Download PDF | (East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450-1450, 43) Iuliia Stepanova - The Burial Dress of the Rus' in the Upper Volga Region (Late 10th-13th Centuries)-Brill (2017).
416 Pages
Acknowledgments
I wish to express my gratitude to several colleagues—heads of the field research and museum staff—for the opportunity they have provided me to work with materials in the collections of the State Historical Museum (Moscow) and Tver State United Museum (Tver) and for allowing me to use materials from unpublished field reports. I would also like to thank Dr. Florin Curta, Ana Gruia, and the anonymous reader for their help with the English translation of this text. My work reflects my research and teaching experience accumulated as a faculty member in the Department of Russian History of the Tver State University.
Introduction
Costume is defined as a complex set that includes clothes, headdress, footwear, and also accessories, cosmetics, and make-up. It combines practical and aesthetic functions, helping people to organize their lives, work, and communication. Costume contains and transmits significant data about its owner, representing a sign system and being a tool for expressing both similarities and distinctions. Thus, costume is a person’s most important means of identification and it provides each culture’s unique image. At present, the research of cultural phenomena in general and that of costume in particular is especially important. The study of ancient costume through archaeological data supports paleoethnographic reconstructions, follows the evolution of costume, and considers the “costume as communication” and its importance in relation to issues of socio-economic and ethno-cultural history of certain territories.
The study of the materials found on burial sites allows for the reconstruction of the burial dress. Ethnographic data from 18th- and 1g9th-century Russia suggests that quite often the deceased was buried in specially-made clothes. Sometimes, the elderly prepared such clothes for themselves. Special techniques were used in the making of burial clothes. For example, during sewing, the tip of the needle was directed away from the sewer; the seams were only made by hand (not on the sewing machine), and using the left hand. No buttons or other metal accessories were used. The textile scraps from tailoring were placed in the coffin,! buried, or thrown away, together with other things that were used in the preparation of the burial. Sometimes the burial clothes were seamed on the body and outerwear was often missing. All these ethnographic data speak about burial dress as something special, intended to separate the dead from the world of the living and to secure the living against the dead.
At the same time, according to the ethnographic data, other symbolic functions of burial clothes may be identified: they were meant to symbolize the transient course of life and to provide, according to the idea of a next world, a natural continuation of human existence in the afterlife. But it is possible to gain knowledge of someone's life based on his/her burial dress? The problem of the relation between burial and lifetime dress has been discussed in both the archaeological and the ethnographic literature.? Writing about ethnographic materials dated to the 1gth and 20th centuries, G. S. Maslova identified the following variants of clothes used for burials: 1) wedding, festive clothes; 2) unsewn or newly sewn clothes; 3) clothes that the person wore before death.? Burial clothes depended on the social and relationship status of the deceased. Unmarried girls were buried in bridal outfits, married women in festive clothes, old women in more modest costumes, similar to the dress in which they had died. Thus, the ethnographic data suggest that both expensive, festive or wedding clothes and casual lifetime clothes could be used as burial garb.
Archaeology confirms the existence of similar customs in Rus’ society. The decorations of headdresses, characteristic for girls who were married young and elderly women and girls buried in wedding attires were found among the materials of urban cemeteries dated to the 10th to 13th centuries.*
Thus, first of all, the burial dress consists of special clothes, that had ritual value. It is most likely impossible to draw an exhaustive comparison between burial and lifetime clothes. But at the same time it is obvious that the choice of burial clothes depended on the deceased’s age and place in society and that they are somewhat similar to his/her lifetime ceremonial clothes. Considering a Rus’ burial dress of the Upper Volga area, one can correlate it to a lifetime festive dress, mainly for the category of young women.
The Upper Volga Basin has a special place in the research of Rus’ archaeological sites. The territory considered in this book covers the basin of River Volga from the headwater of the Volga and the Upper Volga lakes in the west (Seliger, Sterzh, Vselug, etc.) and the upper reaches of the Western Dvina to the confluence of the Volga and its right-hand tributary, the Nerl. The region extends from north to south over about 250 km and from west to east over 400 km. An important feature of the studied territory consists of its historical geographic position, with a concentration of trade and transport knots and ways of advance during the Middle Ages, including the major waterway—the River Volga and its tributaries (Map 1).
In the second half of the first millennium aD, speakers of Slavic languages began to move to the northern and northeastern parts of East European Lowlands. Two important Slavic tribes are mentioned in the region of the Upper Volga, the Krivichi and the Slovene of the Novgorod lands.° The Krivichi inhabited the lands in the upper course of the Western Dvina, the Neman, the Dnieper, and the Volga.® Most scholars believe that the Krivichi came into being through the assimilation of the local Baltic and West Finnish population by the Slavic-speaking newcomers. A clear presence of the Krivichi in the Upper Volga basin is attested around AD 1000. Beyond the Volga, they also reached into the territory of the present-day Kostroma region, as well as the lands between the Volga and the Oka regions. During the gth and 10th centuries, another Slavic group appears in the northwestern part of present-day Russia—the Slovenes. They inhabited the lands along the rivers Lovat’, Pola, Msta, and Mologa, as well as the Upper Volga region.”
Early Krivichian burial assemblages are distinguished by means of the socalled long barrows, which often contain multiple cremation burials. Beginning with the 9th century, however, long barrows seem to have been replaced with sopki, smaller, round mounds. Around AD goo, inhumation replaced cremation. Sopki also appear in the lands inhabited by the Slovenes, and they have been dated between the 8th and the 10th century. Inhumation under round barrows became the rule in the Upper Volga basin around AD 1000. However, traces of cremations point to the survival of old practices. This may have something to do with the assimilation of the Finno-Ugrian or Baltic population, a process that was not completed before the 12th century. As late as the 13th century, there are still signs of a strong Finno-Ugrian presence in the region.® Paleoantropological studies have suggested that the Rus’ population in the Upper Volga region was made up of descendants of the Krivichi living in the lands around Smolensk and the Slovenes in the lands around Novgorod.? The Krivichi of the Upper Volga were clearly descendants from the Krivichi in the Smolensk area. Although Tver was not one of their power centers, they inhabited many of the lands now included into the region of Tver.
The earliest town of the Slovenes was Torzhok, first mentioned in the uth century.!° Toropets on the upper course of the Western Dvina was at same time the main town of the Krivichi. By contrast, Tver, one of the largest towns of northwestern Rus’ is first mentioned in written in the 150s.
