Kadieva А.А.

Key words: Early Middle Ages, North Ossetia, Digorskoye gorge, village of Galiat, Alans, belt sets, weapons, horse harness.
The article covers the elements of the belt sets and horse bridle from the Alanic crypt excavated by E.I. Krupnov near the village of Galiat (Digorskoye gorge, North Ossetia) in 1935. The mixed inventory from the crypt allowed nonetheless to identify two belt sets and to determine the assemblages of origin for the weapons and the horse harness. On the basis of analogies the material has been assigned to two periods: late 7th – early 8th and middle – first quarter of the 8th c. The older artifacts from the crypt are belt-ends with imitation seeded ornament, plain round plates and plates with cruciform-and-rhombic ornamentation. The youngest finds from the burial are the saber and the arch-shaped stirrups, which show an affinity with antiquities of the Saltovo-Mayaki culture. The plates decorated with converging loops and the horseshoe-shaped plates also date to that time. In the light of the above, the optimum absolute date for the Galiat crypt is the second – third quarter of the 8th century.