Summary
V.S. Fliorov, V.Yu. Malashev (Moscow)
The Harness Collection of the 3d Century from the Burial Ground Klin-Yar III (Kislovodsk)
The horse burials of the 1st-4th centuries in Kislovodsk basin are still very rare. Among them the most interesting is a layer interment of two horses from interment 142 of Klin-Yar III burial ground. In the given interment (the first on the territory of the Central Caucasus) the ornamentally mounted set of harness articles consisting of 4 decorations with a cut and yarn, close to them in style, was discovered.
The analysis of the reconstruction of the belt articles of similar sets permits to suppose their decorative function.
A.V. Komar (Kiev)
The Actual Problems of the Hun Age Material Culture Chronology of Eastern Europe
Six groups of burials are singled out on the basis of burial inventory analysis. They are distributed and dated by means of correlation method in which complexes of Hunn epoch from Central Europe, the Crimea and the Northern Caucasus were taken to be valid. In the work the chronology of Hunn epoch is divided into 3 periods: early, middle and late, which are divided in their turn into 7 stages. The Alan interments of early Hunn epoch that had been singled out by Ye. Ghorokhovsky are grouped. Besides, it is for the first time when the date (not earlier than 454 AD) of burial group of Eastern European nomads is proved, and here belong specific things made by means of cloisonne technique. These items are compared with analogous ones from Kerch in the work. The location of such complexes is determined by contact regions during Hunn and Alan migrations from East to Pannonya (after Atylla state's downfall in Autmn, 454). The interments of group No 5 (Shipovo) are synchronized with the horizon of Durso II and dated within the limits of 600-650 years. The conception of back migration of Hunns, advancing from Pannonya to the Black Sea and further to the Volga river, is proved on the basis of analogies of burial inventory and funeral rite complexes of Szeged-Nadyszeksos, Novogrigorievka and Pokrovsk type.
V.S. Fliorov (Moscow)
The Research on the Ceremony of Rendering the Buried Harmless in the Early Medieval Eastern Europe
The article is writtern on the basis of Khasar kaganate data (Saltovo-Mayaky archaeological culture; Ôë¸ðîâ Â.Ñ., 1984, 1990, 1993) and is devoted to the ceremony of rendering the buried harmless. Nowadays this ceremony is being found on many burials of different early medieval cultures of Eastern Europe on the territory from the Ural to the Balkans.
The ceremony appeared at the beginning of the 1st c. A.D. (Cherniakhov culture; Ñûìîíîâè÷ Ý.À., 1963, 1967). Fliorov discovered this ceremony in the Northern Caucasus in interments of the 1st-4th cc of Klyn-Yar burial III (excavations of 1983-1986).
The investigated ceremony is characteristic mainly for settled people. The nomads started to follow it only after their transactions to the settled way of life, when the big burials appeared near their settlements. The ceremony of rendering harmless is known in ethnography as existing up to the beginning of the 20th c, mainly in Bulgaria, Aphon.
At present the task of the reconsideration the excavations results of all early medieval burials with the aim of revealing the interments with neutralization in them is highly actual. The author points at the necessity to differentiate between the interments with the neutralization and the robbed interments. It requires the perfection of the excavation method (Ôë¸ðîâ Â.Ñ., 1997, 1998).
E.Ye. Kravchenko (Donetsk)
The relics of the XIth - the XIVth centuries settled population in the region of the Middle Flow of the Seversky Donets River
In the 80-90-s of the XXth c. in the middle flow of the Seversky Donets river there has been detected a group of settlements with the ceramics of the Ancient Russian type. The excavations of some of them, especially the settlement with the good preserved cultural stratum - the Tsarino hillfort (near the village of Mayaki in Slaviansk area of Donetsk region), have shown that the above mentioned settlements combined in their material culture the features typical of the Ancient Russian material culture and steppe people. After the Mongol-Tatar invasion these settlements continued functioning; as the result of this fact in the middle area along the Donets river during the Golden Horde period there existed settlements of two cultural types, one of which developed the tradition times (the XIth-XIIIth cc). The other is represented by the settlement with the Golden Horde material proper.
There are no finds of the XVth c. in the given settlements and what was their further fortune is not so far clear. Probably, at the end of the XIVth c. this population and the population of the Golden Horde settlements in the area along the Seversky Donets river were either exterminated or went away to the territories with a more stable political situation.
