scholarly journals Crypt with Third-Century Coins in the Cemetery of Opushki

2020 ◽  
pp. 247-278
Author(s):  
Igor Khrapunov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Archaeological Methods ◽  
Late Roman Period ◽  
Archaeological Cultures ◽  
Made In ◽  
Grave Goods ◽  
Late Roman

The cemetery of Opushki is located about 15 km east of Simferopol, in the Crimean foothills. In the process of excavations, carried out since 2003, a variety of funerary constructions belonging to different archaeological cultures have been discovered. The crypt researched in the current article contained four burials, which were especially interesting because of the find of six coins inside of them. The excavation above the burial chamber of this vault discovered a childs burial accompanied with varied grave goods, similarly to those made in the crypt. The burials discussed in the present study were made in the second half of the third century AD. The second half of the 3rd century AD was the period represented in Crimea by the smallest number of complexes in comparison with the previous and the following periods. Varied grave goods from the crypt and the childs grave greatly expand our notion of the material culture of those people who inhabited the Crimean foothills in that half of the century, which is difficult to be discovered by archaeological methods. Furthermore, the crypt No. 133 belongs to a big group of grave constructions which were widely spread in Crimea in the Late Roman period. Their distinctive feature is a short dromos. Initially, the latter crypts appeared in the first half of the 3rd century AD. However, several of them as well belong to the second half of the 3rd century AD. In the fourth century AD, the majority of burials were made in such crypts close to the Crimean foothills. Many researchers interpret specific construction of these crypts as an evidence of the penetration into Crimea of the forefathers of mediaeval North Caucasian Alans. The material culture of the population of the Crimean foothills in the Late Roman period could be interpreted as eclectic, developed under the influence from various factors. Its sources were ancient and the Sarmatian cultures. Besides, the research showed that there were found some local hand-made vessels, analogies of which were never found outside of the peninsula. Some of the artefacts had penetrated to Crimea area from the areas populated by Germanic tribes.

scholarly journals A Third Century AD Burial Vault with Multiple Burials at the Cemetery of Opushki

2021 ◽  
pp. 217-250
Author(s):  
Igor Khrapunov ◽  
◽  
Anastasiya Stoyanova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Central Area ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
North Caucasus ◽  
Crimean Peninsula ◽  
The North ◽  
The Crimea ◽  
Late Roman Period ◽  
Archaeological Cultures ◽  
Late Roman

The cemetery of Opushki is located at 15 km to the east of modern Simferopol, in the central area of the Crimean foothills. The site has been being excavated since 2003. So far more than 300 graves of various types have been uncovered. They belong to the Late Scythian, Middle Sarmatian, and Late Sarmatian archaeological cultures. There is one cremation complex appeared as a result of the Germanic migration to the Crimea. The complex under present publication belongs to a large group of burial vaults with a short dromos (entry corridor) of the Late Roman period; this type of crypts is found in various cemeteries of the Crimean foothills. Burial constructions of this type are associated with the mediaeval Alans’ ancestors who migrated to the Crimea from the North Caucasus. Although the earliest crypts featuring dromos appeared in the foothill area of the Crimean Peninsula in the first half of the 3rd century AD, most of burials in these constructions were made in the fourth century AD. Burial vault no. 158 has two interesting features. It contains multiple burials typical for the Late Scythian vaults of the 1st and the first half of the 2nd centuries. Such a phenomenon is encountered for the first time in the Late Roman vault. According to the analysis of the grave goods, the complex under study is one of the earliest or even the earliest short-dromos vault discovered in the Crimea. It was constructed in the second half (or at the end) of 2nd or very early 3rd century AD and was in use throughout the first half of the 3rd century. The results of research of this burial construction supply new materials for the solution of highly disputable problem of the Crimean vaults with short dromos origin and of the reconstruction of ethnic processes in the Crimea in the Late Roman period.

scholarly journals Brooches from the Cemetery of Opushki and Their Role in Costume (According to the 2003–2020 Excavation Materials)

2021 ◽  
pp. 22-39
Author(s):  
Anastasia А. Stoianova
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cervical Vertebrae ◽  
General Pattern ◽  
Central Area ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Archaeological Cultures