The northwestern coast of Lake Seliger and the territory to the east, as well as the upper reaches of the Volga to the Mologa were part of the Novgorod landd. The proximity of the Upper Western Dvina connected the Upper Volga with the Southern and Eastern Baltic region and the upper reaches of the Dnieper connected it with Smolensk and the Belarusian part of the Dnieper Basin. From the uth to the 13th century, the area of the Upper Volga from Seliger to the river Vazuza formed the northeastern part of the principality of Smolensk. The Volga Basin, within the borders of modern Staritsa, Kalininskii, Konakovo, Kimry, and Kashin districts of the Tver region was part of the Rostov and Suzdal principality. By the end of the uth century, that principality covered the Volga region from the mouth of River Kotorosl’ to the mouth of the Medveditsa.!”
In the early uth century, the population of the Upper Volga underwent a process of Christianization. The largest center of Christianity was the St. Boris and St. Gleb Monastery in Torzhok founded probably in the 11th century. The dioceses of northwestern Rus’—Novgorod, Rostov, and Smolensk—took shape in the 12th century. However, Christianity penetrated the local society only slowly. Burial under barrows survived in the Upper Volga well into the 13th century, even though the deceased were often buried together with artifacts with clearly Christian symbolism, such as crosses or icons. For example, burials with stone crosses discovered in Ivorovskoe may be dated to the early 13th century.!* Ivorovskoe thus illustrate an intermediary phase in which pagan and Christian practices were combined in burial. Grave goods began to disappear gradually, including jewelry and fasteners that would allow for the reconstruction of a burial dress. The reconstructions on which this book is based are therefore restricted chronologically to the uth and 12th centuries.
A considerable number of archaeological sites, mostly burials, of the Rus’ on the Upper Volga have been studied during more than 150 years of archaeological researches. The materials of these excavations have also been systematized.
The purpose of this book is to examine the dress of the Rus’ population of the Upper Volga based on materials from burial sites dated from the late 10th to the 13th century. Proceeding from features of the archaeological sources, the main issues considered in this book include:
— the definition of opportunities for dress reconstruction on the basis of these archaeological materials;
— the identification of the characteristic of the main parts of the male and female burial dress; — the recognition of dress variants, according to age and social status, and the territorial characteristics of populations in the Upper Volga area of Rus’.
As it has already been noted, costume helps one understand questions of ethnogenesis, offers a way to gauge the ideology of the community that has created it, and points to social relations, that are all reflected in the material and type of dress used. Considering the chronological changes in dress, the age of the deceased, and features of burial ceremonies in comparison with costume complexes from adjacent territories, it is possible to identify the general and special characteristics in the various options of dress, to track the sources of inspiration for it and the ways in which they were formed.
1 Historiography
1d Research on the Theory and History of Costume
Questions of costume history were generally studied on the basis of chronologically and territorially diverse material. There are a number of surveys that employ written, graphic, and ethnographic sources. In Russian historiography, Mariya N. Mertsalova’s works are devoted to the history of costume since ancient times.!> The character of the sources has often allowed researchers to consider in some detail the costume of separate groups of population, such as the upper class of the Roman and Byzantine society or of the western European countries in the Middle Ages. At the same time, a number of topics remain less developed, for example the history of the costume of rural people, which is poorly reflected in the sources. The preference one can see in existing researches for visual sources can be explained through the fact that such sources give an evident idea of the appearance of a person. The complex analysis of visual and written sources allows one to draw conclusions on the development of fashion, the value of clothes in the life of society, and the way it reflects historical processes and phenomena. In Russian historiography Alla L. Iastrebitskaia and Larisa M. Gorbacheva!® have approached questions related to the development of medieval western European fashion between the 10th and the 15th century, while Natalia L. Pushkareva wrote on the Rus’ female costume.!” Theoretical questions of the history of Russian traditional dress have been developed in ethnographic studies. Independent chapters in historical and ethnographic atlases and encyclopedic editions have been devoted to clothes.!® Ethnographic materials provide researchers with the chance to consider problems of typology of the Russian dress, to identify types of casual and festive, ritual clothes, and to define social, age, and territorial complexes.!9
Researchers traditionally consider the costume under two main aspects: functional and symbolic.2° The cover created by people for the protection of their body against the elements (cold, heat, or precipitation) helped them adapt to external conditions. However, already during the early stages of human development, people attempted to individualize themselves, inventing outer signs in order to give others an idea about themselves and their actions. Coloring one’s body, applying signs on the body, such as tattooes, or having special hairstyles corresponded to the outlook of people and urged to promote a certain psychological perception of the person among others. Thus, clothes and dress accessories appeared at the same time, and if clothes show the functional role of dress and its submission to specific conditions, separate elements of its structure and a certain set of accessories were meant to correspond to the features of outlook and behavior, to traditions existing in a certain society.
The traditional costume is not something static, frozen. In the course of its unfolding throughout centuries, it was affected by changes of life, social structure, interrelations, and the influence of various people. The majority of such changes left a trace in a complex of a particular ethnic dress in general (emergence of new elements) or in various components (material, cut, ornaments) and use (manner of wearing). This renders ethnic (“national”) dress a major source for studying the origin of the people, the ethnic and social development, the historical destiny, and the cultural ties and contacts.
1.2 Researches on the History of Costume in Medieval Russia
The major factor defining the approaches to studying the Rus’ costume is the fact that no complete sample has been preserved. This makes it impossible to work without using all types of historical sources. However, those who have tried that approach are few. Artemii V. Arcikhovskii and Mikhail G. Rabinovich are the most prominent names in that respect. For them, the system characteristic of a dress includes the description of fabric, cut and ornaments, of the major articles of clothing, the differences between rural and urban dresses, and their functions in family and society.?! They used the wide range of archaeological and ethnographic sources, images, descriptions in medieval literary works, documents, and other written sources. Their works show also the difficulties of such an integrated approach. After all, written sources contain, as a rule, only partial information on the appearance of Rus’ people and their clothes. Rus’ visual sources are not numerous, and their value has been debated. It is generally very difficult to correlate names of Rus’ clothes with archeological finds.
The main sources for most students of the Rus’ costume are therefore archaeological. Archaeology for the purposes of costume history largely means an emphasis on dress accessories. Such dress accessories make up a considerable part of the archaeological record of the Rus, generally consisting of various jewelry items and fasteners. Thus, the study of the medieval Rus’ dress is in fact a subfield of the general study of medieval material culture. However, beside the advantages of using archaeological sources for the history of clothes and costume, there are also difficulties involved. The fact that clothes, the “background” against which accessories were worn, rarely survive in the archaeological record makes research quite difficult. Entire samples of clothes are extremely rare in archeological assemblages. In this regard practically all scholars interested in the Rus’ costume who rely on archaeological sources make extensive use of ethnographic analogies.
