Archaeologists have unearthed gold and silver jewellery from 1,600 year-old graves near the city of Sevastopol in Crimea. The archaeologists discovered gold and silver jewellery at a burial site in Crimea dating back to the early medieval period.
According to the new discoveries, the Almalykdere necropolis located on the Mangup Plateau about 16 kilometers (10 miles) east of Sevastopol was a burial site for the elite of the society which spanned the southwestern Crimea between the fourth and sixth centuries. Archaeologists began excavating parts of the Mangup Plateau in the late 19th century. It has since been studied systematically. Valery Naumenko, an archaeologist with V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University said in a translated statement. Naumenko, his co-workers and archaeologists of the Russian Academy of Sciences are said to be excavating at the site according to the “Despite the severe robbery of these complexes, there are things that are of independent scientific interest.”
Ukraine claims that Crimea still belongs to it, despite the fact that Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. The Byzantine historian Procopius wrote in the sixth century that the Mangup area was part of the Christian Principality of Gothia. This had been founded in the southwest Crimea in the 6th century by the Goths who refused to support Theodoric the Great in his invasion of Italy in 488. Related: Bronze Age elite tombs with precious stones and gold are “among the richest found ever in the Mediterranean”
New finds from Crimea’s Mangup Plateau, east of Sevastopol. They are believed to date between the 4th and 6th centuries. (Image credit: Crimean Federal University)
Jewelry of the highest quality
According to the press release, the new discoveries are found in two crypts that date from the 4th and 6th centuries. The jewelry appears to be worn by females. This stash contained fibulas or brooches, gold earrings, belts, shoe buckles and gold-foil appliques that were sewn onto the collars on garments. Receive the most exciting discoveries from around the globe in your email. Researchers said that these artifacts are evidence of burials by aristocratic families at the site. Artur Nabokov (19459010), archaeologist of the Institute of Archaeology of Crimea of the Russian Academy of Sciences said that in the statement. He added that earrings are likely imported while fibulas made in Crimea. Researchers also discovered these fibulas, or brooches that were used to fasten clothes. They are made of cast silver and covered in gold leaf with semiprecious stones. Image credit: Crimean Federal University.
These earrings, which are ornately decorated and made of gold and covered in red semiprecious stone inlays (carnelian or garnet), are particularly ornate. One pair of fibulas is cast in silver with gold inlays and red stones inlays. The statement also said that one of the crypts held an ornamented “pyxis” – a decorative container made of animal horn, which was used for cosmetic powders like blush.
The Mangup Kale fortress dominates the Mangup plateau. Its earliest portions date back to the 6th century. However, it was still used in the 15th. There is also archaeological evidence that prehistoric settlements have existed there since 5,000 BC. According to the report, the researchers who were on this latest expedition also investigated a Christian burial site from the 15th Century and an Islamic cemetery that had been used in the 16th to 19th centuries after the Ottoman Turks took control.
