, which concern the relations between archaeology and history. Fragments basing exclusively on archaeological research are considered the most valuable by the author, whereas he is more critical about those parts which are based on the on interpretation of written sources. He postulates that such works, relating to both archaeology and history, should be created in close cooperation between representatives of both disciplines.
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