Sarskoe Gorodishche, near
Rostov. Like Sarskoe, it is situated at a distance from a major waterway — the
Volga River
The Volga (, ) is the longest river in Europe and the longest endorheic basin river in the world. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchment ...
. Nevertheless, substantial amounts of Arabic coins indicate its position as the most important Scandinavian trade outpost in the proximity of the
Volga trade route
In the Middle Ages, the Volga trade route connected Northern Europe and Northwestern Russia with the Caspian Sea and the Sasanian Empire, via the Volga River. The Rus' (people), Rus used this route to trade with Muslim history#The Umayyad Calipha ...
.
The site was first settled by a mixture of Norse merchants and local population in the ninth century. This dating is based on three major hoards of
dirham
The dirham, dirhem or drahm is a unit of currency and of mass. It is the name of the currencies of Moroccan dirham, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates dirham, United Arab Emirates and Armenian dram, Armenia, and is the name of a currency subdivisi ...
s that were detected at Timeryovo since the 1960s. The first hoard, numbering about 2,100 coins, was dispersed before scholars learnt about its existence. Only seventeen coins are known from this deposit, the earliest datable to 867. Another hoard also numbering more than 2,000 dirhams (entire and in pieces), was the largest deposit of such coins ever found from
Early Medieval Europe. The earliest coin was issued by
Idris II
Idrīs ibn Idrīs () known as Idris II () and Idrīs al-Azhar/al-Aṣghar () (August 791 – August 828), was the son of Idris I of Morocco, Idris I, the founder of the Idrisid dynasty in Morocco. He was born in Volubilis, Walīlī two months aft ...
(who reigned in the 810s and 820s). Many dirhams have
Runic
Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets, known as runic rows, runic alphabets or futharks (also, see '' futhark'' vs ''runic alphabet''), native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were primarily used to represent a sound value (a ...
graffiti carved on them.
The site was abandoned towards the end of the ninth century, only to be revived half a century later. At least 400
druzhina kurgan
A kurgan is a type of tumulus (burial mound) constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons, and horses. Originally in use on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, kurgans spread into mu ...
s were erected there in that period. The burial rite normally featured
cremation
Cremation is a method of Disposal of human corpses, final disposition of a corpse through Combustion, burning.
Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India, Nepal, and ...
. Excavations revealed an unusual amount of Scandinavian pottery and a surprising number of crosses, indicating that a large portion of the Norse population was Christianised. Among other finds were
amber
Amber is fossilized tree resin. Examples of it have been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since the Neolithic times, and worked as a gemstone since antiquity."Amber" (2004). In Maxine N. Lurie and Marc Mappen (eds.) ''Encyclopedia ...
artifacts from the Baltic, a unique roaster, a
spatha
The spatha was a type of straight and long sword, measuring between , with a handle length of between , in use in the territory of the Roman Empire during the 1st to 6th centuries AD. Later swords, from the 7th to 10th centuries, like the Viking ...
labelled by a certain
Ulfberht from the
Rhine
The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...
, and a chess piece with an enigmatic Runic inscription (''illustrated, to the right'').
The site was definitively abandoned in the early eleventh century, simultaneously with the decline of Sarskoe Gorodishche and the foundation of
Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl (; , ) is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located northeast of Moscow. The historic part of the city is a World Heritage Site, and is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl rivers. ...
. The latest coin found at Timerevo was issued by
Bruno II of Friesland (dating it between 1038 and 1057).
Similar sites
A growing number of other early medieval sites have been excavated near Yaroslavl, each important in its own way. The site of
Mikhailovskoe immediately north of the city was explored from the nineteenth century to 1961. Of 400 barrows excavated there, only four percent yielded Scandinavian finds. Most burials featured
inhumation
Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and object ...
s of ordinary Slavs and
Merians. The site of Medvezhy Ugol (literally, "Bear's Nook") in downtown Yaroslavl, proved to be a humble, primarily Merian settlement. More recently, twenty six burial mounds were found at Petrovskoe to the south of the city; these are still largely unexcavated. All these sites date to the mid-tenth century.
Although "objects of Scandinavian origin constitute a miserly per cent of the total of all finds, and nothing firmly indicating a complete Norman complex has yet been found",
[ ] scholars suggest that within fundamentally Slavic settlement of the area "was a Norman colony, which constituted a staging point midway on the route from the
Vikings
Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden),
who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...
to the East."
Archaeologist
Igor Dubov, who excavated the settlement in the 1970s, views it as a center (perhaps the capital) of mysterious
Arsania mentioned by
Ibn Hawqal
Muḥammad Abū’l-Qāsim Ibn Ḥawqal (), also known as Abū al-Qāsim b. ʻAlī Ibn Ḥawqal al-Naṣībī, born in Nisibis, Al-Jazira (caliphal province), Upper Mesopotamia; was a 10th-century Arab Muslim writer, geographer, and chronic ...
.
[И. В. Дубов. "Города, величеством сияющие". Изд-во Ленинградского университета, 1985. Стр. 53.]
References
*Михайлов К.А. Древнерусские камерные погребения и Гнездово
''Chamber Burials of Ancient Rus''
{{coord, 57, 35, 35, N, 39, 43, 24, E, region:RU_type:landmark_source:kolossus-ruwiki, display=title
Archaeological sites in Russia
Rus' settlements
Viking Age populated places
Geography of Yaroslavl Oblast
Varangians
Germanic archaeological artifacts
Germanic archaeological sites
Treasure troves in Russia
Former populated places in Russia
Viking ship burials
Cultural heritage monuments of federal significance in Yaroslavl Oblast