Bident stuff

From: tgpedersen
Message: 64990
Date: 2009-09-06

Google cache image of the inaccessible
http://www.mnuai.ro/docs/apulum/articole/1.fetisov.pdf
pp. 299-314


Al. Fetisov, Irina Galkova

The `Rurikid Sign' from the B3 Church at Basarabi-Murfatlar


'The complex of cave churches situated near the village of Basarabi, in Dobrudja (Romania), not far from Constant.a, was discovered in 1957. Until the last third of the tenth century the entire complex consisted probably of a group of limestone quarries which provided various blocks of chalk used in the construction of the upper part of the Great Stone Wall of Dobrudja, from Constant,a up to Cernavoda^. According to I. Barnea, the extraction of stone could have ended under John Tzimiskes (969-976) or Basil the 2nd (976-1025)1. The abandoned caves could have been then transformed into a monastery. It so happened that the complex changed into a group of churches and burial chambers, located inside the limestone hill, at different levels, and interconnected through galleries. Most of the chamber-walls are covered with overlapping graffiti, including drawings and inscriptions, thus making possible to discern different periods of the site's history. The variety of the graffiti is wide: there are Christian symbols, drawings of animals and men, Turkic runes, and Cyrillic inscriptions2. Various hypotheses put forth the attribution of some of them to Pechenegs or even to a Scandinavian tradition3. These drawings could have appeared as early as mid-tenth century, as supposed by D. Ovcharov4. Among the Basarabi graffiti there is a large number of runic inscriptions and separate signs, undoubtedly of Turkic origin. V. Beshevliev adduced convincing analogies to these graffiti, such as drawings and inscriptions from the Humarinskoye and Mayatskoye sites, inscribed wine vessels from Novocherkassk museum, etc.5.

Upon the south-western wall of the B3 church's nave at Basarabi has been scratched a drawing of a bident shape (fig. 1 and 2). The drawing has the approximate size of 12x12.5 cm. Both jags are sharpened at their top, and the lower part of the sign (the "stem") is quite wide. This `stem' is divided into two parts by a vertical line. A recently proposed hypothesis interprets this drawing as a patrimonial sign of the Russian prince (knyaz') Svyatoslav (957-972)6. The purpose of the present paper is to examine the Basarabi sign in the context of similar ones and to analyze its possible place among them.

Since the 1920's, bidents and tridents of similar shapes have been regarded in Russian historiography as private and patrimonial signs of the Rurikid dynasty7. It is not my intention here to discuss the semiotics of bidental and three-dental signs; however, it is necessary to sketch briefly the actual state of the problem.

The origin and meaning of the bident signs (and of the typologically similar trident one respectively) cannot be clearly discerned. Such signs were used as symbols of authority by many peoples from the Eurasian area, since the times of the Sassanid Iran and Khazaria until those the Golden Horde and the Crimean Khanate8. The tradition of using such tamgas had already been identified as related to the Sarmatian tribes of the first centuries A. D. Alans (an Iranian ethnic group), who formed the major part of Khazarian Khaganate's population, preserved a lot of their `Sarmatian heritage', including tamgas9. The shape of such tamgas and the tradition of their usage developed without interruption since the first centuries A. D. to the Middle Ages and further on. The Sarmatians used them to mark their arms, personal belongings, jewels etc. The objects marked with patrimonial tamgas were placed inside the tombs of various representatives of the noble clans10. The analysis of these tamgas' spreading helps even reconstructing the history of noble clans: their bloom and extinction, their displacement, the dynamics of their matrimonial relations, etc.

The royal signs from Bosphorus (1st to 4th centuries A.D.) are in fact the tamgas of sovereigns descended from Sarmatian and Alanian milieus. Once having achieved supreme power, a noble would have turned his patrimonial tamga into a symbol of state authority. One must bear also in mind that there has been a period in the history of the Bosphoran Kingdom (during the 2nd-3rd centuries A. D.) when the patrimonial signs of several rulers had the same form in their lower part, and some variations the upper one. A son, having inherited his father's tamga, added his personal elements to the sign11. The Rurikid signs followed quite a similar development pattern, since the signs of the Russian princes, particularly those detected on coins and lead seals, were inherited from father to son, with the addition of some personal elements, just the same way as in the Sarmatian and Alanian traditions.

