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In this article we discuss a fashionable piece worn by women in the Middle Ages, namely a silver pin for veil recently found in Stolniceni village, Republic of Moldova. The item consists of two parts, a long needle (pin) and a decorative flat head decorated with filigree, pseudo-granulation, colored by paste-like insertions and petal-shaped pendants. Analogues for such accessories are known from Furceni, Musaitu and Bălţaţi coin hoards, found on the territory of the medieval Moldovan state (actual Republic of Moldova and Romania). They allow us to date the item by the 16th century.Also, according to the material found in Stolniceni village, as well as other finds around it, allows us to conclude that a medieval settlement that functioned during 16th—19th century could have existed here.
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The author suggests using specific terms to distinguish reconstructed dresses of various epochs, for example: archaeological, historical, ethnographic reconstructions. Also, the author proposes to name any decoration added to reconstructed dress a replica, meaning a similar artifact made with the help of new technologies and, probably, using new materials and a different scale. The article analyzes articles produced by the Alyoshins’ workshop from Veliky Novgorod as a positive model.
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In 2019, during regular excavation of the late Antique fortified town located on Cape of Sveti Atanas near Byala (Varna Region, Bulgaria) a thin gold plate, ellipsoid in shape, with incised block monogram of Greek letters between two crosses was discovered. It came to light in a drainage channel coming out of the Late Antique bath, which was excavated seven years ago. The monogram is well designed. There is no doubt that this little plate was actually the bezel of an Early Byzantine gold ring. Based on the dating of the bath, it should be dated to the middle of 5th — beginning of 6th centuries AD.
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The article presents the characteristic of finger-rings from the Old Russian burial monuments of Upper Volga basin. A typology of finger-rings is offered. It consists of classes, types and subtypes highlighted by morphological features of the hoop. The quantitative characteristic of finds of different types is offered. The predominant types are wire (including twisted) and rod finger-rings. The number of plate wide-intermediate finger-rings is considerable. Shield finger-rings and finger-rings with insert are rare for the Upper Volga. Single finds of plate finger-rings with a slit hoop come from a microregion close to the «Vyatichi area». The collection of finger-rings from Old Russian burial sites of the Upper Volga has similarities with the set of finger-rings from Belozerye and from Tver, where the wire and rod finger-rings also prevail.
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A bronze bracelet and a fragment of another bracelet of the same type, found in the Golden Horde settlement of Costeşti (Ialoveni district of the Republic of Moldova), were brought for identification to the National Museum of History of Moldova in the summer of 2015. The items correspond to the band-shaped bracelet type, whose ends do not connect. The ends of both objects are decorated by stylized leonine mask. Their surface is covered by identical Arabic inscriptions separated by an ornament named «the lucky knot»and set reversed to each other. The inscription on the bracelet contains wishes of prosperity, health and luck. All these symbols, considered to have magical functions, could have been interpreted by their wearers as amulets.
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The multi-ethnic population of the Toretskoe urban settlement of the 15th century on the southern borders of the Kazan Khanate is evidenced by the presence of the Russian and Finno-Ugric peoples’ cultural materials such as ceramics, items of personal piety, and traditional jewelry in the rich collection of the site.The items analyzed in the article do not have any ethno-cultural affiliation, but rather reflect all-European medieval fashion and reveal the contacts of the Middle Volga in the Late Middle Ages. Details of the belt set from the Toretskoe urban settlement find a wide range of analogies among the sites of Southern and Central Europe. A brass bell and waist pads are characterized by close geography of the main analogies. Obviously, the Siberian finds of such bells require further comparative-and-typological analysis and interdisciplinary approach. A silver ring illustrates a narrower direction, that is relations with the Crimea, which — judging by other finds — were traditional for Toretskoe.Thus, jewelry and costume details suggest the region’s involvement in the pan-European cultural and economic space, which is confirmed by the finds of Hanseatic trade seals.
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The article presents the results of analysis of a few jewelry objects from the collection of the National Kyiv-Pechersk Historical and Cultural Reserve. All objects are introduced here for the first time. There are five silver three-bead temple rings, a fragment of so-called ryasny (riazni) –chains consisting of 8 blocks, and a torc. The author addresses their possible provenance, manufacturing techniques, ways of wearing head and neck jewelry sets as well as analogies, chronology and typology of the objects.
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The article considers the iron and bronze miniature axes of the early medieval times found in the Carpathian-Dniester space. These artifacts belong to the category of objects found in different regions of Northern, Central and Eastern Europe, as well as in the southeast of the continent, which date back to the 9th/10th—12th centuries. This period is characterized by a gradual warming of the climate, significant economic and demographic development of Europe, as well as a sudden increase in the activity of the Vikings, who combined armed attacks with trade activities, controlling the East European trade routes along the rivers to the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. The spread of Christianity, the apocalyptic fear of the approach of the year 1000 and the end of the world, the spread in Scandinavia of the cult of St. Olaf (Haraldson), the Norwegian king killed by the axe (1030), which became a symbol of his martyrdom and an iconographic attribute, gave rise to new waves of pilgrimage to the Holy Places. The routes of pilgrims who carried miniature axes with them could cross the regions east of the Carpathians, where other objects associated with the pilgrimage were discovered. It should be noted that the weight of miniature axes practically coincides with the fractions of the Baghdad “ounce” of the 9th—10th centuries, and this suggests that they could also be used as weights bringing good luck to Scandinavians in commercial transactions.
