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In 1948 V.P. Levasheva excavated the mausoleum 1 near settlement of Krasny in the Bobrov district, Voronezh oblast. A carnelian seal with an Arabic inscription was found in one of the burials, studied in the mausoleum. Looking through the excavation report allows us to concretize the context of this rare find. The carnelian seal of reddish-pink colour had a rectangular shape, its size is 2,4×1,7×0,4cm. The reading of the inscription, which is a quotation from the 13th ayat of the 61st surah of the Quran (as-Saff = the Rows), has been clarified. Hadiths and interpreters of the Quran associate the Surah with the ideology of jihad, which may be evidence of the high military status of the owner of the seal. This artifact is of considerable interest studying of the spread of Islam on the periphery of the Golden Horde in the Middle Don region.

The article presents ceramic materials from the excavations on the Pashenkovo Russian medieval settlement of the Golden Horde period, located in the Middle Don. The site is located on the territory of the village of Pashenkovo in the Khokholskiy district of the Voronezh region. The main purpose of the study is to determine the chronology of Russian pottery from the Pashenkovo settlement based on the technical and morphological features of the ceramics and a comparative analysis with materials from other sites, located on the territory of the Middle and Upper Don. All analyzed ceramic material from the Pashenkovo settlement comes from the filling of the pit and the layers above it, which represent a single complex. Individual finds from the territory of the site made it possible to tentatively date it within the XIV century. The analyzed pottery consisted of more than one thousand fragments, which included fragmented upper profile parts, walls and bottoms of pots. As a result of the work carried out on the archaeological site, a pre-Mongol ceramic tradition was identified, which has complete parallels in the Upper Don and Ob regions. The greatest similarity in technical and morphological characteristics, and sometimes complete identity, is found with the pottery from the Semiluki settlement, located 45 km upstream of the Don river on its right bank. Based on the obtained data, the authors propose to date the pottery assemblage of the Pashenkovo settlement within the second half of XIII-first half of XIV century.

The purpose of the study is to analyze the data from the study of archaeolo­gical sites on the periphery of the Golden Horde in the Middle Don region, along with evidence from written sources about the spread of Islam and Christianity among the population of this area. Research materials: The paper examines the materials of Russian settlements, monuments of the Golden Horde circle (Novokharkovsky and Tagansky burial grounds), mausoleums near Krasnyi Village, and nomadic burials in the barrows. Written sources are involved (“Pimenov’s journey to Tsargrad,” the charters of Metropolitans Theognost and Alexei to the population of the Chervleny Yar). Results and scientific uniqueness: Archaeological materials allow us to talk about the coexistence of different confessional groups in the population on the periphery of the Gol­den Horde in the Middle Don region. The spread of Christianity in this area is associated with the Russian population. The information of the charters of Metropolitans Theognost and Alexei about the Christian population in the Prikhoper region is confirmed by the data of archaeological research. Among the population who left the Novokharkovsky burial ground, one can assume the spread of both Islam and Christianity. The influence of the traditions of Islam can be traced in the funeral rites of the Tagansky burial ground. The most striking evidence of the spread of Islam on the periphery of the Golden Horde in the Middle Don region is the mausoleums near Krasnyi Village. In the tombs studied in and around mausoleums, there are also remnants of paganism. Only a few nomadic burials in the barrows can be considered Muslim burials.

The paper presents the results of a study of the Tagansky complex of monuments of the Golden Horde period on the Bityug River in the Pavlovsky District of Voronezh Oblast. The complex includes a subsoil burial ground, a settlement associated with it, as well as a settlement near Antipovka village. The study was carried out in 1995, 1998–2002 by an expedition of Voronezh State University. The ceramic complex includes pottery manufactured in the Golden Horde centers and Russian ceramics. The economic activity of the population includes agriculture, cattle breeding and metallurgical production. The morphology of skulls from the Tagansky burial ground finds analogies among the substrate Europeoid populations of Eastern Europe.

The authors analyze the results of excavations at the Final Bronze settlements of the Ivanovo (Khvalyn) and Bondarikhino cultures in the Middle Don region. Two settlements of the Bondarikhino culture have been excavated in the Bityug River region, and closed complexes have been identified, which allow the authors to characterize in detail the ceramic and tool specifics of the culture. The Zhuravka 1 settlement was studied, it located in the south of the Middle Don, where complexes of the Ivanovo (Khvalyn) culture were traced. In the middle reaches of the Bityug River (the left tributary of the Don River), the Bobrov 2 and 3 settlements were excavated. New materials of the Final Bronze Age were obtained. Conclusions were made about the connection of the Don materials with neighboring regions. The results of studies of the Zhuravka 1 settlements and two settlements near the town of Bobrov have expanded our understanding of the cultural processes which took place in the Eastern European forest-steppe at the end of the 2nd Millennium BC.

The results of a morphological and typological study, spectral, atomic emission spectrometric and metallographic analyzes of 20 items from the burial grounds and the settlement of the Abashevo culture from the territory of Voronezh Oblast are presented. The metal is represented by tools, adornments and other categories of items typical of the cultures of the first phase of the West Asian (Eurasian) metallurgical province. Slightly more than half of the items from the collection (56.3%) are made of pure copper (including oxidized copper), 25% of the tools are made of low-alloyed As-bronze, and 18.7% of the items are made of antimony-arsenic bronze. Based on the similar chemical composition of the metal of the Abashevo tribes from the Don and the Urals, it was concluded that copper and bronze came to the Middle Don from the Abashevo metallurgists of the Southern Urals. Part of the products came in the form of imports from the Sintashta or Seima-Turbino communities. The difference in the specifics of the technological aspects of the settlement and burial complexes is associated either with the time difference between the complexes or with a special selection of ritual grave goods.