The hypothesis proposed by V. S. Drachuk12, who suggested that the "Rurikid sign" could have derived from the Sarmatian signs and the signs of the Bosphoran Kingdom, has been regarded as uncertain for quite some time, due to the large time gap between the époques of the Sarmatians and of the Bosphoran Kingdom on one hand, and Old Russia on the other hand. Nonetheless, recent works of C. A. Yatsenko have brought out clearly the unbroken passage from the Sarmatian and Alanian tradition, thus remitting this chronological problem13.

The East European steppes and the Northern coast of the Black Sea were in the eighth and in the ninth centuries an area where an active cultural exchange took place between the Turkic (Bulgarians, Khazars, Pechenegs), the Iranian (Alans) and the Greek populations. Therefore, it is often impossible to discern Turkic and Iranian traditions, since they both make use of the tamgas14. Turkic peoples adopted various types of tamgas from Iranians. In Byzantine colonies, too, there was a tradition to mark different objects with signs resembling the steppe tamgas. The use of tamgas in Iranian and Turkic traditions is quite clear: they were patrimonial signs of the clan and possessors' marks. Thus, the signs on stones and bricks found in the ramparts of various Lower Don sites (Mayatskoye, emikarakorskoye, Pravoberezhnoye Tsimlyanskoye, also Sarkel) belong to the local families and the clans of their builders15. Different tools, household goods and cattle were marked with tamgas as signs of ownership; they were also used as potter mark indicating the family or clan the workshop belonged to.

S. A. Yatsenko pointed out that most of the tamga-like signs in the territory of the Khazar Khaganate belonged to an Iranian (not Turkic) tradition, i. e. they must indicate the traces of an Alanian rather than of a Bulgarian population. At the same time, it is only in the Lower Don area (where Bulgarians were the most active part of the population) that he found closest parallels to the tamgas of Danube Bulgaria16.

Bident and trident tamgas have also been discovered throughout the territory of Khazar Khaganate, inscribed upon different objects such as metallic belt plates (at the Podgorovsky burial ground), as graffiti upon stone blocks and bricks of fortresses (at the sites of Sarkel, Mayatskoye, Semikarakorskoye, and Humarinskoye), and potter marks on vessels (at the Dmitrievsky burial ground). A number of such signs, resembling the Sarmatian and Alanian traditions, have been interpreted as symbols of authority – tamgas of the ruling clans17.

It is worth noticing that bidents were much more abundant than tridents in Khazaria18. Among them one may note various signs bearing close analogies to the Basarabi one (fig. 3). The tamga-like signs of Khazaria certainly do not coincide with the "Rurikid sign", but they are similar in structure, and, most important of all, they belong to the very same period.

While discussing the Rurikid sign's possible descent out of a Khazar tradition, one should also remember that the Russian princes claimed the "khagan" title, a fact that has been registered in written sources for quite a long period: since the Annals of St. Bertin, which offer the account of the 838-839 events, up to the Word on Law and Grace of metropolitan Illarion (mid-11th century).

Another hypothesis claims a Germanic origin of the Rurikid sign. As supposed by various scholars, the trident can be a simplified image of a flying falcon, a bird widely known in Northern Europe as a symbol of power. Decorations of Old Russian scabbards give some examples of falcon images similar to the one possibly represented by the trident. This North-European version of the origin of the Rurikid sign has been suggested by Paulsen, and it gained its acknowledgement in the Soviet historiography19. It is still embraced by various Russian and foreign scholars20, but it cannot explain the constant changes in the bident and trident shapes of the 10th-12th centuries.

It is almost impossible to prove the Iranian/Turkic or the North-European origin of the Rurikid sign. Still, the use of bidents and tridents in Old Russia (scratched upon different objects as signs of possession or of early state authority) and their inheritance alterationpatterns rather hint at an Eastern tradition, though the process of its borrowing is unclear.