At a closer look, such studies suffer from a number of problems. First, it is difficult to identify all parts of costume as a complex. Students of the medieval dress who employ archaeological data often pay attention to cemeteries, and especially to inhumation burials, as main sources for dress reconstructions. The idea is to use grave goods, particularly dress accessories found in situ, and their position in relation to the skeletal remains, in order to study jewelry items and fasteners as parts of a costume complex. Therefore, a considerable number of works on this subject are devoted primarily to dress reconstructions, i-e., the analysis of the arrangement of items in actual burials.
Mariia A. Saburova has developed methods of reconstructing Rus’ headdresses and possibilities of reconstructing costumes based on materials from Rus’ burial sites.2# Hers is a general work on the history of Rus’ costume that not only takes into consideration categories of Rus’ jewelry items, but also reaches especially valuable and novel conclusions on numerous fragments of clothes found in burial assemblages.” Mariia A. Saburova, Alla K. Elkina, Natalia V.
Khvoshchinska, Evgenii A. Riabinin, and Irina I. Elkina?* have provided reconstructions of costume complexes and their separate elements based on materials from burials. Firaia Kh. Arslanova, Inna V. Islanova, Alexander N. Khokhlov, and Alexander S. Dvornikov have advanced reconstructions of the costume and its separate elements starting from materials found in burial sites from the Upper Volga and the Msta and Mologa regions.” Studying materials from burials in that vast territory, researchers have noted a variety of complexes of burial costumes. Therefore, several authors have identified specific complexes of female dress—Inna V. Islanova on the basis of materials from the Msta and Mologa regions, Evgenii A. Riabinin and Natalia V. Khvoshchinskaia on materials from the northwestern part of the Novgorod lands. Those specific complexes were believed to reflect the ways in which the costume came into being, as well as various ethnic characteristics of the population from those territories.26
The principal method employed in the reconstruction of the burial dress on the basis of textiles is to relate fragments of textiles or leather to specific body parts, as indicated by their position in the grave pit in relation to the skeleton. Patterns have been observed, which have in turn led to the re-evaluation of the idea of “costume.” In order to study large amounts of archaeological data, scholars have employed statistics: Anzhelika N. Pavlova?’ for the medieval costume of Finno-Ugrian peoples of the Middle Volga region; Vlasta E. Rodinkova,?® Oksana V. Gopkalo,?9 and Svetlana S. Riabtseva®° for the Slavic costume in Southeastern, Eastern, and Central Europe; Anna V. Mastykova for the Alanic and East Germanic groups in the Caucasus and in Ciscaucasia.*!
The method of imposing fragments of fabric, jewelry and fasteners on a silhouette was used by many researchers in the study of the European burial dress.32 Agnes Geijer was the first to show academic interest in finds of textile from the Birka burials. She investigated the layers of textile remaining on the fibulae and reconstructed the structure of clothes.°3 The costume of the medieval populations of Northern and Western Europe has meanwhile been the object of numerous studies by Inga Hagg,* Pirkko-Liisa Lehtosalo,?> and M. Vedeler.?® Dress in Anglo-Saxon England has been studied by Gale R. OwenCrocker,?” also P. Walton-Rogers.?® The latest results pertaining to Rus’ have been synthesized by Elena P. Zots and Sergei A. Zots.39 Meanwhile, the study of archaeological textiles and their correlation with other materials from burial assemblages has made remarkable progress. From Agnes Geijer,*© Inga Hagg, Pirkko-Liisa Lehtosalo-Hilander, Anna Zarina,*! and Silvia Laul*? to Olga V. Orfinskaia, Kirill A. Mikhailov,*? and Irina I. Elkina,*4 scholars have been concerned with the cut of the garment and its separated parts. Collaboratios between archaeologists and specialists in conservation have contributed to a detailed study of such matters. This has also encouraged the study of clothes as ethnic markers.*5
Another problem in the study of dress from an archaeological perspective is that of the state of preservation, and the development of new methods of research based on ethnographic analogies. All authors have acknowledge the limits of the reconstruction of the based on burial goods, because of their poor preservation, especially in the case of organic materials, and because there is an insufficient number of remains of clothes to help with the reconstruction. They have therefore advanced a number of solutions to the problem: using ethnographic data for the research on the medieval dress, developing methods of more accurate recording in the field, and employing natural-science methods for studying textile remains. Archaeological data on the Rus’ and 18th- to 2oth-century ethnographic sources are undoubtedly separated by a considerable chronological gap; one must therefore be cautious in drawing parallels and finding analogies between the two, in particular in the reconstruction of separate copies of the costume. At the same time, typologies developed by ethnographers are very useful for identifying separate types of clothes.* In their works on archaeological remains, Mariia A. Saburova and Valentin V. Sedov have made extensive use of comparisons with ethnographic data.*’ Their conclusions testify to the validity and efficacy of that approach. Thus, during the study and reconstruction of the medieval dress, one needs to know ethnographic clothes, their typology, and regularities of formation. Due to the development of the methods of field research and the adoption of natural-scientific methods of research, scholars dealing with the dress of the medieval populations of the Baltic region and of Northern Europe have a special interest in the study of dress remains. On North-European burial sites not only fasteners and jewelry items made of metal, but also organic materials have been well preserved. Their careful conservation allowed for highly probable reconstructions of medieval dress, including the origin of clothes and their separate parts.*8 One more aspect of studying costume according to archaeology is worth a comment: the research on separate types of dress accessories. Such elements form a considerable part of known categories of Rus’ artifacts. Thus, studying the typology of Rus’ objects, their chronology, and territorial distribution is important for researchers of the Rus’ costume. Archaeologists now rely on a number of typo-chronological series of separate categories of artifacts, on studies of their morphology, technology, and origin.*? Boris A. Rybakov has reconstructed ways of wearing the separate accessories as part of a dress.5° Natalia V. Zhilina has investigated the design features and ways of wearing precious attire’! and Svetlana S. Riabceva has researched the structure and options of Rus’ jewelry items on the basis of items from Rus’ hoards.5? Maria A. Saburova, Alexander S. Agapov, and Tat’iana G. Saracheva have studied ways of wearing temporal rings.53 Liubov V. Pokrovskaia has studied the decoration of the urban dress on the basis of materials from the estates of medieval Novgorod.5*
Aleksandr V. Kurbatov has considered types of Rus’ footwear, its development and interactions with medieval European fashions, and examined numerous sources from Western and Northern Europe.*®
A wide range of specialized publications therefore deal with the study and reconstruction of the costume, its separate parts, and accessories. Archaeological data constitute the basis for the vast majority of those publications. All scholars have acknowledged that studying the Rus’ dress in relation to the character and state of preservation of the archaeological sources is a complex matter.