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The picture of the silver inlaid iron axe was published in the Internet in 2019. Besides the wattled ornament, the incrustation includes an image of an ancient Russian ducal sign in the form of trident. According to the finders´ information, the axe originates from the outskirts of Chernihiv. The sign on that axe belonged to the duke Vladimir Svyatoslavovich.The finds of the silver inlaid axes with ducal signs are rare but not unique. A similar axe which had images of two ducal signs along with a geometrical ornament was found in 2011 during the excavations of a mound on Shekshovo-9 burial ground near Suzdal. There is a silver inlaid ducal sign at the end face of the axe from the mound excavated on Nikolskoye III burial ground.The finds listed above indicate that the use of ceremonial weapons with the images of ducal emblems was not uncommon in the Ancient Rus. Obviously, such axes were the same regalia of power as heraldic pendants, but they only represented the insignia of military power, and not the civilian one.
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The article proposes a comparative analysis of new finds of the Old Rus’ian female lead seals of two types from Chernihiv and Bratislava castle.The first seal was discovered in 2007 near the so-called «Blagovishchenska» Church (Annunciation Church) on the citadel of the Old Rus’ian Chernihiv, in cultural layers dated by the late 11th — early 12th centuries. The seal was stamped twice with a rotation up to 160°, which led to the imposition of images and inscriptions. The seal almost completely repeats type 116 by V. L. Yanin, attributed to “Princess Mary” and previously known for two finds in Kyiv. The Chernihiv specimen was made by another pair of stamps or by renovated ones.Seal from excavations in 2009 in the courtyard of the Bratislava castle comes from the middle part of the filling of the pit dated to the end of the 11th — the first half of the 12th century. The Bratislava seal represents the same iconographic type and the invocative inscription as type 116, but it differs in details and the inscription includes a longer form of the name of the seal’s owner — “Marina”. These features allow us to distinguish the seal as a separate type 116a.The new finds of the seals independently confirm the dating of both types to the last quarter of the 11th — early 12th centuries. They also clarify the princess’s full name. In the context of the attribution of the seals to the second wife of the Grand Duke of Kyiv Vsevolod Yaroslavich, we can offer an explanation for the discovery of the Old Rus’ian female lead seal in Bratislava castle through a prism of the correspondence mailed by the princess Marina to her daughter Eupraxia-Adelheid during the latter’s brief stay in Hungary on the way to Rus’ in 1097.
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This paper addresses chemical composition of copper-based alloy in two groups of jewelry: round pendants and small (jingle) bells. Jewelry items were excavated in the burial complexes of the North-West part of Russia (11th—14th centuries). Their chemical composition was studied by XRF and SEM-EDX methods. The results of this analysis were shown to be informative for the purposes clarification of the date and the origin of the jewelry. There is a noticeable chronological trend in tin content in the alloys of round laced pendants. Certain dissimilarity existed in some components in the small bells from different regions (“Gdov” barrows and eastern periphery of the Izhora plateau).
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The article presents the experience of studying closed Medieval Russian cross pendants using modern nuclear physics methods: neutron and synchrotron radiography and tomography. The work was carried out on the equipment base of the National research center “Kurchatov Institute”. Non-destructive methods of analysis are described. They allow to determine the configuration of encolpions’ internal cavities without opening the leafs, to fix the presence of sacred relics, their nature and distribution in the cavities. The examples of research of 4 encolpions from the rural sites of Suzdal Opolie and Novgorod are given. 3D models of encolpions were built on the basis of tomographic sections. Some show the internal space of the crosses with the location of relics, others show the features of corrosion of the leaves. A special model was created for the black decor (niello) of one of the crosses. Building 3D models provides work with archaeological and museum artifacts at the modern high-tech level: scientific analysis, creation of virtual and real copies, demonstration for the promotion of cultural heritage objects.
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The article adresses a series of pendants of tin and fusible alloy, found during excavations at the stadium “Khimik” (the Tver Kremlin) in 2013. Tin jewelry mainly belong to the urban jewelry collection, which finds analogies in hoards, concealed during the events of 1234—1238. Tin, in relation to the analyzed decorations, is a kind of a ‘simulacre’ of a high status precious metal (silver) and was used to manufacture overall pretty good ‘imitations’ of higher-status types of jewelry.