V.Ye. Fliorova (Nakhapetian) (Moscow)
The Bone and antler Details of the Bows, Quivers and sheathes for bows of Belaya Vezha
During the excavations of medieval settlement Sarkel - Belaya Vezha, situated on the river Nizhny Don, about 100 articles made of bone and antler , belonging to the armament of the archer, were found. They are concentrated mainly in the layers of the end of the Xth - the beginning of the XIIth century. In the Xth century there took place the change of article types from the archer's set (Fig. 2, 4): there appeared the bow with massive frontal final and middle supplementary sheets (Fig. 1, 4-8, 12-14, Fig. 7, 2, 7, 8). As a result of the transition from precise to high-speed shooting, the narrow bow sheathes with lower bowstring were ousted by the sheathes of open type, in which the bow was kept in the tight state. The bone loops and ornamented decorations were made in the same style both for bow sheathes and quivers (Fig. 3,5,7,3-5).
In a number of interments of nomadic burials near Belaya Vezha the loops and ornamented decorations, allowing to reconstruct the original position of archer's set, were discovered. The fashion for the type of archer's set, met in the layers of Belaya Vezha and in a number of nomadic interments, could be traced to the XIIIth century. The blanks and the production waste confirm that the population of this steppe town was engaged in bow manufacturing, which was similar to Kimak type, particularly bone loops and ornamented decorations.
A.V. Yevglevsky, T.M. Potyomkina (Donetsk)
Late Nomadic Sabres of Eastern Europe
The article is devoted to the most important type of offensive armament of medieval nomads - a sabre. The article presents rather complete historiography of the question, and puts actual problems concerning terminology of prickly-sabring weapon.
All studied sabres originate from late nomadic interments of Eastern Europe, which constitutes 16% of the total amount of complexes. The typological analysis is made by means of mathematical statistics; its base is the model-making process worked out by G.A. Fedorov-Davydov.
Chronological analysis of the investigated series of sabres showed that the development of separate model-making features was not always smooth in time. For example, slight curvature of the blade, in contrast to the strong one, can not serve as a chronological indicator. Neither there was smooth evolutionary development of other most important characteristics of the blade: its length and width. One can not date late nomadic sabres on the basis of gardas and tops, as their early types could be found among the blades of the Golden Horde period in small numbers.
The greatest variety of sabres falls on the XIIth-XIIIth cc. During the period from the XIIth c. to the XIIIth c. the varieties are fixed. In the XIVth c. the quantity of sabre diversity, used by nomads, reduces to 9. These data contradict the opinion of extraordinary uniformity of sabre sizes and forms, of their standardization in the nomads of the whole European steppe up to the Urals.
Judging from the available excerpts a grat number of ordinary nomad-soldiers were buried with their sabres, what also contradicts the traditional point of view on a sabre as a weapon which was used only by rich nomads.
A.V. Yevglevsky, T.M. Potyomkina (Donetsk)
Steels in Late Nomadic Interments of Eastern Europe
Interments with steels (the device for kindling fire) constitute 13 % of all nomadic interments of the Xth-XIVth cc. in Eastern Europe. The article presents the most complete typology and chronology of steels, which were used by nomads of southern Russian steppes.
It is for the first time when staple-shape type of steels (the 2nd type) has taken its place in the typological and chronological scale of the present category of articles. Analogue in other regions are not known. The constructive peculiarity of these steels is the presence of deepening-cavity in the iron base for wooden halve instead of pointed vertical tenons.
One-blade steels (U-shaped and staple-shaped ones), having appeared in late nomads of Eastern Europe in the Xth c., are traced up to the end of the XIVth c. Two-blade steels, widely occurring in nomads during the Golden Horde epoch did not oust one-blade ones coexisting with the latters.
It is notable that among 4 types of steels used by medieval nomads of Eastern Europe, only one type - staple-shaped - is of nomadic environment origin. Three others (U-shaped, oval and rectangular) are apparently borrowed from settled neigbours, chiefly from the Old Russian inhabitants.
Steels are found the interments of poor and extremely rich nomads, of herdsmen and soldiers, of young, grown up and old people, but very seldom in women's interments.