This book is dedicated to the burial “dress”, intended for the afterlife, a notion different from the concept of folk “costume.” The book examines a set of items including cloth, clasps, jewelry items, accessories, headgear, and footwear. Burial assemblages relate to the interpretation of the burial dress.5®
2 Sources
As the vast majority of the archaeological sources used in this book derive from burial assemblages, it is important to note from the very beginning that the burial represents a complex system of symbols, the full study of which requires appropriate methodologies. Excavation and field documentation are reference points in studying burial ceremonies and burial dress as a key component of those ceremonies.
Rus’ barrows were one of the first types of sites studied by Russian archaeologists. The early period of development of archaeology in Russia coincided with the discovery of a large amount of materials on Rus’ burial sites. Historically, the archaeological study of Rus’ was for a long while based on finds from pre1917 excavations. It is therefore important to assess those materials correctly, given that neither field technique, nor the site documentation in those years could be judged by modern standards. Dress research based on archaeological data is especially up-to-date, but its reconstruction directly depends on the character of the description of burials, a detailed account of the separate nuances in the arrangement of objects, and the graphic documentation of the excavations.
The region of the Upper Volga was one of the earliest to be excavated by Russian archaeologists. This interest was undoubtedly triggered by the proximity of the scientific centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as by an unusual cluster of archaeological sites dated to the early Middle Ages. Intensive archaeological research has allowed for the creation of a thorough source base on the region's archeology.*” The basic principles, reception, and stages of field research were developed during the study of Upper Volga sites since the late 18th century.
Finds from the second half of the 19th and the early 2oth century are of special interest for dress reconstructions. During this period, the methods of field archaeological research were developed. In 1867, members of the Moscow archaeological society prepared a text entitled “Instructions for artifact collections,’ which contain guidelines about the retrieval of objects from burials. The text noted that such a procedure was important, because on the basis of those artifacts, “it is possible to determine an era.’ However, the guidelines were not mandatory.*8
The guidelines produced by Dmitrii Ia. Samokvasov (1843-1911) represent an important milestone in the history of field archaeology in Russia. Participants in the third Archaeological Congress that took place in 1874 in Kiev developed “Instructions for the description of ancient settlements, barrows, and caves,” as well as “Instructions for performing excavations of barrows.’ Those documents standardized procedures in field archaeology, and remained for a long time the main guidelines for field research.5° The instructions on excavations defined the main stages of archaeological work, as well as the rules of keeping field documentation. During the early period, the main archaeological approach to barrows was complete excavation, i.e., destruction. Only after establishing that the barrow may have indeed served as burial mound, archaeologists were encouraged to dig into the soil underneath. Practically all barrows dug out during the second half of the 19th century were excavated by means of a trial pit or trench. However the instructions insisted that an archaeologist be present during the “cleaning” of the burial, so that the location of the artifacts could be properly established and documented. The instructions also contained advice for the preservation of objects affected by corrosion. The observance of those rules promoted the preservation of artifacts in museum conditions, and served to avoid confusion and losses. The field diary, the graphic documentation, and the drawings were deemed to be of major importance.
Samokvasov’s instructions were in demand among members of the archaeological community and they quickly became very popular. Finally, the text was edited by the Imperial Archaeological Commission and became the main methodological manual for field archaeologists. It is important to note that Samokvasov did not regard those rules as definitive, as he predicted that “in the future, attention will be paid to such conditions of which we do not even think now.”©° At the 14th Archaeological Congress, which took place in Chernigov in 1909, Dmitrii Ia. Samokvasov undertook the development of new instructions. His work was then completed by Vasilii A. Gorodtsov (1860-1945).°!
During the second half of the 19th century, a number of societies came into being, the members of which began the scientific study of archaeological sites. Several organizations played an important role in the archaeological study of the Upper Volga area, especially the Moscow Archaeological Society (in Russian MAO), the Society of Amateur Researchers of Natural Sciences, Anthropology, and Ethnography (in Russian OJIEA9), the Tver Museum and the Tver Scientific Archival Commission (in Russian TYAK), and the Imperial Archaeological Commission (in Russian MAK). Rus’ barrows were the main object of interest for those researchers. In the 1860s and 1870s barrows were excavated to produced materials for the Anthropological Exhibition in Moscow (1878). During the last third of the 1gth century and the early 2oth century, excavations in the Tver province were conducted by members of TYAK. Because the main goal of the Commission was to study and publish written sources, only 0.5 percent of its budget was directly spent on archaeological excavations. Nonetheless, the Commission produced an archaeological map of the province, and sponsored the excavation of the Dudenevo barrow group, as well as excavations in Staritsa and Torzhok.®* About a third of all active members of the Commission were in fact archaeologists:. Vladimir N. Kolosov, Vladimir A. Pletn’ev, Ivan A. Vinogradov, Ivan A. Ivanov. Aleksandr A. Spitsyn, Praskoviia S. Uvarova, and Alexei I. Sobolevskii. Their dedication explains why, despite limited funds, about a third of all archaeological sites known prior to 1917 were excavated by members of of TYAK. It is important to note that the fascination with archaeology was not restricted to professionals, but seems to have reached the educated members of the upper classes as well. Noblemen with archaeological sites on their estates, but also local teachers, members of the middle class, and even peasants were actively involved in excavations.
Alexander I. Kelsiiev, Vladimir A. Pletn’ev, Vladimir I. Sizov, and Vladimir I. Kolosov studied the barrows on the Upper Volga during the second half of the igth century. In the Rzhev district, excavations were carried out by Dmitrii F. Shcheglov, the inspector of the Rzhev gymnasium and a peasant named Vasilii Ya. Scherbakov. Evgenii A. Ubozhkov, an agent of the Tver Museum, was engaged in collecting antiquities and excavating barrows. A number of landowners performed excavations on their estates: Mikhail A. DundukovKorsakov and Elena N. Romeiko in the Rzhev district, Alexei A. Izmailov and Alexander M. Bezobrazov in the Zubtsov district, Sergei B. Meshcherskii and Mikhail N. Bastamov in the Staritsa district, Savva N. Mamontov and Vladimir Ya. Chagin in the Korcheva district, and Alexander A. Bazanov in the Torzhok district. Many of those landowners were members of the Moscow Society of Archaeology, Natural Sciences, Anthropology and Ethnography, as well as of the Imperial Archaeological Commission. In other words, they were not amateurs, but people who already had an understanding of the importance of archaeology and of collections of antiquities for the reconstruction of history.
