Ceramics from bi-ritual burials grounds on the Lower Danube and issues of its chronology

Abstract

Based on the materials from burial grounds, the issue of dating the chronology of Bulgarian cultural monuments dated by the Early Middle Ages, which is among the most controversial one in Bulgarian archaeology, is tackled in the article. A brief historiographic review of studies by several generations of Bulgarian and Romanian archaeologists is provided; their achievements and misinterpretations are revealed. The author’s proper typology of ceramics from Bulgarian necropoleis dated by the late-7th – 9th cc. is offered, with its periodization on the basis of mutual occurrence of vessels of different kinds, types and variants, placed in the same burial mound, being provided. This allowed specifying and correcting the period of existence of each vessel variety and that of coexistence of different ceramics forms. The classification and periodization of the early Bulgarian ceramics proposed is open for improvement and addition by new vessel forms.

Keywords

• Lower Danube
• Early Middle Ages
• bi-ritual burial grounds
• Bulgarian ceramics
• typology
• chronology.