The Rurikid signs (both bidents and tridents) have been found on objects of different types in pre-Mongolian Russia (10th through 12th centuries) such as metal pendants, pendent seals (Novgorod and its region), bludgeons (Minsk, Sarkel, Kiev), silver Arabian dirhams, first Russian coins – srebrenniks and zlatniks; on pottery (as potter marks), etc. A trident has been also inscribed upon a wall of Saint Sofia in Kiev (as graffito). As we are especially interested in bidents, we shall subsequently discuss only this category. Listed below are objects dating from the 10th and early 11th century marked with bidents.

Two pendants of the 10th century representing bidents were found in the territory of Old Russia. One of them is from Gnyozdovo (Smolensk region), the other one is from Novgorod. The one from Gnyozdovo belongs now to a private collection (fig. 4.1)21. It was found on the territory of an ancient settlement. The pendant is made of low-grade silver, with a portion of copper amounting to 40-50 %. One of its sides bears the depiction of a bident, and the other one of a banner. S. V. Beletsky proposed its dating in the late 10th century, comparing it to a similar banner depiction on a pendant from Kakuai, made apparently before 970 22.

The pendant of Novgorod was made of ivory (fig. 4.2). It was found during excavations in a level dating from 954-973. There is a trident on one of its sides, while the other side bears a bident, later transformed into trident. The side bearing the bident is the obverse. It has been suggested by V. L. Yanin that the bident could have been transformed into a trident, because its middle jag is traced very lightly. This trident can be ascribed to Prince Vladimir, and it was during this very period that Novgorod passed from Svyatoslav to Vladimir. The initial bident could have been Svyatoslav's sign, later altered to become the patrimonial sign of Vladimir23. Certainly, such a reconstruction is strictly hypothetical. Still, one should bear in mind that the pendant's dating and the way it was depicted allow its ascription to Svyatoslav.

Another category of objects bears bidental depictions: the Arab coins (dirhams). 13 dirhams of that kind (two of them are presumable) have been inscribed with bidents in the shape of linear images or outlines; they are quite large and occupy all the central part of the coin. Some dirhams were coined long before Svyatoslav's time. Two cases allow the supposition that the bidents were also drawn on them before his time – cf. items 1 and 2 (see the list below). These coins were found in hoards dating from a time before Svyatoslav's reign. Other coins were minted after Svyatoslav's death (cf. items 3, 4, 5). In some cases we can speak of bidents only presumably (cf. items 6, 7), and in three other cases the hoards date back to Svyatoslav's reign, presumably assigning the bidents to Svyatoslav (cf. items 8, 9, 10). In three other cases such a possibility is not excluded either, though the coins were minted before his time (cf. items 11, 12, 13).

1. The oldest coin bearing a bident belongs to a hoard dated from the late 9th or early 10th century, found in Gotland (the most recent coin from this set was minted in 880-885). The bident image is linear. The coin is preserved in Stockholm (fig. 5.1)24.

2. A coin with an outlined bident (fig. 5.2), from Pogorel'shchinsky hoard, early 10th century (Minsk region, Byelorussia). On the other side there is a banner.

3-4. Two coins with similar linear bidents (minted in 979–980 and in 988–989), in hoards found in the Middle Dnieper area (fig. 5.3 and 5.4)25.

5. A coin from an unknown hoard, with an outlined bident, coined in 974-975 (fig. 5.5). It has two apertures; it was used as a pendant26.

6. A coin from Vas'kovsky hoard (found in Pskov region), hoarded in the early 11th century. It's a Samanid dirham minted in 954-961. Only half of the coin has been preserved and it bears the lower part of what is assumed to be a bident (fig. 5.6)27.

7. A coin minted about 894, preserved in Stockholm28. The scratched image can be interpreted as a bident, though it can be an inaccurately drawn trident as well (fig. 5.7).

8. A coin from a hoard buried in Kopiyevka in the Middle Dnieper area (Ukraine, Vinnitsa region) in 950's. The dirham was minted in 911-912 and it bears an outlined bident. On the other side there is a simplified depiction of a drinking horn (fig. 5.8)29.

9. A coin from a hoard buried in the early 11th century in nowadays Estonia, with an outlined bident (fig. 5.9). The coin was minted in the 10th century. The drawing is uneven, some lines being left unfinished. The dirham has two apertures for hanging; when hung, the sign takes its right position.

