Rodinkova V.E.

Key words: early medieval, Dnieper region, Byzantine silver vessel, stamps.
The stamp which is the topic of the present article is on a fragment of a small silver plate, 18–20 cm in diameter at the rim and 4 cm at the bottom. The three fragments of the plate are part of the hoard which has been found in 2009 on the territory of the sloboda of Zamostye (in modern Sudzha, Kursk Oblast). The hoard belongs to early medieval Dnieper hoards, group I, deposited in the third quarter of the 7th c. The stamp consists of three lines of Latin letters in a rectangle. V.N. Zalesskaya is of the opinion that it belongs to the series of irregular stamps which date on the whole to the 7th c., and that the inscription contains the name of Constantine IV (668–685). Thus, the fragment of the stamped plate from Sudzha-Zamostye is the first find which can allow direct identifying of the absolute chronology for early medieval antiquities in the Dnieper region. It defines the terminus post quem for the hoards which belong to group I and confirms their dates that were suggested on the basis of a relative chronological scheme. In the Dnieper region, stamped Byzantine silver items have been found among the grave goods from Bolshoi Kamenets and Pereschepino, where representatives of the barbarian aristocracy were buried, in the cult assemblage from Voznesenka, and in the Martynovka hoard which is one of the richest and most representative early medieval Dnieper hoards. The context of the finds allows assuming that the fragments of the stamped plate in the hoard from Sudzha-Zamostye points to the special status of the assemblage. Finally, the relatively quick transportation of the plate to the far periphery of the Byzantine Empire indicates that objects of material culture, and, consequently, its bearers, were able to travel quite rapidly, and to cross the ethnic, political and other borders that existed in the early Middle Ages.