The Early Byzantine Cemetery of Bosporos

Abstract

Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (527–565) annexed the city of Bosporos in 528. In the Early Byzantine period, the city cemetery of Bosporos occupied Mitridat hill sides. In the early seventh cemetery, new cemetery areas of simple and slabbed graves developed at the foot and sides of the hill. 2007–2009 excavations in Bosforskii lane at the lower south-eastern terrace of Mitridat hill uncovered a site of the early mediaeval cemetery of Bosporos. The graves were carved into the destruction layer of a residential quarter perishing when the Turks invaded in 576. The given paper publishes the Christian graves discovered at the cemetery to characterise the burial rite of the Christian population of the Byzantine Bosporos. There were three types of graves: 1) in simple pits (55 graves); 2) featuring the sides lined with stones and slabs (21 graves); 3) slabbed burials (23 graves). Those who buried in the site of the city cemetery under analysis were Christians. Five graves had slabs featuring carved crosses. Two woman’s graves contained finger-rings with Christian symbols. Among the finds there were folles of Justin II (issued in 577/8) and Herakleios (510–641) or Constant II (641–668), Byzantine solid cast bronze buckles of the Syracuse type, and buckles featuring an oval ring of type II–5 and a trefoil carved in the panel centre. According to the coins and buckles, the cemetery area dates from the seventh to the first half of the eighth century. The town-dwellers continued to use this cemetery site for burials of their dead when the Khazars occupied the town, as long as the mid-eighth century.

Keywords

• византия, боспор, христианство, некрополь, погребальный обряд, костюм