10. A coin from a hoard buried in the mid-tenth century, found in Zvenichevo on Middle Dnieper. The bident image is incomplete (the right and the lower parts are missing) (fig. 5.10). The coin was minted in 895-90530.

11. A dirham minted in 919-920, preserved in Copenhagen (the place of discovery is unknown). The bident is drawn as an outline (fig. 5.11)31.

12. A Samanid dirham coined in 913-914, with an outlined bident. The place of discovery is unknown. The bident image is formed by deep straight lines on the reverse of the coin (fig. 5.12). On the obverse there is a drawing that can be interpreted as a boat stern with a lifted steering oar.

13. A Samanid dirham, minted in 924-925. Found apparently in Sweden and preserved in Berlin. The bident outline is on the right side (fig. 5.13)32.

The function of these bidents on dirhams cannot be defined precisely. The most convincing explanation is that they served as symbols of state authority. The coins bearing Rurikid signs were probably related to the milieu of the Great Prince of Kiev and his armed entourage (druzhina). The fact that about a half of all these coins were found in the Middle Dnieper area, and that some of them bear also the "druzhina signs" – banner depictions, of boats and drinking horns – also speaks in favor of this hypothesis33. Since the time of Vladimir's rule, the first Russian coins – srebrenniks and zlatniks – were marked with tridents (excluding the coins minted by Sviatopolk, whose mark was a bident with a cross) as signs of their use as legal monetary units. The tridents (being at that time the private and patrimonial sign of Rurikids) were used here as symbols of state authority. I. G. Dobrovol'skiy, I. V. Dubov and Yu. K. Kuz'menko supposed that the Russian princes, before minting their own coins, used to mark dirhams with their signs, thus converting them into state units of payment. During Svyatoslav's reign the dirhams were marked with a bident as sign of state authority34. This is all the more plausible since 13 out of the 16 known dirhams marked with the Rurikid signs bear bidents, and only three coins are marked with tridents. After the first Russian trident-marked coins issue and circulation, there was no more need to draw these signs on dirhams.

Two most remarkable objects, bearing bidents (although their attribution is rather questionable), are a lead seal from Kiev and a round ivory plate from Sarkel (Rus. Belaya Vezha). While frequently mentioned in Russian historiography, they still haven't been sufficiently studied yet.

The lead pendent seal with bident depictions was found in 1912 during the excavation of the Desyatinnaya church, conducted by D. V. Mileev (fig. 6.1). By 1970, when V. L. Yanin's fundamental work on bulls was published, the object has been lost and only drawings of it have survived. On both sides there were bidents with barely legible inscriptions around them. Though these drawings were published more than once35, Yanin in 1970 was the first to analyze and interpret the bident36. His hypothesis was based on the evolutive patterns of the Rurikid sign, reconstructed according to the tradition of Russian historiography. V. L. Yanin traced a certain regularity in their inheritance: each sign appears as a combination of `patrimonial' features – the graphic base that is common for all the Rurikid signs – and personal details distinguishing individual princes. Thus we have here the same inheritance system as in Bosphoran/Alanian tradition
already mentioned as such for the Rurikid signs by A. V. Oreshnikov: the passage of the sign from father to son with the addition (or elimination) of various details37.

The same seal became one of the main arguments for the attribution of the bident sign to prince Svyatoslav Igorevich. N. P. Likhachyov has read an epigraphic fragment as "…stla…" (...) and has interpreted them as a part of the first name Svyatoslav. A. P. Motsya and A. K. Syromyatnikov have seen there "a Russian inscription made with Greek letters which reads prince Svyatoslav"38. The most convincing interpretation was given by A. A. Molchanov, who has read it as the name Svyatoslav written in Greek39.

Moreover, Svyatoslav's seal is also mentioned in written sources. For instance, seals on the peace treaty document with the Greeks in 971 are mentioned in the Russian Primary Chronicle (Povest' vremennykh let). The Russian closing of the document reads: "Don't doubt the honesty of what we have promised you today, and have written in this charter, and have sealed with our seals"40.

