Pages: 347-354

Аll currently known brooches from the Sambian-Natangian cultural area of type A-216/A-217 from Almgren Group VII are presented. Clasps of the monstrous type are rare and have never been produced in series. Scandinavia and the islands in the Baltic Sea are considered to be their place of origin, from where they have spread to neighboring European areas to the area of the Chernyakhov culture. Such brooches are generally rare. This applies in particular to the Sambian-Natangian culture, in the area in which they have never been manufactured and only imported. So far, only four finds of brooches A-216/A-217 from Almgren Group VII are known: a silver brooch with gold-plated details, found in 1886 at Grebieten; a silver brooch from the year 2000, part of the women’s burial No. 78 from the grave of Lauth-Bolshoe Isakovo; a silver and bronze brooch with gold-plated pressed parts, found in 2002 on Ushakovo-1 burial ground; and a fragment of a brooch made of silver, found in 2016 in Sychevka. Monstrous fibulas are not only interesting as unique pieces of jewelry art, but also valuable as stable chronological indicators, and provide useful information about cultural interactions and influences between the region of the Sambian-Natangian culture and the area of the Barbaricum in the late Roman period.

Keywords: Barbaricum, Baltic region, Roman time, Sambian-Natangian culture, Rosette (Monster) brooch, Germans, barbarian elites

Information about author:

Konstantin Skvorzov (Kaliningrad, Russian Federation). Master of Archaeology. Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dmitry Ulyanov St., 19, Moscow, 117292, Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]