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The substance in a clay pot found during excavations in Ladoga was considered using GC-MC as a product of coniferous resin heat-treating, possibly used for ancient ships’ sealing. Substances of almost the same composition were found on wooden paddles (mops) used as tools for tarring.Examined samples originate from the different areas of the settlement are chronologically distant by at least one century. This suggests existence of a stable technique created empirically by Ladoga craftsmen who used it for a long period of time.
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The Dniester-Danube group of the Subbotsy type graves is noticeably geographically isolated from the main area of the early Magyar burials in the Northern Black Sea region. This makes it suitable in terms of studying the local characteristics of the material culture of the population.The very rare finds of belt sets and harness ornaments is one of such conspicuous features. Despite the limited number of the toreutics objects from the Dniester-Danube group graves, they demonstrate heterogeneity, a mixture of two opposite cultural impulses. The first one is “Volga-Ural” impulse, it is represented by belt fittings from Slobodzeya grave 18, Buciumeni find and Răducăneni hoard. They repeat or imitate the types of belt sets from the outlet region of the early Magyar migration to the west. The second impulse — “Danubian” — is represented by a buckle from Slobodzeya grave 18, decorated by floral ornaments vessels No. 13, 14 and 20, 21 from the Nagyszentmiklós hoard, and by a strap-end from Buciumeni which imitates the decor of a strap-end from Mikulčice.The appearance of the “Danubian” group of objects was the result of the interaction of the early Magyars with the local population, most likely, from the Bulgarian state, where several items of the “Nagyszentmiklós” style were also discovered. Written accounts confirm that such union did take place in 837, when the Magyars acted together with the Bulgarians against Byzantium.
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The earliest phase of the formation of the Russian funerary rites still remains poorly studied since there are practically no reliably dated sites up to the mid-11th century. Beginning with the mid-11th century, Russian inhumations appear throughout the entire Novgorod Land demonstrating diverse variants of the rite but remaining nevertheless within the frame of the Christian canon.A detailed dendrochronology has been developed for Novgorod archaeology, due to which the types of antiquities from the excavations of Novgorod are well dated. The same types of things were found in funerary monuments of the rural population of Novgorod land. These circumstances give us the opportunity to distinguish small groups of chronologically significant things among them that go out of use no later than the mid-12th century. They perfectly mark the initial stage of the old Russian funerary culture of the Novgorod Land.
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In 2018, at the townsite (late medieval posad or suburb) within the modern urban settlement of Berezovo, in the north of Western Siberia, at the low reaches of the Ob River (Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Tyumen Oblast), eight horizons of dwelling and economic buildings of the 17th—18th century were excavated. At estate no. 8, in the fifth building horizon, remains of a dwelling log-house no. 20 and adjoining log household building no. 20A were uncovered. In the latter building, in a layer of rotten straw and manure, a rare archaeological object was found — a leather carabine holster (olstra) with embossed decoration. The estate was functioning in the second half of the 17th century.The holster from Berezovo was the sevenths find of this kind of leather objects in the whole history of archaeological investigations in the Russian Federation. The holster is intended for carrying carabine on the shooter’s back or being suspended on the front pommel of the saddle. It was suspended with the help of belts run through holes in the holster, similarly to the finds from Moscow. To the Moscow find, the Berezovo find is close also in terms of its purpose — used for a carabine, as well as the decorative ornamentation with incised figures. This fact suggests that this object was manufactured by Moscow artisans.
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The paper presents some thoughts on the issue of archaeological data interpretation (concerning women’s jewelry) in the context of processes that led to the formation of Old Russian state. The author critically considers the ideas about the “Scandinavian control on the Baltic-Volga trade route” and “Scandinavian colonies” in the Eastern Europe. The author raises also a question on the initial political status and real role in the formation of the Old Russian state of the emerging trade-specialized settlements in the Ladoga and Gnezdovo.
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The article analyses the reception of Byzantine culture in medieval Eastern Europe, especially the selection and transfer of its elements and their subsequent transformation, and establishes a correlation between the reception of texts and elements of material culture. The importance of archeology in the study of reception, which is considered as the local materialization of Byzantine culture, is stressed. The regional differentiation of reception and its periodization is proposed as following: 6th—8th, 9th—10th, 11th—13th, 14th—15th centuries. The importance of South Slavic intermediary cultures in the transmission of Byzantine culture to Eastern Europe is emphasized. The author concludes that, despite the political and geographical changes in the Byzantine Empire, the territories that once belonged to it continued to be perceived in Eastern Europe as a “great Byzantium”, regardless of their Islamization or Latinization. As a result, the reception of Byzantine culture in Eastern Europe was of a spontaneous and occasional nature. Despite the fact that several Byzantine phenomena which did not preserve in the Mediterranean region were kept nearly intact in Eastern Europe, the general image of Byzantium in the local culture and consciousness turned out to be very limited and specific. In modern times it led sometimes to the abuse of historical memory in social and political life.
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