The ivory plate with a bident was found during the excavations of Sarkel, the largest Khazarian fortress in the Lower Don area (fig. 6.2). After Svyatoslav's campaign against the Khazarian Khaganate in 965, Sarkel was turned into a Russian city called Belaya Vezha. Published for the first time by M. I. Artamonov, this plate had not yet been related to Svyatoslav and neither to the events of 965 41. Only later was it associated with the knyaz', though the hypothesis was poorly substantiated42. There is a consensus in historiography that the sign on this plate is that of Svyatoslav. Still, the director of the excavations did not describe the archaeological context of this find, nor did he mention its level of discovery or its dating. S. V. Beletsky refers to this round plate as a referential object, but its origin, its purpose and the meaning of the depicted sign remain unclear.

Two more bidents (scratched upon pieces of amphorae) were also found at Sarkel (fig. 6.3 and 6.4).43 The images are linear and, albeit resembling some of the bidents scratched upon dirhams, they could belong to the local Iranian and Turkic tradition. In Sarkel was also found a bludgeon from 10th to 12th century, with a series of tamgas incized on it. There is a bident among them (fig. 6.5), possibly dating, according to Beletsky, back to the 10th century44, a supplementary proof of its Rurikid origin.

There is one more very interesting example. Bidents were found on the walls of the sepulcher on the Tsarsky tumulus, near Kerch. The history of this site very much resembles the one of the Basarabi complex. It is a sepulcher of a Bosphoran king, located on the top of a tumulus which was erected in the fourth century B. C. During the 9th-10th centuries A. D. it was transformed into a Christian church. The walls of a 75 meter long corridor, leading to the burial chamber, are covered with graffiti from different periods. There are three bidents among them, probably dating back to the 10th century (fig. 6.6-6.8). A. O. Amel'kin supposes they could be Rurikid signs and associates them to the eastern campaign of Svyatoslav, when the knyaz's army reached the lands on the eastern coast of the Kerchensky strait.

Thus, one may see that a series of bidents, depicted on different objects, can be indeed associated to Svyatoslav and to the time of his reign. By and large, the genealogy of the Rurikid signs has been reconstructed by now. The key objects that helped its reconstruction were: Svyatoslav's seal; the srebrenniks and zlatniks clearly attributed; several seals from the 11th and 12th centuries, inscribed with the names of different princes, thus permitting their ascription to the correspondent personae45.

The missing parts of this evolution pattern, or the doubtful ones, are reconstructed tentatively. As a result, the presence of bidents on dirhams in the late ninth and early tenth century allows us to ascribe them presumably to Svyatoslav's predecessors, Oleg and Igor. If so, the bident passed from father to son without any alteration before Svyatoslav. Ye. A. Mel'nikova assumed it to be only the patrimonial sign by that time (not a private and patrimonial one) or the sign of the ruler46.

In the time of Svyatoslav and his sons the sign began to change while passing on to successors. Every following prince altered just one element in it, a fact S. V. Beletsky pays special attention to47. Vladimir added one more jag to Svyatoslav's bident, transforming it into a trident. Each of his sons, Izyaslav and Yaroslav, altered the central jag through the addition of a new element. Svyatoslav's grandson Svyatopolk, having kept the bident, added a cross to one of its jags (this sign must have stemmed from the unknown sign of his father Yaropolk). So, after Svyatoslav's ruling the Rurikid signs became private and patrimonial ones.

The difference between inheritance traditions before and after Svyatoslav (preserving the sign intact vs. altering it by every new heir) can be possibly explained by the crucial changes in the nature of princely authority in the last quarter of the 10th century. In the time previous to Svyatoslav's reign, the domain of the Rurikids never split up, and there was always only one heir (Oleg – Igor – Svyatoslav). The fist division of lands was carried out by Svyatoslav, who divided them between his sons Yaropolk, Oleg and Vladimir, which caused a war between the heirs after their father's death. Since then, Rurikids' signs began to change when being inherited. It is worth mentioning that Vladimir got his sign (or, at least, began to use it) when his father was still alive. Svyatopolk began to use his private and patrimonial sign (the altered bident) exactly the same way, during Vladimir Svyatoslavich's lifetime48.

