Early medieval burial of woman and fox at the slog necropolis in Ravna (Timacum Minus) in Eastern Serbia

Abstract

On the eastern slope of Slog Hill in Ravna, some 400 m to the west of the Roman fortification of Timacum Minus, a multilayered necropolis was investigated from 1994 to 1996 and from 2013 to 2015. There are two main horizons of the necropolis - Late Roman and Early Medieval. The late Roman necropolis has three phases dated from the middle of the 4th to the middle of the 5th century. The early medieval necropolis, according to the new excavations, has two phases, the earlier dated to the 8th - 9th centuries and the later from the end of the 9th to the beginning of the 11th century. An interesting grave (G 159), belonging to the earlier medieval phase of necropolis, was discovered in 2014. It is a unique burial of a woman and a fox, which has its only analogy in a disturbed woman and fox grave (grave 16) at the early Avar necropolis in Bečej. The burial with a fox could be interpreted in two ways - that the animal has a cult - ritual - magic meaning or that the fox was a pet of the deceased.

Keywords

• early medieval period
• necropolis
• woman and fox burial
• physical anthropology
• archaeozoology