Письменность Гнёздовского археологического комплекса: историографические итоги

Abstract

The article presents an overview of archaeological finds related to writing practices in the territory of the Gnezdovo archaeological complex. The Gnezdovo archaeological complex is a reference archaeological site of the Viking Age for the East European Plain in terms of the variety and richness of the materials found during the excavations. Due to its key location on the Eastern European Plaine transit routes, actually in the center of the territory of the fu-ture Old Rus early state, the Gnezdovo materials can be used to solve many key problems of the 10th century, in particular, to assess the level of prevalence of writing practices. To date, only a few writing objects have been found here, but all of them are unique and can serve as a vivid illustration of how writing penetrated into Old Rus emporia (so-called “open trade and craft settlements”). In general, despite the brightness of the artifacts found, all of them are clearly random, and the subculture of the community of the city’s inhabitants can be called virtually nondescript according to the available data.