The time of Svyatoslav Igorevich and his sons thus became the turning-point in the history of the Rurikid signs. The inheritance system of these signs took shape in the last quarter of the 10th century, and it is only since that time that we can speak of private and patrimonial signs existing in Old Russia.

The appearance of Svyatoslav's bident on Low Danube – at Basarabi – can be related only to his wars with Bulgaria and afterwards with Byzantium, in 967-971 (the chronology is based on the Povest' vremennykh let). The presence of the Rurikid signs in sites located not far from the border with Old Russia and exposed to invasions of Russians (as above-mentioned bidents from Kerch, Sarkel and Basarabi – if we assume a Russian and not a local origin for these signs) could have some special meaning. Since all these regions certify to a local tradition of using tamgas, one may suppose that inscribing the Rurikid sign upon local objects could imply the understanding of this gesture by local dwellers. I'd like to pay special attention to one notable detail of the Basarabi sign, namely to its "stem", which is divided vertically into two parts. This element is absent from Russian analogies of Svyatoslav's sign49; but it can be found in signs of his closest heirs. The images of Svyatopolk's bidents and Vladimir's tridents on their srebrenniks have such a stem with a vertical line (fig. 7). And here we can notice the same logic of the sign's transformation when transferring it from father to son by way of preserving its basic form and altering or adding secondary elements. This detail of the Rurikid sign (the "stem" divided by a vertical line) was perhaps inherited by Vladimir and Svyatopolk (via the sign of Yaropolk, yet unknown) from their father and grandfather Svyatoslav. If so, the Basarabi drawing may be regarded as a missing link in the typological chain of Old-Russian princes' signs of the tenth and early eleventh century.

ALEXANDER FETISOV, IRINA GALKOVA

Fig. 1. - The Basarabi bident (photo by Ana Maria Gruia, 2006, courtesy of the Constan a Museum).

Fig. 2. - Drawings on the south-western wall of the B3 church (photo by Ana Maria Gruia, 2006, courtesy of the Constan a Museum).

Fig. 3. - Bidents from the territory of the Khazar Khaganate:
1 – Sarkel, the sign scratched upon a brick of the fortress wall;
2,3 – Mayatskoye site, the signs scratched upon the stone blocks from the fortress wall;
4,5 – Khumarinskoye site, the signs scratched upon the stone blocks from the fortress's wall (Flyorova 2001).

Fig. 4. - Pendants bearing bidents from the territory of Old Russia, 10th century:
1 – Gnyozdovo; 2 – Novgorod (Beletsky 2004).

Fig. 5. - Arabian dirhams bearing bidents
(Dobrovol'sky, Dubov, Kuz'menko 1991; Nakhapetyan, Fomin 1994; Mel'nikova 1996).

Fig. 6. -
1 – Lead seal, found during the excavations at the Desyatinnaya church in Kiev (Beletsky 2000);
2 – Ivory plate from Sarkel (Artamonov 1958);
3, 4 – Graffiti on pieces of amphorae from Sarkel (Beletsky 2000);
5 – Graffito on the bludgeon from Sarkel (Beletsky 2000);
6, 7, 8 – Graffiti on a wall of the sepulcher near Kerch (Amel'kin 2001).

Fig. 7. – Srebrenniks coined by Svyatopolk and Vladimir:
1 – Svyatopolk's srebrennik;
2, 3 – Bidents on Svyatopolk's srebrenniks;
4, 5 – Vladimir's srebrenniks;
6, 7 – Tridents on Vladimir's srebrenniks (Sotnikova 1995; Beletsky 2000).

