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In 1966, on the surface of one of the tumuli (?) at the burial ground near the village of Corpaci (Moldova), a limestone slab was discovered which bore a representation of a bident with the outturned prongs and a cross-shaped grip. In 1975, this barrow was excavated by V. I. Grosu. On the basis of the presence of the stone slab with a ‘Sarmatian sign’ on the mound, he identified the uncovered burial as a Sarmatian one. However, the exact position of the slab within the area of the cemetery was not recorded in 1966 so that there is no confidence as to the real relation of the slab exactly with the mounded burial under consideration.
No researchers concerned with the slab from Corpaci doubted the Sarmatian origins of the bident symbol. Meanwhile, bidents of this type are absent among Sarmatian signs of the northern Black Sea region. On the contrary, parallels to this representation are well known among the so-called signs of Ryurikovichi — arms of Russian princes of the 10 th—13 th centuries. In particular, it has been established that a bident with outturned prongs and a cross-shape grip belonged to Vladimir Monomakh (1053 — † 1125). Here it is supposed that it was exactly the arms of Monomakh that was engraved on the slab from Corpaci.
The block from Corpaci was found at the extreme southwestern borderland of the Kievan state. Probably, it represented a border sign marking the limits of Vladimir Monomakh’s possessions.

Keywords: Moldova, tumuli, stone slab, sign, аrms, borderland, Ryurikovichi

Information about author:

Serge Beletsky (Saint Petersburg, Russia). Doctor of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture, Russian Academy of Sciences, Dvortsovaya Naberezhnaya, 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russia
E-mail: [email protected]