Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 47 (2) 2019   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2019.47.2.060-068

Annotation:  Late Middle and Early Upper Paleolithic of the Eastern Adriatic and the Problem of the Regional Midd Insight into Ceramic Technologies at the Maikop Site of Ust-Dzheguta, Karachay-Cherkessia Chalcolithic and Bronze Age (4th to 3rd Millennia BC) Burials with Gold Ornaments in the Caucasian M Archaeozoological Studies at Konoplyanka, the Southern Trans-Urals Burials in Anthropomorphic Jars in the Philippines The Tamga Signs of the Turkic Nomads in the Altai and Semirechye: Comparisons and Identifi cations Belt Sets of the “Redikar Type” in Medieval Cemeteries of the Volga Finns An Assemblage from a Medieval Burial at Lake Parisento, Gydan Peninsula, the Arctic Zone of Western Finds of Medieval Coins from Eski-Yurt, Crimea Children’s Games in the Sociocultural Space of a Siberian Town: Historical and Archaeological Contex On the Methodology of Studying Palimpsests in Rock Art: The Case of the Shalabolino Rock Art Site, The Use of Remote Sensing, Geophysical Methods and Soil Analysis in the Study of Sites Disturbed by Miklouho-Maclay’s Legacy in Russian- and English-Language Academic Research, 1992–2017 Remnants of the Snake Cult Among the Khakas (Late 19th to Mid 20th Century) “Taiga” and “River” Components in the Nanai Socio-Tribal Organization at Lake Bolon, the Lower Amur The Armenian Epic Poem “Daredevils of Sassoun” and the Mahabharata: Similarity of the Ethnographic S Antemortem Cranial Injuries in the Altai Mountains Pastoralists of the Scythian and Xiongnu-Sarmatia   

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

O.V. Zelentsova

Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Dm. Ulyanova 19, Moscow, 117036, Russia

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

Keywords: Middle Ages, Volga Finns, Ugric tribes, belt sets, cemeteries, Redikar hoard