This paper presents a review of the brooches from the cemetery of Opushki located in the central area of the Crimean foothills. The cemetery was used from the first century BC to the fourth century AD by peoples of various archaeological cultures. 72 of 318 graves excavated there contained brooches. The total number of complete and fragmented brooches discovered there is 190. The largest group comprises one-piece bow-shaped brooches with returned foot and the brooches with flattened catch-plate from the first to the first half of the third century AD. There is a series of brooches made in the Roman Empire, with the most numerous group of plate brooches. There are a few violin-bow-shaped brooches, highly-profiled brooches of the Northern Black Sea type, two-piece violin-bow-shaped brooches with returned foot, and brooches with curved arched bow (P-shaped): great many pieces of these types occurred at other sites from the Roman Period in the Crimean foothill area. In Opushki, brooches appeared in all types of burial constructions, and mostly in the Late Scythian vaults from the first century BC to the second century AD. They accompanied graves of women, men, and children. In the overwhelming majority of cases, one burial was accompanied with one and rarely two brooches; there is only one burial of a child with three clasps. Most often brooches occurred at the chest, in rare cases on the shoulder, near the cervical vertebrae, pelvic bones, or outside the skeleton. It is noteworthy that a great number of brooches was found in the burials of children of different ages, from 1- to 8-12-year-old. Apparently, brooches as a part of the child’s costume were used throughout the child’s life from the very infancy. Generally, the brooch types from the cemetery of Opushki, their distribution in the assemblages and location on the skeletons correspond to the general pattern typical of barbarian cemeteries in the Crimean foothill area dated to the Roman Period.

Church and State in the Notitia Galliarum

1978 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 26-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill Harries
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Literary Forms ◽  
Late Roman Period ◽  
Accessible Form ◽  
Late Roman

Lists of provinces and cities of the Roman Empire were compiled and used for administrative or juridical purposes from as early as the time of Augustus, whose survey of Italy and the provinces formed the basis of the Elder Pliny's description of the Empire. The late Roman period is especially rich in such survivals, the proliferation of which can be ascribed to two tendencies prevalent in the fourth century. The first was the increasing bureaucratization of the Empire, reflected in the most famous and comprehensive of all official lists, the Notitia Dignitatum. The second was the urge to store information on a wide variety of topics in an economical and accessible form. Many lists, which may originally have had an official purpose, survive in literary forms alien to their inception, and which are the work of private individuals.

Finding the Fifth Century: A Late Fourth- and Early Fifth-Century Pottery Fabric from South-East Dorset

Britannia ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 293-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Gerrard
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Late Roman Period ◽  
Architectural Tradition ◽  
Made In ◽  
Late Roman

ABSTRACTThis paper describes a type of pottery made in the same region as Dorset Black Burnished Ware that can be shown to be current during the late fourth and early fifth centuries. This pottery — here named South-East Dorset Orange Wiped Ware — can be used as a diagnostic artefact to identify sites and features of the very late Roman period in Dorset. It also appears to be associated with a new architectural tradition typified by the ‘sunken featured buildings’ present at the late and post-Roman site of Poundbury.

The Roman Frontier in Germany: an Archaeological Survey

1969 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 144-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Schönberger
Keyword(s):  
Recent Literature ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
Archaeological Survey ◽  
The Past ◽  
Late Roman Period ◽  
The Military ◽  
Present Summary ◽  
Made In ◽  
Late Roman

My intention is to base the present summary on the discoveries which have been made in the field during the past twenty years, but obviously within the limits of the space at my disposal I can only indicate the main outlines. My main concern is with the provinces of Germania Superior and Raetia, but I shall also refer from time to time to the results of recent research in Germania Inferior. The main Map B (opposite p. 176) is supplemented by Map A (fig. 16), which shows the military sites of the Augustan-Tiberian period, and by Map C (fig. 23), which indicates the sites of the late-Roman period. Each map is supported by its own bibliographical list; these should be consulted when specific footnote-references are lacking in the text. These lists and footnotes, wherever possible, give references only to the most recent literature and have been reduced to a minimum. For the General Works to be consulted, and for the Abbreviations used, see lists below (pp. 196 ff.).

