The Old Armenian Root “Bulh” and the Bulgars in the Armenian Geography “Ashkharatsuyts” (7th Century AD)

Archaeological Research on Islamic Pottery from Qal´eh Sang, Old Sirjan (Kerman Province, Iran)

Technology of Islamic lustre

Abstract: Trade fluctuations between North Africa and Southern Sicily: the 6th and 7th centuries AD. Cignana as a case study. This essay will examine the trend in imports of African potteries – notably amphorae and fine wares – in a rural zone of southern Sicily. We are dealing with the region of Cignana, not far from the coastline, where archaeological excavations documented a large settlement that experienced a big growth between the 5th and 6th centuries AD. During this period, a shift in the ceramic supply from the Zeugitana towards the Byzacena occurred. Nevertheless, the positive trend in imports persists until the last decades of the 6th century. Thereafter, it shows a decrease until the apparent interruption after the mid-7th century. New changes in the Mediterranean trading system seem to undermine the proximity exchanges between northern Africa and southern Sicily, but not the long-distance ones. At Cignana, this causes a gap in our knowledge that is still difficult to fill today. However, the discovery of a new ceramic class inspired by African prototypes of the late 7th century stimulates further reflection on the material culture of early Byzantine Sicily.

Animal offerings at the Sámi offering site of Unna Saiva – Changing religious practices and human–animal relationships

Abstract. The medieval city of Vlaardingen (the Netherlands) was strategically located on the confluence of three rivers, the Maas, the Merwede, and the Vlaarding. A church of the early 8th century AD was already located here. In a short period of time, Vlaardingen developed in the 11th century AD into an international trading place and into one of the most important places in the former county of Holland. Starting from the 11th century AD, the river Maas repeatedly threatened to flood the settlement. The flood dynamics were registered in Fluvisol archives and were recognised in a multidisciplinary sedimentary analysis of these archives. To secure the future of these vulnerable soil archives an extensive interdisciplinary research effort (76 mechanical drill holes, grain size analysis (GSA), thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA), archaeological remains, soil analysis, dating methods, micromorphology, and microfauna) started in 2011 to gain knowledge on the sedimentological and pedological subsurface of the settlement mound as well as on the well-preserved nature of the archaeological evidence. Pedogenic features are recorded with soil description, micromorphological, and geochemical (XRF – X-ray fluorescence) analysis. The soil sequence of 5 m thickness exhibits a complex mix of "natural" as well as "anthropogenic" layering and initial soil formation that enables us to make a distinction between relatively stable periods and periods with active sedimentation. In this paper the results of this interdisciplinary project are demonstrated in a number of cross-sections with interrelated geological, pedological, and archaeological stratification. A distinction between natural and anthropogenic layering is made on the basis of the occurrence of the chemical elements phosphor and potassium. A series of four stratigraphic and sedimentary units record the period before and after the flooding disaster. Given the many archaeological remnants and features present in the lower units, in geological terms it is assumed that the medieval landscape was submerged while it was inhabited in the 12th century AD. In reaction to a final submersion phase in the late 12th century AD, the inhabitants started to raise the surface of the settlement. Within archaeological terms the boundary between natural and anthropogenic layers is stratigraphically lower, so that in the interpretation of archaeologists, the living ground was dry during the 12th and the 13th centuries AD. In this discussion, the geological interpretation will be compared with alternative archaeological scenarios.

Paleoecology of the ancient city of Tanais (3RD century BC–5TH century AD) on the north-eastern coast of the sea of Azov (Russia)

<p>A large archaeological excavation was undertaken in 2023 prior to the construction of the new Cambridgeshire Southern Police Station directly west of the village of Milton, 4km north-east of the historic core of Cambridge.</p> <p><br> </p> <p>The main features revealed were ditches that formed part of an extensive and complex series of intercutting late Roman period enclosures with associated boundary ditches, trackways, small timber structures, pits , waterholes or wells, a pond and an oven. Activity on the site probably began in the mid-3rd century AD, apparently peaked in the mid- to late 4th century AD and possibly extended into the 5th century AD.</p> <p><br> </p> <p>The remains indicate an intensive agricultural working area where activities related to the surplus production of grain and the penning/keeping and breeding of considerable numbers of domestic animals, principally cattle for traction activities such as ploughing and transport. This working area may well have formed part of a villa estate and evidence from the site and its vicinity indicates that a villa probably lay nearby—most likely in the unexcavated area immediately to the south.</p> <p><br> </p> <p>A wide array of Roman finds was recovered, including a large pottery assemblage, 68 coins, ironwork, copper-alloy objects, glass vessels. These suggested basic, utilitarian occupation and activity, although some objects suggest ‘higher-status’ occupation in the vicinity. Evidence for small-scale bone and antler working appeared to reflect the manufacture of pins and handles respectively. A poignant discovery was a burial of three infants of the same age, very likely triplets, in a pit cut into the inner side of an enclosure ditch, probably in the late 4th century AD.</p> <p><br> </p> <p>This agricultural working area/probable villa estate appears to have gone out of use around the end of the Roman period, <em>c.</em>AD 400 or shortly after, with enclosure and boundary ditches filled up at about this date. No features or finds of Anglo-Saxon date were recorded.</p> <p><br> </p> <p>The results raise important questions as to how land tenure and land use changed after Britain left the Roman Empire in AD 409. Was the estate confiscated or was it abandoned and left to fall out of use? By whom and why was the system of land allotment filled in and levelled? Did woodland regenerate or were larger fields created and still tilled or given over to grazing? Infilling of the ditches suggests that land divisions, and potentially ownership or tenure, were deliberately changed as new systems of control, governance, coercion and military-political dominance took hold.</p>

