Set Belts from the Catacomb No. 31 of the Early-Medieval Burial Ground near Verkhnii Saltiv Village

Abstract

The materials of the catacomb burial no. 31 investigated in 1985 by the expedition of the Kharkiv Historical Museum under the leadership of V. H. Borodulina on the main site of the Early-Medieval burial ground in Verknii Saltiv village (VSM1) are introduced into the scientific circulation. The burial chamber, transverse to the dromos, contained the remains of two people (a man and a woman) with the traces of deliberate destruction committed in ancient times (fig. 1: 1). Inventory found with the buried people (fig. 2) allows dating this complex to the second — third quarters of the 9th century. The elements of the belt set found in the burial, represented by cast bronze plaques and a fragment of a bronze belt buckle (fig. 1: 2—6) are of interest. Two belt plaques with a fixed loop in the lower part of the shield are decorated with a lotus ornament (fig. 1: 6) typical for the 3rd chronological horizon of the Saltiv antiquities. Two square-shaped plaques with a rectangular hole that has a pointed top in the lower part of the shield (fig. 1: 3, 4) are distinctive among the Turkic antiquities of the 8th—10th centuries. Similar plaques of the Saltiv period are found in the assemblages of the Volga River middle region and the Southern Urals (Volga Bulgarians, Magyars, Mordovians, Mari), where they are part of the decorations of the Turk-Ural circle. Five more round plaques are decorated with floral ornament (fig. 1: 5), which finds analogies in the monuments of the “Magyar” circle of the 9th—10th centuries (Elizavetino-Mikhailovka, Kriukovo-Kuzhnovskii burial grounds in the Volga region, burial in the village of Nova Mykolaivka in the Dnipro Oblast). This belt set consists of three types of plaques that correspond to different traditions. Appearance of the set reflects existence of certain military fashion in the Saltiv society associated with the role played by the Magyars in the 830–890s, being in allied relations with the top of the Khazar Khaganate.