The paper is devoted to one of the categories of equipment of a warrior of the 11th century, discovered at the Western Baltic Ostriv burial ground in Porossia (Middle Dnipro region). The red deer antler item has a T-shaped form, the distance between two longitudinal sections is 13.3 cm, and between the upper hole and the solid wall of the object is 11.3 cm. The lateral holes are not symmetrical: the diameter of the larger one is 4.7 cm, the smaller one — 4 cm, and the upper one — 2.8 cm. Two small drilled holes are located near the last one for fixing a stopper made of organic materials, with the subsequent suspension to the belt with a rope. Near the smaller lateral hole was found an iron plate and the remains of the fabric in which it was wrapped. The weight of the artefact is 190 gr. We assume the sample from Ostriv is a container made from antler. The T-shaped form of the item when suspended by small holes on the upper channel provided for the direction of the main load of the contents on the lower solid wall of the object. The fabric-wrapped metal plate provided a much better sidewall overlap density and could withstand more weight pressure than organic material tires. The contents of the container had to meet the needs of a person whose daily life is directly related to certain military activities, possibly far from the place of permanent residence and regardless of weather conditions. The study history, area of distribution, chronology, and interpretation of the functional purpose of this category of objects are considered. From the given analogies, it is obvious that such a thing was not common, maybe even considered prestigious. We believe that the container from Ostriv was used for compact storage of loose organic and mineral substances — salt, spices, medicinal herbs, etc., preventing the ingress of moisture. The issue of the container origin is debatable, as such artefacts are not typical for the South-East Baltic. Therefore, the Baltic warrior could have obtained it in one of the distribution zones of antler containers at the end of the 10th — the beginning of the 12th century: within the settlement of the Western Slavs in the Elbe and Oder rivers in the north of modern Germany; adopted from the Turkic population of the Eastern European steppes; or it should be connected with the workshop discovered in the Voin stronghold in the Middle Dnipro River. We claim the last case to be the most promising.
The presence of elements of the necklace sets among the grave goods is one of the characteristic features of the Ostriv burial ground. They were found in 21 graves from 83 excavated in the period of 2017—2020. In 19 cases they were part of the neck ornament. The necklace was an attribute of women’s costume in 17 burials, which is slightly less than half of the total number of women’s burials. This indicates both social differentiation within the group and differences in costume composition. Mainly the necklace was found among the grave goods of girls and young women. In two cases one shell of Cypraea moneta was found in men’s burials indicating their use as buttons or talismans. In total, 546 elements of the necklace set were found in the burials. Most of the finds (51 %) represented by glass products, slightly less (45 %) by shells (Cypraea moneta is absolutely dominated), 3.8 % is non-ferrous metal products, one detected bead (0.2 %) is made of faience. The uneven distribution of elements in the necklace from one item to almost hundred is recorded. The number of beads of a certain type in the set could be large, even absolute, while others consisted of more different elements but could be inferior to the first one by total number of copies in the set. Significant predominance of beads with metal foil, blue ribbed and Cypraea moneta shells. These varieties together make up 69 % of all identified elements of the necklace set and were the most popular and available for necklace formation among these people. The marginality of other elements should indicate their secondary nature and addition to the main set if possible. However, in our opinion, in this case the situation is diametrically opposed. The most common types of elements — with metal foil and Cypraea moneta — have been obtained by the population in mass and added to existing vague sets or formed new ones.