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This article publishes the results of archaeological excavations of five kurgans discovered using geophysical methods at the Beslan kurgan catacomb burial ground in the Republic of North Ossetia – Alania. Smallscale excavations in different parts of the vast Beslan necropolis make it possible to draw some conclusions. Firstly, the development of the necropolis proceeded in the east direction from the Zilgi settlement. Traces of an unfortified settlement were revealed 230 m from the eastern outskirts of the settlement which was identified by presence of several household pits. In this study, the eastern boundary of the settlement of Zilgi has demonstrably been traced at the time of its maximum expansion most likely dating back to the 3rd century AD. A total of 5 kurgans surrounded by small ditches and containing 6 burials were excavated. The earliest is the kurgan 878, which can be broadly dated back to the late 2nd and early 3rd century AD in terms of its construction design of the funerary structure. The kurgans 874 and 875 located on the eastern periphery of the necropolis can be dated back to the second or third quarter of the 4th century AD according to the characteristics of the strap set and obviously they reflect a period of maximum expansion of the burial area. In the second half of the 6th century AD, burials again occurred in the part of the necropolis adjacent to the fortress, as evidence by the kurgans 876 and 877 containing objects of that time. It is most likely that the population abandoned Zilgi fortified settlement in the 7th century AD, which is confirmed by both the known finds from the cultural layer of the monument, and the materials from the burial mounds published in this work. The reasons for this phenomenon have yet to be established; for the time being, it can be suggested that it might be connected both with environmental changes and with the military and political situation in the North-Eastern Caucasus at that time.

New archeointensity data from French Early Medieval pottery production (6th–10th century AD). Tracing 1500 years of geomagnetic field intensity variations in Western Europe

Seismically induced liquefaction structures in La Magdalena archaeological site, the 4th century AD Roman Complutum (Madrid, Spain)

Bucket-shaped pendants were broadly diffused in various cultural environments from the area comprised between the north-east of the Black Sea and Central Europe. This study attempts, without aiming at being exhaustive, to analyse the objects of this type within the Sarmatian environment. The author examines these pendants from the Sarmatian environment compared to that of other cultural settings, within a broader context and concludes that in the Sarmatian environment, bucket-shaped pendants come mainly from either richly and poorly furnished children and women graves. The author notes that earliest specimens of such pendants are found in the north-Pontic area and originate in features that date to the 2nd – 1st century BC, which suggests that their origin, beside other pendant types, lies in the north-Pontic region. In the 1st century BC, these pendants are present with the late Scythians and the Sarmatians from the north and north-west of the Black Sea, but also in the Geto-Dacian and Germanic milieu (the Poieneşti-Lucășeuca culture). Once with the 1st century AD, the number of the bucket-shaped pendants increases significantly in the late Scythian, Sarmatian, Geto-Dacian environments but also in the cemeteries of the towns and settlements from the north-Pontic area. Still in this period, they start to be recorded in the Przeworsk culture area, as well. Subsequent to the analysis of bucket-shaped pendant finds from the Sarmatian environment, it was concluded they were not extensively used by the Sarmatians, like in the case of other pendant types. The author notes that the majority of bucket-shaped pendants from the Sarmatian environment of the north and north-west Pontic area come from graves dating to the chronological interval comprised between mid 1st century AD – early/first decades of the 2nd century AD. Furthermore, these artefacts are rare in second half of the 2nd century – first half of the 3rd century AD Sarmatian graves and are missing from the second stage of the late Sarmatian period (the second half of the 3rd century – 4th century AD). Following the analysis of the Sarmatian funerary features of the Great Hungarian Plain in which bucket-shaped pendants were discovered, it is concluded that the custom of wearing such pendants by women and children was carried to this area in the second half of the 1st century AD by the first groups of Sarmatians that settled the region. Last but not least, it was noted that in the Sarmatian environment of this geographical area these artefacts were used, to a more or less extent, on the entire duration of their inhabitancy of this area. In the end it is concluded that the massive use of bucket-shaped pendants in the 2nd – 4th century AD in various cultural environments of the area comprised between the north of the Black Sea and Central Europe evidences they became “supranational” artefacts, being produced and used by different populations from this geographical area

