Sergey E. Toropov

Novgorod State University, Veliky Novgorod, Russia

E-mail: s_toropov@mail.ru

Keywords: Ilmen region, Knyazhya Gora fortified settlement, Demyan/Demon township, spiral temple rings, iron fibulae, analogies, dating.

During excavations at the Knyazhya Gora fortified settlement in the south-eastern Ilmen region in 1976, two objects were found within an assemblage dating back to late 1st millennium AD: a single-spiral temple ring and an item resembling a horseshoe-shaped fibula, but with a flat arc and spiral ends curled outward in the same plane. Both objects fall outside the general cultural and archaeological background of the region. They are separated from the main area of concentration of morphologically similar artifacts by hundreds of kilometers; moreover, several centuries separate the found objects from the time of their common occurrence. The available field records made it possible to clarify the archaeological context and dating of the finds. An analysis of analogies allows the author to assume that the emergence of individual single-spiral temple rings in the early Rus centres of the Ilmen, Upper Volga and Upper Dnieper regions is associated with the destruction of settlement structures in the Oka and Don interfluve at the end of the 1st millennium AD. The iron fibula-shaped object is supposed to be an element of a northern European ring-shaped pin.

DOI: 10.31857/S0869606325030141