In the early 1900s, large-scale excavations were carried out in the Upper Volga area, by Semion A. Gattsuk in Staritsa, Zubtsov, and Ostashkov districts; Iuliia G. Gendune in the Korcheva district; Vladimir N. Glazov at Ostashkov; Ivan P. Krylov in the Staritsa district; Alexander A. Spitsyn in the Tver district; and Nikolai E. Makarenko in the Korcheva district (see the Catalogue).
The excavations were carried out with a remarkable sense of respect towards the instructions adopted at the archaeological congress of 1909. Most archaeologists used Spitsyn and Gorodtsov’s manuals. Moreover, the TYAK regularly inspected the excavation sites, while at the same time striving to eliminate amateurism. It goes without saying that by modern standards, the methods of field work applied to those sites were at times faulty. For example, barrow embankments were sometimes opened by a trial trench or a number of trenches, barrow ditches were left unexcavated, and the descriptions of goods and of the stratigraphy were quite brief. However, there is also detailed recording in the documentation of the late 1g9th- and early 2oth-century field works, especially of features of the burial and of the position of the artifacts. This makes it possible to a large extent to employ the data from those early excavations of burial sites. There is also a considerable variation in the quality of the recorded information, which is itself the result of different excavation strategies. For example, Nikolai E. Makarenko and Vasilii Ia. Scherbakov excavated the barrows layer-by-layer, while Semion A. Gattsuk, Aleksandr A. Spitsyn, and Vladimir I. Sizov performed cross trenches or extended the initial trench to the burial. Dmitrii F. Shcheglov excavated only by means of trial trenches. It is interesting to note that the detail to which the structure of an embankment was described often depended upon the quantity and character of finds inside the barrow. This is clearly reflected in excavation diaries. Semion A. Gattsuk, for example, excavated inhumations, but judging from his descriptions, also cremation burials with no grave goods. In the case of inhumation burials, much attention was paid to the skeletons and the artifacts found with them. With cremations, in the absence of any finds, the excavator often turned his attention to embankment structures, stratigraphy, and the character of the layers.
In general, it is fair to say that late 19th- and early 2oth-century scholars paid more attention to the burials than to the embankments, the burial constructions, or the stratigraphy. This is of course the result of their greater interest in Russian antiquities and the history of the Rus’. As a consequence, the emphasis was on skeletal remains and on grave goods that could be used for the reconstruction of the burial dress. Ever since 1866, the Archaeological Commission published “Materials on the archeology of Russia” in which artifacts resulting from excavations appeared in table illustrations. Several volumes of this series were dedicated to Rus’ archaeology.®? Based on those publications, excavators were now able to find analogies for artifacts from their own digs. The standardization introduced by such means is obvious in the excavation diaries of Semion A. Gattsuk, Iuliia G. Gendune, Alexander I. Kelsiiev, and Nikolai E. Makarenko.
Kelsiiev's descriptions of burials, for example, are particularly detailed. In his report of the excavation of the Zabor’e barrows in the district of Korcheva, he systematically described grave goods found on the left and on the right side of each skeleton.®* He also noted the position of the artifacts relative to the skeleton: “...skeleton of a woman measuring 2 arshins and 4 vershoks (about 1.5 m)...A wire ring with the diameter of 8 cm by each temple, wire earrings 5 cm in diameter with three exaggerated silver beads on each and small gilded glass beads. There is a lot of loose, light-colored hair. Under the left armpit (over the left breast) there was an iron object of elongated form, 13 cm long, with two small ringlets at the ends... Over the left inguinal part there were two small bronze pear-shaped bells. . .”6
Gattsuk excavated barrows by opening trenches, either in a cross or with one trench from the edge of the barrow to its center and then expanded. In his description of burials, he paid attention to fine details, which are of great importance for dress reconstruction. In a number of burials Gattsuk recorded the location of artifacts on a vast scale. Besides ground plans of barrows with the contours of trenches, Gattsuk’s field documentation included drawings of skeletons with the plotting of grave goods. One should especially note the close-up drawings with the arrangement of lock rings and other headdress fragments (Fig. 1:1). Thanks to similar descriptions and drawings, the ways in which such elements of the dress were worn can be reconstructed. Bead necklaces are also described in great detail, not only by type (thus placing individual specimens within existing classifications), but also by number and order, with due mention of pendants (Fig. 1:2; Map 2:8). In this way, it is possible to compare Gattsuk’s description of the location of pendants in barrow N 3 from Gorbunovo (excavated in 1902) to that in the Blagoveschenie burial mounds (excavated by Inna Islanova in 1985), and thus to attempt a reconstruction of the jewelry adorning the breast (see the Catalogue; Fig. 4, 14:1).
In her reports of the 1905-1906 excavation of barrows in Glinniki, in the district of Korcheva, Iuliia G. Gendune even drew human figures (instead of just the skeletons) with the found artifacts on them (Fig. 3). The location of some of the artifacts is detailed in the text of the report: for example, the buckles in male burials are said to have been found “on the groin” and “on the waist”, a fact that allows one to consider the options of wearing belts. The remains of metal overlays and cord threads mentioned by Gendune’s description (for example, in barrow 28 in Glinniki) may well be fragments of braid decoration. Like Kelsiiev, Gendune recorded the artifacts on the right and on the left side of the skeleton. In her drawings, she also recorded the order of beads in necklaces (Fig. 2; Map 2:9).
Nikolai E. Makarenko’s excavation reports include drawings of burials.®’ The location of the grave goods, however, is given in the text. For example, during the excavation of the barrows found in Vorob’evo, Makarenko marked on drawings the artifacts found on the right and on the left side of skeletons and gave detailed descriptions in the text, with analogies for each type.
Materials from a number of burial sites are known from Vladimir A. Pletn’ev’s summary works,°* the journals of Tver Scientific Archival Commission, publications about acquisitions of the Tver Museum, and the catalogue of the Anthropological Exhibition (in particular finds from Kleopino, Mozgovo, Petrovskoe, Rozhdestvenno, and Igrishchi). However grave goods are not presented in detail in all excavation reports pertaining to those sites. For example, Dmitrii F. Shcheglov and Vasilii Ia. Scherbakov’s excavation reports®? do not mention the location of artifacts. The summary description of some of the grave goods from the Kleopino and Rozhdestvenno barrows, as well as from those excavated in Zagor’e by Vladimir Ia. Chagin make it impossible to classify those artifacts.” Sometimes the verbal descriptions allow for the identification of types only by means of comparison with the description of known categories of grave goods. For example, among the materials from an excavation of the barrows in Gultsovo (Rzhev district) Chagin describes chains connecting two pendants in the form of a “tetrahedral peaked core.” This allows one to recognize the “pendants” as dress pins similar to those known from the costume of the Baltic tribes.”