A.V. Yevglevsky, T.M. Potyomkina (Donetsk)
On Some Types of Pottery Ceramics of Eastern European Nomads of Developed Middle Ages
Alongside with the moulded vessels, the manufacturing of which is connected with the nomads themselves, the wheeled ceramics of different way of making can be found in the late nomadic interments. The present work is devoted to some types of pottery ceramics not of Ancient Russian origin: an amphora, a pot, and a jug.
Most amphorae from late nomadic interments belong to the type prevailing in Prychernomoriye (the Black Sea basin) monuments and are characterized by curved handles, pyriform-spherical or egg-shaped trunk of Trapezund origin.
One-handled pottery globe-shaped pots are mostly close to analogous dishes of the Crimea, the Golden Horde monuments situated between the rivers Donets and Prut and in Lower Povolgie according to their peculiarities.
The jugs found served for both table and storage purpose. The range of their analogues is wide enough: Saray, Orkhey, Azack, the Crimea, Northern Caucasus, towns of Povolgie.
The analysis of these types occurring in the nomadic interments showed distinctive change of culturally significant types of ceramics in that time. So, the ceramics of the Ancient Rus pattern of the middle of the XIIIth c. is ousted by pots of Crimean and other origin, and numerous types of jugs. In this chronological scale amphorae correspond to the pots of Ancient Rus pattern and ceramics of the 2nd half of the XIIIth-XIVth cc.
K.I. Krasilnikov, L.I. Telnova (Lugansk)
Polovtsy Statues of the Seversky Donets Basin: The Typology, Evolution and Chronology (by materials of collections of Lugansk region)
After the publication of the most complete Codex-Catalogue "Ïîëîâåöêèå êàìåííûå èçâàÿíèÿ" (Ïëåòíåâà Ñ.À., 1974) about 25 years have elapsed. During this period 70 new statues have been discovered. In general in Lugansk region there has been collected the data of more than 120 sculptures of the XIth-XIIIth cc.
Taking into account the existing criteria of the typological statue, the authors have determined 6 types of sculptures: plane, stele-like, pillar-like early, standing, round, pillar-like late. Every typological group is characterized by iconographic, technical, graphic peculiarities inherent in it, and occupies its chronological place in the development of stone-cutting art of the late nomads in the area along the Seversky Donets river.
The typological variety of statues is connected with the changes in the economic, sociopolitical and spiritual life of the Polovtsy in the XIth - the first half of the XIIIth cc.
M.G. Kramarovsky (Saint-Petersburg)
Latin Romania and the Golden Horde Crimea. The Finds of the Latin Finger-rings and the Seals in the Northern Prichernomorie. The Treasure from Ai-Vasil
The article deals with the finds of the seal-rings and seals from the excavation in the Crimea (in the settlements of Mungup and Solhat) and also in the Northern Caucasus (Belorechensk sepulture). The most expensive find is the seal-ring with the sign of the famous Genoa family of Spinola.
A special place in the range of the medieval items found in the Northern Black Sea basin is occupied by the hidden treasure from Ai-Vasil village. This is the only hidden treasure complex in the region where the items of the Latin everyday life custom dominate. The complex of the Latin clerical and secular things found in the cache of treasure from Ai-Vasil and dated by the Golden Horde coins of the second third of the XVth century, gives an idea of the character of the Turkish - Genoa contacts in the Crimea during the rise of the Crimean khanate.
Ye.A. Yarovaya (St. Petersburg)
On new reading of the nobil names of the Caffin and Soldai lapidary (based on the materials provided by Skrizhinskaya E.Ch.)
The article dwells on the consideration of medieval slabs with heraldic inscriptions originating from Genoa colonies in the Crimea: Caffa, Soldai, Chembalo. The aim of the work is to analyse the Latin inscriptions preserved in the fragments and there has been made an attempt to read them in a new way.
The research is based on three sources: 1) official correspondence between the protectorate "Uffiizio di San Giorgio" in Genoa and the local administration of colonies known as "Codice diplomatico delle colonie Tauro-Ligun durante La signoria dell'Uffizio di San Giorgio (1453-1475)"; 2) some recently published documents of Genoa Secret Record Office; 3) the list of Genoa nobility (more than 800 titles of A. Scorza publications (Genua, 1924). The main illustrative source was the collection of Latin inscriptions in the Crimea which were published by Helen Skrzhinskaya (Genoa, 1928). The author has revealed 8 new contractions of titles names of Genoa noblemen who lived and worked as administrative office-bearers of these colonies of the XIVth-XVth cc, and two new identifications of heraldic insignia.