Economy and Power in Late Roman Britain

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Gerrard
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Roman Britain ◽  
Agricultural Resources ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Surplus Extraction ◽  
Late Roman Period ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Late Roman

This chapter reviews the relationship between power and economics in fourth-century Britain. It argues that the Roman past has often been intuitively understood as rational and that its economics can be easily characterized as ‘proto-capitalist’. The Roman period was, however, both complex and irrational. Agricultural production was the powerhouse of the economy and provided the foundations of both power and status during the late Roman period. The focus on the agricultural economy allows the structures of power – tax, tribute and surplus extraction – and their transformation to be studied. During the fifth century the imperial superstructure collapsed, but the continued local control of agricultural resources provides a mechanism for how the late Roman world was transformed into early medieval societies.

scholarly journals Combat Knife with Eagle-Headed Handle from Cimmerian Bosporos

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 70-78
Author(s):  
Michel Kazanski ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Central European ◽  
The Great Migration ◽  
Late Roman Period ◽  
Sea Area ◽  
Military Units ◽  
Late Roman

In the Romano-Germanic Museum in Cologne (Diergardt collection) there is a combat knife originating from Cimmerian Bosporos. Its hilt is decorated with a bronze image of eagle’s head. The purpose of this publication is to call attention to this artifact almost not known to Eastern European archaeologists. The handles of swords decorated with eagle’s heads from the Roman Period are well known primarily from iconographic data. Noteworthy is the image on a silver bowl from Avignon (the so-called “Briseis Cup”) dated to the fourth century. It depicts a weapon with a rather short blade and a U-shaped chape; all these features resemble the Bosporan combat knife. In the Late Roman Period, swords with eagle-headed hilts were well represented in the images of the persons of status, probably indicating their prominent role of a symbol of power. Generally, eagle is well represented among the symbols of power of the Late Empire, for example, on consular rods or shields with the emblems of military units mentioned in the Notitia Dignitatum. In the Late Roman Period, sword hilts featuring bird’s head also occurred outside the Empire. This is evidenced by the image of the Sassanian Shah Shapur II on a plate from Turusheva. In the “chieftain” culture of the Eastern and Central European Barbaricum and the Northern Black Sea Area from the Great Migration Period, the inlaid patterns showing eagle or bird’s heads is well known on weapons, including swords and horse trappings. In the Barbaricum, there probably appeared the well-known phenomenon of imitatio imperii.

scholarly journals Glass medallion in the shape of a lion’s head mask

2011 ◽  
pp. 277-285
Author(s):  
Renata Kucharczyk ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Period ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Islamic Period ◽  
Late Roman Period ◽  
Early Islamic Period ◽  
Early Islamic ◽  
Made In ◽  
Late Roman

A glass appliqué in the shape a lion's head mask is an example of applied decoration found on late Roman glasses, which may have actually seen extended use as a keepsake or amulet, long after the vessel itself, presumably a globular or conical handled jug or bulbous flagon, had been broken. The medallion in high relief was found during Polish excavations on Kom el-Dikka in 2007, in a cut from the early Islamic period containing fill of mixed date, from late Roman to early Islamic. The paper considers parallels for the piece, both published and unpublished, from excavations in Egypt as well as museum collections worldwide. All are considered to be made in Egyptian workshops and representing traditional “Egyptian” themes, although the idea of decorating glass vessels with applied medallions was hardly a novel idea in the late Roman period and was a continuation of a tradition from Imperial times, but with a different range of motifs. Glass masks of this kind appeared also on other vessels, like glass cinerary urns, for example, and continued to be applied as decoration on late Sassanian and early Islamic products.

Plyshchan microregion of settlements of the Late Roman period in the Upper Don region

2020 ◽  
pp. 60-71
Author(s):  
Grigory L. Zemtsov ◽  
◽  
Dmitry V. Sarychev ◽  
Vladimir O. Goncharov ◽  
Ekaterina V. Fabritsius ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Period ◽  
Late Roman Period ◽  
Late Roman
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