The Byzantine Buckle From Pisky Village in the Middle Sula Valley

The paper presents the buckle of early Byzantine time from Pisky village of Lubny district, Poltava region in the Middle Sula valley. It belongs to the type D 13 according to M. Schulze-Dorrlamm. A catalogue of such buckles which includes 10 locations with 11 finds has been collected. Such items are known at the burial grounds of Eski-Kermen, Luchyste, Simeiz and Suuk-Su in Crimea. One find was discovered in the Left Bank of the Dnipro — Pisky and in the Ciscaucasia — Diurso burial ground, burial 280. One find comes from the northern part of the Balkans, the area of Shumen. Two buckles of this circle come from Asia Minor. One was discovered in Anemurium from the Cilicia region. The other, from an unknown location, is kept in the collection of the Rцmisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz, Germany. Also, two finds come from North Africa, probably from Carthage. The author divided these buckles into two series accor­ding to the shield ornamentation system. Series 1 — plate with a cross, the rays of which are composed of rounded oval petals. Series 2 — plate with a cross, the rays of which have a sub triangular extension at the ends. Most of them are concentrated in the south of Eas­tern Europe (Crimea, the Left Bank of the Dnieper and Ciscaucasia), in total of six points. Also, one location is in the Balkans, two — in Asia Minor, and one more — in North Africa. Buckles of Schulze-Dorrlamm type D 13 date back to the 7th century, possibly to the second quarter or second half of the 7th century for south part of Eastern Europe. The find from Pisky was discovered in the area of the Penkivka culture. This is one of the few finds of the By­zantine circle in the Dnieper Left Bank. Such finds could have reached the Slavs in different ways but they definitely testify to contacts with the Byzantine Empire

Buckle · Byzantine architecture · Shield · Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History · Eurasian Exchange Networks