V.M. Kozhokaru (Reni)
The Etymology of the Danube-Dniester interfluve in the times of the Golden Horde
The article provides a substantiation of the appearance of the regional etymology dating back to the Golden Horde times. During the Golden Horde period in the Danube-Dniester interfluve alongside with small settlements there also functioned large military-administrative centres such as Belgorod, Kiliya, Obluchitsa.
There is an explanation of many hydronyms and other contemporary geographical objects of the Tartarian origin.
V.P. Lebedev (Dzerzhinsk, region of Nizhny Novgorod)
The New Data on the Early Juchi Coinage of Khoresm and Saray
The use of letter khronograms for dating the earliest two dirkhams of Khoresm mint - the Hijrah of 669 ("xcò") and 676 ( "x'ay") for the coin trade in Golden Horde was firstly discovered.
9 earlier unknown types and variants of coins: dirkhams of the Hijrah of 678 (1), 677 (2), 671 (1), semidirkhams of the Hijrah of 677 (1) and 4 undated coins were introduced into scientific circulation in the mintage of 70-s of the XIIIth century of capital Saray. The date of one of dirkhams of the Hijrah of 677 is depicted also in the type of khronogram - "x'aç". It is possible that one of semidirkhams of Saray was also dated with the help of khronogram - "xíó" = the Hijrah of 656 and in this case it made this coin to be the oldest one of the capital mint.
The formed temporal gap in mintage of Saray of 60-s of the XIIIth century could be filled with undated silver aureus minted in Saray with the name of the late caliph Nasir Lid-Din, five variants of which are described in the research.
Ye.M. Pigariov (Astrakhan)
Coins in the Golden Horde Interments
It has been determined that coins in the Golden Horde interments were always used exclusively in the role of "the dead' pay off". Of 213 investigated burials only three contained foreign coins among their inventory: a golden mamliuk aureus of sultan Beubars, a bronze Chinese coin and a copper Byzantiumian coin.
The Golden Horde coins were distributed in the following way. In 48 interments there were copper coins - puls (22.4 %), 166 interments contained silver coins - dirkhems (77.6 %). Both copper and silver coins were found in 6 interments (2.8 %). 83 interments contained more than one coin (from 2 to 49). The difference between the earliest and the latest coins is within the limits from 2 to 99 years. Coins were practically not found in children's interments (1.9 %). They are equally typical for both male and female interments, but in male ones coins are more frequent.
The peak of coins' getting into the interments falls on the middle of the XIVth c. It was determined, firstly, by development of commodity-money relations in the Golden Horde, and, secondly, by survivals of heathenism widely spread and still strong at those times, in contrast to the late XIVth c.
The article presents the comparative analysis of Bakhtiyarovsk (of nomadic inhabitants) and Maiachny (of settled inhabitants) interments. It turned out that "the dead' pay off" was equally characteristic for both settled and nomadic inhabitants of the Golden Horde. The spread of this custom depended mainly on the distance from the centers of coinage.
V.B. Klokov, V.P. Lebedev (Volgograd; Dzerzhinsk, region of the Nizhny Novgorod)
Juchi Coins of the Vodianskoie Hillfort
The complex of occasional finds of coins from Vodianskoie hillfort that is the ruins of the large Golden Horde town Beljamen on the Volga river, at the place of its approach with the Don river is described in detail. The complex consists of 51 dirkhams and 1311 puls with the dates of coinage from the Hijrah of 710 (1310/1311) up to the Hijrah of 796 (1393/1394). Judging from the number of circulating coins and their types the peak of the town prosperity falls on 40-60-s of the XIVth c. There are illustrations of 69 types of Juchi puls with 2-7 variants are given in the paper, 12 types and 20 variants being published for the first time.
The paper provides evidence that in the 50-s of the XIVth c. there existed a farming mintage of copper coins of the Golden Horde at private mints. The coinage should follow the metropolitan pattern and quality, with the inscription "Sarai al-Jedid" as the place of their emission. There is the evidence that one of such mints was located in Beljamen.