It should be noted that several archaeologists recorded organic finds as well, particularly remains of textile fabric or leather. However, as a rule, there are is no detailed description of the fabric, especially of the weaving pattern, even though the location of textile remains is specified. Sometimes, descriptions allow one to understand the character of the textile remains, to determine the part of the dress to which they belonged, and to aid in the reconstruction of separate details. For example, in the plan of the burial in barrow 12 excavated in Iagodino,”” Gattsuk recorded the unique fragments of leather footwear and textile in the lower part of a skeleton, by the feet (Fig. 1:2). Such data provide indications on the length of women’s clothes (e.g., leggings) and their combination with footwear.
Thus, the data from late 1g9th- and early 2oth-century excavation reports are prime sources for the study and reconstruction of sets of the burial dress. Shortly after 1900, field diaries reached a relative degree of standardization and there was an analysis and reconsideration of field experiments.
Excavations carried out after 1917 were, on one hand, rescue excavations on the occasion of large-scale development and, on the other hand, a direct continuation of the archaeological traditions developed in the late 19th and the early 20th century. In the 1920s and 1930s, Ivan A. Vinogradov, a researcher at the Tver Museum, Anatolii N. Vershinskii, a professor at the pedagogical institute in Kalinin, and Nikolai P. Milonov, an archaeologist of the State Academy of Material Culture History in Moscow (in Russian—TAMMK)—all excavated barrows.
Vinogradov focused on the burial mounds in Koshevo and Besedy (Kalininskii district), but his descriptions of burials make no mention of where grave goodswere located. He only listed items, sometimes, accompanied by incomplete descriptions. The brevity of the descriptions makes it hard to identify the artifacts and their position in relation to the skeleton. In some cases, an informed guess is all that one can expect, and it can be misleading. For example, the “earring with three rhombic lamellar extensions” that, according to Vinogradov, was found in barrow 3 from the second cemetery in Besedy is most likely a temporal ring with diamond-shaped plate.”
Milonov was the chief assistant in field practice at the Kalinin Pedagogical Institute directed by Anatolii N. Vershinskii. Several archaeologists have repeatedly complained about the quality of Milonov’s excavations, particularly Nikolai N. Voronin and Artemii V. Artsikhovskii. Similarly, when reviewing Vershinskii’s excavation report, Petr N. Tret’iakov noted that “he possibly had little experience in archaeological work.’”4
Large excavations were carried out in the early 1930s by the State Academy of Material Culture History in the Upper Volga basin, in anticipation of the building of a dam and a large reservoir, now known as Rybinsk(-IvankovskoeUglichskoe) Sea, for the Rybinsk Hydroelectric Station. It is important to note that during this period, scholars used the materials discovered before 1917. While working on a number of sites in the Konakovo, Kymry, and Kashin districts, Milonov, for example, collected data from earlier excavations and explorations. His publication includes descriptions of the burials of Kidoml’ia 1, 2, and 3, often with the mention of artifact location.” Drawings”® give an exact idea of the type of objects discovered. However, artifacts in the illustrations are in fact from different periods and most likely different assemblages. It is hard to believe, for example, that 10th-century dirhams were found together with 12th- to 13th-century temporal rings and a semicircular buckle of the Kiev type.””
A level of standardization in the description of burials similar to that introduced in the late 19th century was reached only after World War 11, again as a result of the implementation of guidelines for field archeology. The recommended methods pay special attention to the process of emptying and recording grave pits, noting the need of large-scale drawings and close-up photographs of burials.’® At the same time, different researchers found various practical solutions in the implementation of these general requirements. Recording various burials and their special details represented a unique experience. Large burial complexes on the Upper Volga, such as Pleshkovo-1 and 2,79 Pekunovo-1 and 2,8° Izbrizh’e,®! Bol’shaia Kosha,82 the Berezovetskii burial ground,’? and Kozlovo®* were researched during this period. Large excavations were carried out on sites in the building zone of the Rzhev waterengineering system.85
Recordings of the location of grave goods and of all the details of burials are of great importance to the research on burial dress. The 1:10 scale required by field archaeological instructions for all drawings allows one to see the general position of the skeletons and of separate artifacts. However, such recordings do not provide exact parameters in all cases. In burials with numerous small details, not all features are given a location.
Archaeologists apply different types of symbols in recording grave goods, both large-scale and extra large-scale. The second group of designations— various badges—allows them to include a large number of details, without overloading the drawing. The first group, i-e., the image of things in scale, gives an evident idea of the artifacts. At the same time, in connection with the available ratio of the drawing scale and the real size of things, as a rule, these images represent schematic contours of objects. Small and numerous artifacts cannot be displayed in this way on the drawing in this way. There are two solutions: to complicate, or, on the contrary, to simplify a complex of field documentation. In the latter case the same items are represented by groups and one drawing thus includes a combination of large-scale and extra large-scale representations. This applied especially to the recording of beads in burials. Where beads are found in great numbers, researchers approximately outline them or conditionally represent clusters of beads. The location of each type of beads (made of the same material, having the same color, size, etc.) is not specified. Thus, it becomes difficult to reveal structures of necklaces, the sequence of their assemblage, the exact number of specimens, and the way in which they were worn. Such recording procedures appear in the cases of almost all the excavated burials of the Berezovetskii, Pleshkovo-1 and 2, and Pekunovo-1 and 2 cemeteries. Sometimes researchers filled this important point in their field documentation. A number of the drawings on a 1:1 or 1:2 scale, with a sketch and a description of each item, possesses the greatest accuracy and offers the chance to reconstruct important layers of information. Such a documentation is the basis for the subsequent reconstruction of dress elements. That is precisely the case of the graves excavated in Izbrizh’e and Bol’shaia Kosha, for which separate parts are sketched on a 1:1 or 1:5 scale. Some well preserved burials allow for the study of details related to the place and function of separate artifacts. For example, the number of the strings of beads and the location of temporal rings has sometimes been recorded. Such data can be taken from the reporting documentation pertaining to a number of burials in Pleshkovo-1, Izbrizh’e, Bol’shaia Kosha, and Berezovetskii (Fig. 1:3-6). Photographs also provide valuable information.
Reconstructions of one of the most important elements of the dress—the headdress—substantially depend on the recording of minute details during field research. The schematic depiction of temporal rings is present, as a rule, in field drawings. However, the following data remain incompletely specified in most cases:
— the place of temporal rings in relation to each other. Sometimes rings are inserted into each other with other objects hanging on them. Field drawings do not always allow for the identification of such situations. Sometimes the picture and descriptions allow for the reconstruction of the precise situation;
— an exact location of headdress details in relation to the skull that is obviously important in reconstructing the ways in which they were worn (temporal rings—in the ears, on a rigid basis, in the hair, on the forehead and nape);
— metal items often facilitate the preservation of hair, skin, fabric, and other organic remains. Their exact recording allows for the study of elements of hair- and headdress.
