Суйские погребения с фарфором и золотыми ромейскими монетами (могильник Цзюлуншань в округе Гуюань)

Abstract

In 2004, the Guyuan District (Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China), the Ningxia Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology identified and investigated (during development-led excavations) the Jiulongshan burial ground and two burials (2004YKJM33 and 2004YKJM4), which probably belonged to the Sui era (581-618), based on the inventory (there were not epigraphic sources in the burial). These graves are remarkable from several aspects. First, each of them contained a golden coin of the Eastern Roman Empire (possibly a high-quality imitation of Justin I and Justinian the Great solids), perhaps used as jewellery (although among the majority of Chinese researchers, the version about the parallel use of golden coins as a means of exchange or accumulation of wealth is accepted). Second, the anthropological studies of the authors of excavations illustrated that the graves belonged to the Caucasian race or at least had many features. In Russianspeaking science, these materials are almost unknown, that is why we introduce them into the scientific circulation. Again, such finds prove the fact that the artifacts from the Byzantine Empire played a significant role in the life ofpopulation in China (not only in the Western Region but also in the Yellow River basin) in the early Middle Ages (both in the period of political fragmentation, and in the period of united medieval empires of the Celestial Empire, Sui and Tang). Note that there the coins (and their imitations) of Emperors from Theodosius II to Constantine V are found in the PRC.