Pages: 259-288

Small bird-shaped fibulae are a pan-European element of the early medieval culture, making part of female dress. In the middle of the 5th — middle 7th centuries they were widely spread in Western Europe, Middle Danube and on the Balkans. They are also found in the Caucasus where, unlike in other regions, bird-shaped pendants were also present. A quasi-simultaneous appearance of bird-shaped fibulae in different far-flung territories implies the existence of a common Roman/Mediterranean prototype reworked in the local traditions both in Eastern Europe and the Merovingian West. Emerging in the Caucasus in the post-Hunnic time as an allochtonic element of the prestigious international fashion, the bird-shaped fibulae got ‘acclimatized’ there and acquired specific traits charateristic of the Caucasus alone. While in Western Europe bird-shaped fibulae remained in fashion up to the mid-7th century, in the Caucasus they transformed into pendants and functioned until the 8th century as an autochtonous element of Alanian female attire.

Keywords: Central Caucasus, Merovingian-Alamannian epoch, Gepid, Early Middle Ages, bird-shaped fibulae

Information about author:

Anna Mastykova (Moscow, Russian Federation). Doctor of Historical Sciences. Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dmitry Ulyanov St., 19, Moscow, 117036, Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]