Much depends on the soil conditions for the preservation of burials, in general, and for the materials found therein, inorganic and organic. There are the sites with good preservation of a large number of metal artifacts (Pleshkovo-1, 2) and others with only a very small number of remains, if any (Vysokino, Bol’shaia Kosha).
It is important to note that the degree of preservation of these materials determined the quality of their recording. Badly preserved fragments were often not registered in 19th and early 20th-century excavations. An everyday occurrence of field practice was the loss of textiles fragments. Fabric imprints on metal artifacts also received brief descriptions and were often lost during restoration.
At the same time, much attention was paid to some organic materials during the field research. So, for example in a burial from Pleshkovo-1, textile remains found in relatively large numbers in Pleshkovo-1 were carefully preserved by Konstantin I. Komarov, chief of the 1981-1985 excavations. During the excavation of the Izbrizh’e cemetery between 1975 and 1986, small textile fragments were taken from the burials. Some were examined visually and then analyzed chemically and preserved by Alla K. Elkina. The special attention of researchers was drawn by the unique finds of organic materials that received detailed descriptions and were analyzed even during the laboratory processing of excavation materials. Such examples include the unique gold-thread sewing from Ivorovskoe*6 and the fragments of silk fabrics from Vorob’evo-1.8”
On a number of the sites under consideration here the soil condition did not apparently allow for a good preservation of organic materials. For example, remains from Vysokino and Bol’shaia Kosha (including skeletal remains) have been badly preserved, and finds of dress remains are very rare there.
In certain cases textile materials and separate dress parts have remained in the form of decay spots, which can be clearly distinguished in both structure and color from the surrounding soil. Elizaveta M. Chernykh recorded such data in his excavation of burials from Bol’shaia Kosha®® where traces of bronze corrosion have marked the outline of objects—most likely, stripes on the edge of clothes (Fig. 1:6).
Thus, the textile and other dress remains were not always noted in the detailed descriptions of the 19th and 20th centuries. Preventive measures for the safeguarding of textile remains were rare and conservation steps were not always taken. At the same time separate finds of rare fabrics drew the researchers’ attention and underwent field preservation and restoration.
Photographs of the excavations played an important role in the research of burials. In some cases the photos of burials (such as those in Bol’shaia Kosha or Izbrizhie) reveal the character and location of the grave goods. They are therefore very useful when compared with the text descriptions in archaeological reports. The use of both sources provides the most reliable information.
In short, the materials from excavations of burial sites in the Upper Volga area performed both in the 1gth and in the 20th century provide ample information for the reconstruction of the burial dress of the Rus’ population of the Upper Volga basin. The present work is based on the research of materials now in the Tver Museum collections, such as those resulting from the excavation of the Pleshkovo-1 and 2, Struiskoe, Blagoveshchen’e, Bol’shaia Kosha, Vyrkino-2, 3 and 7, Ivorovskoe, Kozlovo, Zagor’e, Glinniki, Pekunovo-1 and 2, and Vysokino cemeteries; and on finds from excavations carried out during the second half of the 19th and the early 20th century in Izbrizh’e, Zagor’e, Glinniki, Vasil'evskoe, Vorob’evo, Posady, and Pekunovo-2, all of which are in collections of the State Historical Museum. In addition, the State Historical Museum also keeps materials from the excavation of barrows in Beskovo, which were carried out by locals in 1969. Most materials from Izbrizh’e are in the Archaeological Museum of the Tver State University. Metal artifacts from that site have been restored by the author of this book.
An equally important basis of research for this book are the field reports and diaries now in the archives of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academies of Sciences, the Institute of the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Tver State Museum, and the Tver State University archives. A number of archaeological sites have been studied both on the basis of the field documentation and according to existing publications. This is the case of the in Sukhodol,®? Blagoveshchen’e.%° Berezovetskii,?! and Pleshkovo-1 cemeteries.°?
The book deals therefore with the archaeological record from 1,166 graves excavated on 81 sites in the Upper Volga region. Out of all those graves, 459 are female, and 284 are male graves, while in 423 other cases the sex could not be established (Tab. 1; Map 1). Remains of burial dress have been found on 72 of the 81 sites considered for analysis.
The chronological framework of the burials spans from the late 10th to the 13th century—the period of the Rus’ barrow culture in the Upper Volga area.
Special analysis of the chronology of the sites has been left aside, since it is a separate subject. That is why the dates indicated in the Catalogue for each cemetery are general. The authors of the excavations of Upper Volga barrows carried out in the late 19th and early 20th century dated sites primarily on the basis of coins.°3 For sites in the Tver province Aleksandr A. Spitsyn dated barrows to the uth-12th and to the 12th-13th centuries.%* In the 1940s Tatiana N. Nikol’skaia® created the chronological classification of Upper Volga barrows. She took into consideration chronologically significant types of artifacts and specific burial features, and has thus identified two phases, one dated between the uth and first half of the 12th century, and the other between the second half of the 12th and the 13th century. Most typical for the first phase are braceletsized temporal rings—the wire rings of large diameter (5-11 cm), gilded and silvered beads, lamellar blunt-pointed, tied, wired, and opened bracelets, and lamellar bracelets with closed ends.% The second phase is characterized by the contain temporal rings with beads and small-size temporal rings, twisted and lamellar bracelets with a hook at the tip, glass ring beads, and various pendants (round, in form of animals, the composite suspension bracket making a sound or chiming).9”
From the second half of the 20th century, the dates of various Rus’ archaeological sites were established on the basis of chronological scales and artifact categories from the excavation of Rus’ towns and rural settlements.?® Iurii M. Lesman dated burial assemblages on the basis of synchronuous materials from the building phases of the medieval town of Novgorod. He was thus able to establish the chronology of three groups of barrows in the Upper Volga region: Zabor’e, Zagor’e, and Glinniki.99 Similarly, Irina A. Dashkova, Alexander S. Dvornikov, and Alexander N. Khokhlov!™° have dated the Sukhodol barrows to the uth century, while Oleg M. Oleinikov has distinguished the burial phases of the Struiskoe barrows.!0!