1 Barnea 1962a.
2 Glebov 1975, p. 16; Ovcharov 2002, p. 170-200.
3 Barnea 1962b, p. 207-208.
4 Ovcharov 1975.
5 Beshevliyev 1976, p. 12.
6 Agrigoroaei 2006, p. 38-40.
7 Oreshnikov 1930.
8 Poluboyarinova 1980, p. 173.
9 Yatsenko 2001, p. 111.
10 Yatsenko 2001, p. 44.
11 Yatsenko 2001, p. 46.
12 Drachuk 1975, p. 86-96.
13 We are not talking, of course, about a descent of the Rurikid sign from some definite Iranian tamgas; rather, the matter concerns related traditions of using tamgas and tamga-like sign.
14 Yatsenko 2001, p. 110.
15 Nakhapetyan 1988, p. 105; Yatsenko 2001, p. 116.
16 Yatsenko 2001, p. 112.
17 Pletnyova 1967, p. 128; Flyorova 2001, p. 53-54; Yatsenko 2001.
18 Flyorova 2001, p. 57.
19 Rapov 1968, p. 62-69.
20 Ambrosiani 2001, p. 11-27; Kulakov 1988, p. 106-117.
21 The author expresses his thanks to S. Yu. Kainov for the information granted. The archeological origin of this pendant is proved by metallographic analysis, carried out by State Research Institute of Restoration (Moscow) (Shemakhanskaya 2000, p. 87).
22 Beletsky 2004, pp. 252-253.
23 Yanin 1982, p. 149.
24 Mel'nikova 1996, p. 46-49.
25 Mel'nikova 1996, p. 46-49.
26 Nakhapetyan, Fomin 1994, p. 170.
27 Dobrovol'skiy, Dubov, Kuz'menko 1991, p. 68-74.
28 Mel'nikova 1996, p. 47-48.
29 Mel'nikova 1996, p. 46-49.
30 Mel'nikova 1996, p. 47-48.
31 Mel'nikova 1996, p. 46-49.
32 Dobrovol'skiy, Dubov, Kuz'menko 1991, p. 68-74.
33 Mel'nikova 1996, p. 47-49.
34 Dobrovol'skiy, Dubov, Kuz'menko 1991, p. 130.
35 Oreshnikov 1930, p. 93-95; Artamonov 1962, p. 430.
36 Yanin 1970, p. 38-41, 166.
37 Yanin 1970, p. 38.
38 Motsya, Syromyatnikov 1984, p. 86.
39 Molchanov 1988, p. 50-52.
40 Povest' 1996, p. 171.
41 Artamonov 1958, p. 74-76.
42 Artamonov 1962, p. 587; Yanin 1970, p. 41.
43 Flyorova 1997, p. 229-230.
44 Beletsky 2000, p. 103-104.
45 Molchanov 2001, p. 85-107.
46 Mel'nikova 1996, p. 49.
47 One should remind the similar inheritance pattern in the Sarmatian and the Alanian tradition.
Beletsky 2000, p. 38.
48 Beletsky 2000, p. 45-48
49 There is no such detail either in Iranian or in Turkic tamgas of similar form. Almost all of them are linear, not outlined. The fact that contour images are almost absent among Iranian and Turkic tamgas (whereas they prevail among Old Russian Rurikid signs) can be adduced as one more argument for ascribing the Basarabi drawing to the Old Russian tradition.


Bibliographical abbreviations
Agrigoroaei 2006
- V. Agrigoroaei,
"Vikingi sau rus,i. Noi cerceta^ri asupra complexului de la Basarabi-Murfatlar",
in Apulum, XLIII/2, 2006.

Ambrosiani 2001
- B. Ambrosiani,
"The Birka Falcon",
Birka Studies. V. Eastern Connections
Part One: The Falcon Motif, Stockholm, 2001.

Amel'kin 2001
- A.O. Amel'kin,
"`Znaki Ryurikovichei' na stenakh grobnitsy Tsarskogo kurgana pod Kerchyu",
in Drevneishiye gosudarstva Vostochnoi Yevropy, 1999 g,
Moskva, 2001.

Artamonov 1958
- M. I. Artamonov,
"Sarkel – Belaya Vezha",
in Trudy Volgo-Donskoi arkheologicheskoi ekspeditsii. T. 1.
Materialy i issledovaniya po arkheologii, nr. 62,
Moskva-Leningrad, 1958.

Artamonov 1962
- M. I. Artamonov,
Istoriya Khazar,
Leningrad, 1962.

Barnea 1962a
- I. Barnea,
"Predvaritel'nyye svedeniya o kamennykh pamyatnikakh v Basarabi",
in Dacia, VI, 1962.

Barnea 1962b
- I. Barnea,
"Les monuments rupestres de Basarabi en Dobroudja",
Cahiers archéologiques, XIII, Paris, 1962.

Beletsky 2000
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Torsten