El siglo IV d.C. constituye para la arquitectura balnearia un momento de especial desarrollo dado que es durante esta centuria cuando se reforman o construyen los más monumentales balnea domésticos que, asociados a importantes villae, se caracterizan por su amplitud espacial, complejidad planimétrica y riqueza ornamental. No obstante, es también el siglo IV d.C. un momento en el que comienzan a evidenciarse transformaciones en el seno de estas instalaciones que, en muchos casos, dejan de tener función termal para, tras una serie de cambios estructurales, acoger funciones productivas, domésticas, cultuales y funerarias. En el presente trabajo analizamos las transformaciones que afectaron a los balnea rurales hispanos entre los siglos IV a VI d.C. y que conllevaron el final de su uso balneario y su conversión en espacios de distinta finalidad.Palabras clave: Balnea, arquitectura doméstica, Hispania, villae, transformacionesAbstractThe 4th century AD was a time of exceptional development in bath architecture. It was then when the most monumental domestic balnea, associated with important villae and characterized by spaciousness, planimetrical complexity and ornamental richness, were either built or reformed. But it was also during the 4th century AD when these installations underwent a series of transformations, abandoning their thermal function to take on, -after a number of structural changes- productive, domestic, cultual and funerary functions. This paper analyzes the transformations that affected the rural Hispanic balnea between the 4th and 6th centuries AD that led to the end of their use as baths and consequently their conversion into spaces with different functions.Key words: Balnea, domestic architecture, Hispania, villae, transformations.

<p>Historical accounts, archaeoseismic and paleoseismological evidence allowed us to reappraise two earthquakes affecting northeastern Sicily and southern Calabria in the 1st (probably between 14 and 37) and 4th (likely between 361 and 363) centuries AD, to obtain a better reconstruction of their effects and to reconsider their sources.The 1st century event damaged the area from Oppido (Calabria) to Tindari (Sicily), roughly that of the February 6, 1783 Calabria earthquake. The similitude of these earthquakes is further stressed by the fact that they generated tsunamis, as recorded by historical data and by the tsunami deposits found at Capo Peloro, the oldest dated 0-125 AD, the youngest linked to the 1783 event. These earthquakes could be related to the same Calabria seismic source: the Scilla fault. Northeastern Sicily and southern Calabria were also damaged by one or more earthquakes in the 4th century AD and several towns were rebuilt/restored at that time. The hit area roughly coincides with that of the Messina 1908 earthquake suggesting similar seismic sources for the events. However, because close in time, historical descriptions of the 4th century Sicilian earthquake were mixed with those of the 365 Crete earthquake that generated a basin-wide tsunami most likely reaching also the Sicilian coasts. Reevaluating location, size, damage area and tsunamigenic potential of these two earthquakes of the 1st and 4th centuries AD is relevant for reassessing the seismogenic and tsunamigenic potential of the faults around the Messina Strait and the seismic hazard of the affected areas.</p>

Progressive stages in the development of the Old Town region of the city of Klaipėda (in German, Memel) were ascertained by analyzing archaeological and historical data combined with an analysis of pollen, diatom, plant macrofossil, and osteological findings as cross-referenced with radiocarbon measurements. The port city of Klaipėda, located on the eastern part of the Baltic Sea, was an important political, economic, and religious center during the last millennium. In addition to its environmental history, the character of human activity and urbanization of the area during the 16th–17th centuries AD were examined. The chronology of these records is based on archaeological, historical, and 14C data. The results obtained indicate the predominance of a wet boggy environment and the presence of a pond in the investigated territory of Klaipėda during the late 15th and early 16th centuries AD. The formation of a new Danė River channel created an island town, resulting in a defensible residual area for the town inhabitants. An ongoing deposition of a cultural layer began in the mid-16th century AD. Rich zooarchaeological data found in this layer provided new details on human diet and exposed a predominance of domestic animals, especially cattle. Due to intensive amelioration of this area, layers of sandy and clayey deposits were formed during the second half of the 16th century AD. A significant presence of cultivars, ruderals, and weeds were recorded, indicating substantial human activity and increasing urbanization of the landscape. According to the paleobotanical, archaeological, and historical data, the culmination of this process took place at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries AD, when residential areas were established.