Belt Sets of the “Redikar Type” in Medieval Cemeteries of the Volga Finns

Abstract

This article describes the belt sets decorated by metal plaques with nodular rims, which we term Redikar sets after the place where they were fi rst found in a hoard. They are believed to mark the Magyar migration to Pannonia. We discuss the question of when and how such and similar belts got to the Volga Finns of the Lower Oka. The mapping of parallels suggests that their principal distribution area is the Kama basin and western Ural, i.e. places formerly inhabited by Ugrians. Stylistically, the decoration of such belts resembles that of Iranian toreutics and of the cast ritual items from the western Ural (Perm) and eastern Ural. Because trade and manufacture centers with jewelers’ workshops associated with silver mines existed in the Kama basin, this might have been the area from where silver belts of the Redikar type were brought to the Volga basin. The chronology of the fi nds is analyzed in detail, and the conclusion is made that they date to the fi rst half of the 10th century. On the Lower Oka, in the western Ural, and in the Kama basin, the Redikar belts are found in burials of the military elite members. Theу were supplied to the Mordvins along the Volga-Kama trade route, spanning territories from the Ural to Scandinavia. Their presence in cemeteries on the Tsna River suggests that Volga Finns were involved in the formation of early states at the turn of the fi rst and second millennia.