A Bracelet of the “Eastern European Notched Enamel” Tradition from the Vicinity of Eskhar in Kharkiv Region

Abstract

A bronze bracelet was found in a forested area on the left bank of the Siverskyi Donets River near the southern edge of the village of Eskhar (Novopokrovka territorial community, Chuhuiv District, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine). In the typology of G. F. Korzukhina, it belongs to Type I (wide bracelets, triangular in cross-section, with scallops, with or without enamel); in the typology of O. S. Khomyakova – to Type 2b (bracelets with an openwork movable shield-segment attached by hinged joints to scallops located at the ends of the hoop). The ornament of the Eskhar bracelet consists of several elements: a) three ridges with oblique notch-chasing; b) engraved compositions on two faces of the hoop; and c) longitudinal grooves on the end faces of the scallops. Similar bracelets come from the Bryansk (Usokh) hoard and from Pisky. The bracelets from the Bryansk hoard, Pisky, Eskhar, and Panikovets were made according to different constructional schemes. The concentration zone of this category of finds encompasses the Middle Dnipro region, the Dnipro-Donets forest-steppe and the adjacent forest belt, and the upper reaches of the Oka and Don rivers. Individual finds come from Masuria, Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, the upper reaches of the Southern Buh, the middle reaches of the Don and Khopyor, the Lower Don, and the Middle Volga. In terms of its position within the typological sequence of such objects, the Eskhar bracelet belongs to the “earlier” end and represents the middle stage of development of Eastern European notched enamel ornaments, dated to the late second through the mid-to-late third centuries. Finds belonging to the “notched enamel” tradition attest to the formation of prestige costume assemblages among the populations of the middle and upper Dnipro basin and the Desna region, the upper Oka, and certain cultures of the southeastern Baltic. “Notched enamels” serve as an indicator of intercultural contacts among different population groups across Eastern Europe during the Roman era. In the Dnipro-Donets forest-steppe, finds of the “notched enamel” complex are associated with settlements and burial grounds of the Late Zarubyntsi stage and the initial phase of the Kyiv culture, or belong to the post-Zarubyntsi horizon, specifically to its second period, dated to phases B2/C1 and C1a (approximately mid-to-late second through early third century).