It is for the first time that a grat number of imitations of the copper puls of 30-50-s of the XIVth c. was discovered and more than 60 illustrations of the coins are presented in the paper. The method of weight histograms was used for studying the metrology of puls of the 30-60-s of the XIVth c.
Ye.Yu. Goncharov (Moscow)
The Old and the New Saray - the Capital of the Golden Horde (New Approach to Old Sources)
The present article deals with the reconsideration of the prevailing opinion in the historiography on the existence of two capitals in the Golden Horde - Saray and Saray al-Jedid. Analyzing the written sources available and archaeological data, the author comes to the conclusion that the excavated sites of Selitrennoye settlement are the remains of New Saray which was built in the 30-s of the XIVth c.; as for Saray of the previous period, it has not been found so far. Using the numismatic material the author suggests translating the legend "mint beled Saray" not as "mint of Saray", but as "mint of Saray region". Herewith it becomes clear why New Saray was not called "beled" on the coins; for the notion "town" the words "baldat, medinet, shehr" were used. It is notable that on Fra Mauro's map only one Saray town and the region with the same name are indicated.
Ye.N. Abyzova, S.N. Travkin (Kishinev, St.-Petersburg)
Some peculiarities of the copper Juchi coins from the settlement of Kosteshty (Bessarabia)
The investigation of the collection of Juchi coins from Kosteshty settlement proves the following: the mass migration of copper coins (puls) into Bessarabia in the 50-s of the XIVth c.; and the appearance of their imitations minted locally with the name of the town of Shehr al-Jedid. The coins of Kosteshty-Gyrlya I-II type appeared in the late period of the Golden Horde culture. This could be the evidence of strong need of small change. The group of Kosteshty-Gyrlya I-II type coins minted from sheet copper combines some specific features of the Golden Horde coins and Moldavian ones emitted in the Dniester-Carpathian region, namely they take the inscriptions in Arabian (pseudo-Arabian) and tamga-like signs typical from the first ones and the techniques of coin circles making from anothers.
S.V. Palamarchuk (Odessa)
Turks of Budzhak in the late Middle Ages
The paper aims to be an introduction into the history of the Turkish population of historical region Budzhak located at the steppe area between the Dniester and the Danube rivers. The evidence of the European authors proves the conventional historico-geographical character of naming of different ethnic groups.
Budzhak was inhabited by Tartars of Dobrudzha, Belgorod (Akkerman), Budzhak and Nogai Horde. This population was constituted by the Turkish tribes of different origin and they were not an integral social organism. The first Budzhak inhabitants were the descendants of the pre-Golden Horde population - the Kumans and the nomadic Uluses of the Golden Horde. They have formed the substratum of the Turkish Budzhak population. In the XVIIth-XVIIIth cc. the Nogai people became the main population of the area. They represented the superstratum that was being formed during the late medieval period. The name "Budzhak people" came into use later to identify the Nogai people of the Budzhak Horde in the XVIIIth c.
L.V. Litvinova (Kiev)
The Population of the Lower Dnieper Basin in the XIIth-the XIVth Centuries (on Materials of Mamay-Surka Sepulture)
The article provides the paleoantropological material from the medieval ground sepulture of Mamay-Surka. The study of the inner group structure of the craniological series gave evidence of heterogeneous character of the population which had made the burial ground. The intergroup analysis carried out by using several statistical methods showed that the following series appeared to be close: the series of the settled population of the lower Dnieper Basin, to a greater degree of Alanian variant of Saltovo-Mayaki culture and to a less degree of Bulgarian (protoBulgarian) one. A certain similarity with the series of Polyans and Severyans should be also mentioned.
T.A. Rudich (Kiev)
On Anthropological Composition of the Population of Ukraine in the XVIth - the XVIIth centuries
The anthropological structure of the Ukrainian population reflect the complicated ethnogenetic processes which took place in Ukraine. The paper considers the participation of the descendants of particular nomadic groups in forming the anthropological structure of the Ukrainian population by materials from the Cossack cemetery (the end of the XVIth - the beginning of the XVIIth c., in Chigirin of Cherkassy region). A considerable material of the 1st and 2nd millennium AD sepultures from Ukraine and neighbouring territories is taken to compare with the Chigirin chronological series. The intragroup and the intergroup analysis of the Chigirin series shows that the basis of its formation was constituted by descendants of the population originating from the anthropological types of Sarmat and Saltovo scope.