The paper is devoted to the Raiky culture in the Middle Dnieper. It reveals major issues of the phenomenon of Raiky culture and their possible solutions considering the achievements of Ukrainian archeologists in this field. The genesis, chronology and features of the development of material culture of the Raiky sites in the 8th—9th centuries of the right-bank of the Dnieper are analyzed. In general the existence of the Raiky culture in the Middle Dnieper region can be described as follows. It was formed in first half of the 8th century in the Tiasmyn basin. The first wheel-made pottery has begun to manufacture quite early, from the mid-8th century (probably at the beginning of the third quarter). At the first stage, the early vessels have imitated the hand-made Raiky forms as well as the Saltovo-Mayaki imported vessels. Significant development of the material culture occurs during the second half of the 8th century. At the same time, the movement of the people of Raiky culture and the population of the sites of Sаkhnivka type has begun in the northern direction which was marked by the appearance of the Kaniv settlement, Monastyrok, and possibly Buchak. This stage is characterized by the syncretism both in the ceramic complex and in the features of design of the heating structures. Numerous influences of the people of Volyntsevo culture (and through them – of Saltovo-Mayaki one) are recorded in the Raiky culture. It is observed not only in direct imports but also in the efforts of the Raiky population to imitate the pottery of Volyntsevo and Saltovo-Mayaki cultures, however, based on their own technological capabilities. The nature of the relationship between the bearers of these cultures is still interesting. The population of Raiky accepts the imported items of Saltovo-Mayaki and Volyntsevo cultures, tries to imitate high-quality pottery of them, and even one can see the peaceful coexistence of two cultures in one settlement — Monastyrok, Buchak, Stovpyagy. However, the reverse pulses are absent. There are no tendencies to assimilate each other. Although, given the number and size of the sites, the numerical advantage of the Volyntsevo population in the region seems obvious. There is currently no answer to this question. The first third of the 9th century became the watershed. The destruction of the Bytytsia hill-fort and the charred ruins to which most of the settlements of the Volyntsevo culture has turned, is explained in the literature by the early penetration of Scandinavians into the region or as result of the resettlement of Magyars to the Northern Pontic region. In any case, this led to a change in the ethnic and cultural situation in the Dnieper basin. According to some researchers, the surviving part of the population of Volyntsevo culture migrated to the Oka and Don interfluve. For some time, but not for long, the settlements of Raiky culture remained abandoned. Apparently, after the stabilization of situation, the residents have returned which is reflected by the reconstruction of the Kaniv settlement and Monastyrok; in addition, on the latter the fortifications have been erected. The final stage of the existence of culture is characterized by contacts with the area of the left bank of Dnieper, the influx of the items of the «Danube circle», as well as the rapid development of the forms of early wheel-made pottery. The general profiling of vessels and design of the rim became more complicated, the rich linear-wavy ornament which covers practically all surface of the item became characteristic. This suggests the use of a quick hand wheel which has improved the symmetry of the vessels, as well as permitted to create the larger specimens. The evolution of the early wheel-made ceramic complex took place only by a variety of forms, however, technological indicators (dough composition, firing, density and thickness of vessel walls) indicate the actual invariability and sustainability of the manufacture tradition. The discontinuance of the functioning of the latest Raiky sites (Monastyrok and Kaniv settlements) can be attributed as the consequences of the first stages of consolidation of the Rus people in the Middle Dnieper dating to the late 9th — the turn of the 9th—10th centuries.
A new synthesized carbon honeycomb allotrope reported previously, built from graphene nanoribbons connected by sp3-bonded carbon junction lines, forms a family of cellular structures with high porosity and sorption capacity. In this work we first propose a complete set of possible honeycomb structures of different wall chiralities both the armchair and zigzag types, including considered earlier only theoretically, for the structural analysis of such structures by means of the high-energy electron diffraction method. The “completeness” of the model set made it possible to obtain nearly perfect coincidence of the experimental and calculated diffraction intensities. The contribution of graphite fragments and random structures, also involved in the analysis, turned out to be zero. Only a limited number of honeycomb structures of different types almost ideally describes the experiment. Thus we conclude that polydomain structures corresponding to a set of basic models formed in this investigation rather than formations dominated by random structures. The samples under study have demonstrated the unique cellular stability since were stored in vacuum ∼4.5 months before the reported measurements. Along with the original results the history of the carbon honeycomb cellular structures is briefly presented.
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