The publication is dedicated to a bronze vessel found in a robbed burial of the second half of the 4th century BCE in the Burial-mound no. 1 of the Chastye Kurgany group on the outskirts of Voronezh, excavated by the Voronezh Scientific Archive Commission in 1910. A vessel with a handle attachment in form of a mask under the edge on the outside and a gorgoneion-medallion at the bottom inside is a patera with a handle lost in antiquity. Such pateras with similarly shaped edges of the bowl and handles ending in a ram's head are known after a very small number of finds of the second half of the 4th century BCE almost all of which come from Macedonia and Thrace. Given the fact that lion's paws are depicted on the sides of the neck of the person shown on the mask, there is every reason for its attribution as the head of Herakles. A similar iconography is typical for vessel attachments from Northern Greece. The treatment of hair strands, in particular symmetrical curls over the forehead (anastole / ἀναστολή), resembles the hairstyle in the portraits of Alexander the Great and imitations of them. Taking into account this observation, it is hardly possible to date the patera from Chastye kurgans earlier than the last quarter of the 4th century BCE. In the North Pontic region, bronze vessels of this shape have not yet been known, despite the fact that the finds of bronze vessels of the Macedonian-Thracian circle of the 4th century BCE are represented both in Scythia and in the Bosporus. Taking into account the known finds of bronze vessels of the Macedonian types at the Elizavetinskoe fortified settlement and in its necropolis at the mouth of the Don, it can be assumed that such vessels could have reached the Middle Don in this way. At the same time, given the relative rarity of bronze (silver) pateras in Macedonia and Thrace in the second half of the 4th — early 3rd century BCE and their finds in very rich complexes, including in the royal burials in Vergina and Golyamata Kosmatka, one cannot exclude the possibility of a different way for the patera from Chastye Barrows. In Macedonia and Thrace, such pateras, together with the oinochoai, were part of the banquet sets, therefore, in this case, the patera, which, perhaps, originally had a pair (oinochoe) could also be a diplomatic gift. In any case, the patera from Chastye Burial-mounds fits into the circle of finds of Thracian horse-bridle pieces and Thracian and Macedonian toreutics found in the burials of the Scythian nobility in the Middle Don region.

Introduction. The relevant objective of the research of the Sarmatians in the Don forest-steppe zone is the study of the Late Sarmatian period. It is aggravated both by the lack of the available material and by the absence of Late Sarmatian period burial grounds up until recent years. The excavations of Late Sarmatian grave mounds near Berezovka village in the left bank area of the Middle Don provide the opportunity to challenge the lack of knowledge concerning this period of the Sarmatian history. Methods. The method of analogy dating, the typological and anthropological methods were applied while working on the burial samples of the Late Sarmatian culture found in Berezovka proximity. Analysis. The analyzed objects are two Late Sarmatian burials hidden under the separate grave mounds in the riverside graves. One of them belongs to a 18–20-year-old woman, the other one is associated with a 25–30-year-old man. The burial materials can be dated back to the middle or the second half of the 2nd century AD. Results. The assigning of the considered burials to the Late Sarmatian culture of the middle or the second half of the 2nd century AD sets up possible connection between these grave mounds and the graves preceding the Hunnic invasion (grave mounds 8 and 9 in Berezovka burial sites). The chronological time interval between them is approximately 150 years. Allegedly, the study of the new grave mounds can replenish the chronological void.

The paper raises the question of a separate group of barrow burials following the classical Late Sarmatian culture in the Middle Don region. The recently excavated sites include a T-shaped catacomb discovered on the right bank of the Don River (Losevo). Most likely, it belonged to a Tanais Alan who survived the Hunnic massacre and moved off to the north, to remote areas of the Don region not affected by the Hunnic invasion. On the left bank of the Don River (Berezovka), we have studied undercut burials synchronous to the catacomb from Losevo, with the rite and grave goods continuing the Late Sarmatian traditions (type of burial structure, northward orientation of buried people, artificial skull deformation, remnants of sacrificial food in the form of sheep and goat bones, etc.). The ceramic complex of these burials includes Late Sarmatian and Central Caucasian moulded and pottery ware. A warrior’s burial in barrow 9 near the village of Berezovka contained not only typical Late Sarmatian ceramics, but also coarse moulded ware most likely connected with more northern traditions. It could belong to the settled population of the Middle Khoper region that left the sites of the Inyasevo type. Both groups of burials contain some indicators (metal parts of horse harness, belt buckles, a Chernyakhov-type fibula) dating them back to the second half of the 4th – early 5th centuries AD. But at the same time they do not contain any specific features of the Hunnic culture. According to the traditional periodization, the above-mentioned complexes can be qualified as belonging to the final stage of the Late Sarmatian culture. However, we think that it is better to use such a definition as the ‘post-Sarmatian age’ (or ‘post- Sarmatian horizon’). The analyzed barrow burials were immediately antecedent to the Hunnic-age burial grounds of the first half of the 5th century AD in the Upper Don region (Zhivotinnoye, Ksizovo, Mukhino, etc.).