Early mediaeval hoard of iron objects from Rujkovac and similar finds from the central Balkans

Ivan, Bugarski, Vujadin, Ivanišević

Starinar

63

131

152

http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/Article.aspx?ID=0350-02411363131B

2013-2020/03/01/23:20:57

By the village of Rujkovac in southern Serbia, one of the numerous local hillforts is situated. Since it has not been systematically explored, our knowledge of its history leans on an insight into the chance finds. On this occasion, we have opted to depict eight iron objects, probably coming from a damaged hoard. Thanks to four Hungarian-type stirrups which have already been published, the hoard from Rujkovac was dated to the second half of the tenth and the first half of the eleventh century. Similar finds from outside the Central Balkans are well studied, but there have been misinterpretations of their occurrence in this territory. The findings of tools from the Rujkovac hoard may be widely dated. The pickaxe belongs to Henning's class L1 the mattock to the class K8, the scythe to the I5 class, and the plowshare to the A3 class of the same typology. Both typologically and territorially, the closest finds come from a hoard of iron objects found at Streževo by Bitola, Macedonia, but the presented estimations of its date have caused some confusion. It was Valery Jotov who rightly dated it to the second half of tenth and the first half of the eleventh century. Some other similar finds come from the Central Balkans, present-day Serbia and Macedonia, most of which were not sufficiently studied and were incorporated neither in Henning's 1987 corpus nor in Florin Curta's papers that followed (1997, 2011). It is hard to judge the date of some of the hoards. For instance, the Gamzigrad III hoard has been dated to the Late Antiquity, and the Jelica hoard perhaps to the early seventh century. We are open to the possibility that these hoards in fact come from the Early Middle Ages. The other hoards, found at Ada Ciganlija (Belgrade), Pontes, and in Macedonia are chiefly dated to the tenth and eleventh centuries. The Rujkovac and Streževo hoards are ascribed to the military, the Gamzigrad II to the local smithy, and the rest of the hoards may have belonged to individuals rather than to communities. The prevailing agricultural character of these hoards is closely related to population growth in Byzantium at that time. The hoards testify to the renewal of life and metallurgical activities in the tenth and eleventh centuries in the southern part of the Central Balkans. The increase in money hoards speaks in favour of some economic renewal too. Our earlier conclusion, though with some reservations, was that both the Rujkovac and Streževo finds came from a Byzantine context. We would suggest that the same could be stated for the rest of the hoards depicted in this paper.

agriculture, Early Middle Ages, hoard, iron, Rujkovac, stirrups, tools