Early Medieval Catacomb Burials of Verkhnii Saltiv with Pendants of the Slavic Circle

Abstract

As a result of work (1984–1992) at the catacomb burial ground near Verkhnii Saltiv village, bronze plate pendants of a trapezoidal shape were discovered in three burials (catacombs no. 11, VSB-III; no. 42 and no. 49, VSB-I). The pendants are decorated with lines and dots along the perimeter of the item and a circle with a dot in the middle in the central part of the item (fig. 1: 1, 3, 4). Such pendants are a typical attribute of the women’s costume of the population who left monuments of the Smolensk-Polotsk long barrows circle in the 8th—9th centuries — chronicle Kryvichs (fig. 1: 8–19). In the studied Alanian burials, these pendants formed a single set with typical female jewelry of the Saltiv culture. The burial complexes of Verkhnii Saltiv, in which pendants of the Slavic circle were discovered, date back to the second — third quarters of the 9th century. These pendants are added to the range of similar items discovered in the catacomb burials of Verkhnii Saltiv in previous years (catacombs no. 1, 1911; no. 5, 1904; no. 14, 1947; no. 93, VSB-IV) (fig. 1: 5–7). Personal jewelry, which in traditional societies serve as visible signs and symbols of the ethnic, gender, age, social and economic status of a particular person, in our opinion, testifies to the burial of Slavic women in the Saltiv culture catacombs. Slavic women were included in the Saltiv community as full members, considered as wives or concubines. It is possible to assume that these Slavic women were captured during a military raid or purchased from the local elite by representatives of the Khazar Khaganate while gathering tribute. The practice of capturing representatives of the aboriginal population of the forest and forest-steppe zones of Eastern Europe (Slavs, Balts, Finno-Ugrians) for subsequent sale on the Crimean slave markets was a typical feature of the military-political processes of the Khazarian historical and cultural period.