To be sure, there are cemeteries in the the Upper Volga region, which have remained in use for a long period between the late 10th and, probably, the late igth century: Berezovetskii, Izbrizh’e, Koshevo, and Dudenevo. The largest number of early burials, dated to the late 10th century or to the first half of the uth century, are known from the Berezovetskii cemetery. In Struiskoe, burials in barrows began some time at the end of 1st millennium AD and ended in the 13th century. Most burial assemblages in the Upper Volga region are dated between the second half of the 1th and the mid-12th century (Izbrizh’e, Glinniki, Zabor’e, Zagor’e, Bol’shaia Kosha, Pekunovo-z, Ust’e, Vorob’evo-2, and Malyi Bokhot). Some groups of barrows include burials dated to the uth century: Pleshkovo-1, Sukhodol, and Posady. Burial on a number of sites appears to have begun only in the late uth or even early 12th century: Besedy-2, Blagoveshchen’e, Mozgovo, Iagodino, Vysokino, Ivorovskoe, Rozhdestvenno, Silmenevo, Kozlovo, Mokrye Pozhni, Vysokino, Iurkino, Pleshkovo-2, Kidoml’ia-3, and Sutoki-1 and 2. For a number the sites only broad dates are available, either uth to 12th or even uth to 13th century (Petrovskoe, Gorbunovo, Gostoml’ia, Kidoml’ia-1 and 2, Volosovo, and Sukharino).
Most early burials, dated to the late 10th or the first half of the uth century, have been found in the western part of the Upper Volga region. Early burials in Berezovetskii and Struiskoe are either cremations or inhumations. The burial dress in Berezovetskii is characterized by a peculiar headdress including the nimbus with bronze spirals and plates, sometimes in combination with bracelet-sized temporal rings. The cluster of early burials in the eastern part of the region was first noted by Iurii M. Lesman.!0* Many such burials are located near the confluence of the Volga with the Medveditsa and Soz’ rivers (Pleshkovo-1, Posady, Pekunovo-1 and 2, Ust’e, Vyrkino-3, Vorob’evo-2, and Kashin). Those burials are inhumations with a typically large number of grave goods. The burials in Pleshkovo-1, which have been attributed to the native population of the Meria tribe, are unique. The burial dress on that site is characterized by a large number of chiming jewelry, created in the traditional “Meria” style. Features believed to the typical for the local Finno-Ugrian population, especially the very specific jewelry, have also been recorded in burials from Pekunovo-1 and 2, Ust’e, Vorob’evo-2, Vyrkino-3, Posady, and Kashin. Apparently, Finno-Ugrians played an essential role in the formation of the Rus’ population in this part of the Upper Volga region. Single early burials are to be found in the central part of that region, in the territory of modern Rzhey, Staritsa, and Kalininskii
districts of the Tver region (Izbrizh’e, the Mokrye Pozhni, Koshevo, Dudenevo). The cremations and inhumations of the first half of the 1th century are, as a rule, in flat graves. Female burials have produced bracelet-sized temporal rings and bead necklaces. Whole vessels were, as a rule, deposited by the feet of the deceased in such burials.
Burials dated between the second half of the 11th and the mid-12th century appear all over the Upper Volga region. They are all flat graves. Grave goods include bracelet-sized temporal rings, wrist jewelry, details of a widespreadtype of belt, and necklaces made of beads. A characteristic sign is also the existence of pots deposited by the feet of the deceased.
In the central part of the region, namely in the basins of the Volga and its tributaries Tvertsa, T’ma, and Shosha, one can note clusters of the latest burials dated to the 12th and 13th centuries. Those burials typically produced fewer grave goods, such as bracelet-sized temporal rings or rings of average diameter. There are also many burials with no grave goods whatsoever, which can only be dated broadly between the uth and the 13th century. Burial under mounds began in the 12th century. Observations made in Izbrizh’e show that the depth of the graves gradually increased from 0.2—-0.3 m to 1.2 m. A few graves with skeletons in sitting position appear in the western part of the Upper Volga region, and are also dated to the 12th century (Struiskoe, Petrovskoe).
The clusters of chronologically different groups of burials in different parts of the Upper Volga region may reflect the settlement of different ethnic groups. The earliest burials (late 1oth—u1th century) appear in both the western and the eastern parts and are characterized by features apparently connected with the local Baltic and Finno-Ugrian population. Isolated burials of this early period have also been found in the center of the region. Burials dated between the second half of uth and the first half of the 12th appear throughout the entire territory under discussion, and that is also true for 12th- to 13th-century burials. Features that may be associated with ethnic traits disappear from burials dated to this period, which are otherwised characterized by a remarkable uniformity in terms of grave orientation and burial dress, particularly the headdress associated with female graves. During the later phase (12th-13th century) barrow graves become more common but, at the same time, there are visibly fewer grave goods. Unfortunately, almost nothing is known about rural burial grounds of the later Middle Ages in the Upper Volga region. Late medieval burials had fewer grave goods, much like those dated to the 12th and 13th centuries. It appears, therefore that during those centuries the transition was made from barrow burials to burials in flat cemeteries.
Methods of Research and the Structure of the Book
The examination of the grave goods allows for the identification of the main details of burial dress. The organic details of the dress, i.e. fabric, leather, and birch bark, have only been preserved in fragments and imprints on other items. They do not allow for the precise reconstruction of clothes. However the place of various dress details marks the parts of clothes that have not been preserved and allows for the formulation of hypotheses on their structure and origin. I have therefore used the method of identifying areas in each burial (Fig. 5), in order to associate them to specific elements of the dress. G. F. Nikitina used a similar approach for burials of 3rd- to 4th-century Chernyakhov culture.!°3 The identified areas correspond to the main dress parts:
zones 1, u—headdress,
zones 2, 3, 4,5, 8, 9—clothes, including collar, breast, and belt areas, zones 6, 7—jewelry of wrists and hands,
zones 9, 10—footwear.
According to the items found in each area, taking into account their function, one can define them as details of the corresponding dress parts. In addition, the location of artifacts in relation to each other has also been taken into consideration (for example, for temporal rings), as that provides additional information for the reconstruction of the way in which various dress elements were being worn, and of their general shape.
Well-preserved artifacts became the main materials for the present study. These are jewelry items and details made of metal, glass, stone, and other inorganic materials. The analysis of grave goods has showed a great variety of burial dress elements and has identified features of their place in the costume. At the same time, data sets on separate elements of dress are stressed in the studied material: female headdress, bead necklaces, details of the costume in the chest area, wrist jewelry, etc. Dress remains require special consideration. Through studying the structure of burial inventory I have revealed the existence of burials with and without dress remains. A number of cemeteries include only burials without dress remains (Map 1): Vaulino, Kamenka, Kidoml’ia-2, Klimovo, Mogilitsy-2, Rogovo, Svistunovo, Sukharino, Tikhmenevo, Troitsa, and Sholokhovo. For the study of dress assemblages, I have therefore selected materials from 80 sites.
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