The Muroma are a Finno-Ugric people related to the Mordva. The Muroma land lies in the territory of the Lower Oka. In the early Middle Ages Muroma was a key part of the Volga trade route. This is the Finno-Ugric Luxembourg. Here stood the trading posts of the Merya, the Erzya and the Mari. In the historical literature it is customary to begin the history of the Finno-Ugric Muroma with the second half of the 1st millennium AD and to end it in the 12th–13th century.

By the 10th century AD the social order of the Muroma represented the final stage of a patriarchal clan society. Property and social inequality and the emergence of specialised crafts are evident. Yet the almost universal armament of the men and the female burials with horses argue in favour of a society of free commoners.

The territory of the Muroma

It is generally accepted that the ancient Muroma formed the core of the population of the Lower Oka lands, which were of the greatest strategic and economic importance for Rus.

In the north the Muroma bordered on Meryania, in the east on Erzyan Mastor and Mari El, in the south likewise on Erzyan Mastor, and in the west on Meshchera, which was long under its political authority.

History of the question

Modern scholarship cannot say with certainty exactly where the Muroma came from or what the people of this nation called themselves. It is widely held that the Muroma language was close to Erzya. Muroma toponymy and hydronymy has been preserved fairly fully in the names of localities, settlements, rivers and lakes. Brief accounts of the Muroma are found in the earliest Kievan-Byzantine chronicles. Muroma archaeological monuments survive — flat-grave cemeteries, settlement-towns and the Chaadayevo hillfort.

The principal source for reconstructing the history of the Muroma is above all archaeological evidence — the material from excavations of 15 ancient cemeteries, carried out at intervals since the end of the last century, and the results obtained from the study of three settlements.

The Muroma were excellent farmers and stockbreeders, fishermen and hunters, and traded actively with all their nearby and distant neighbours. This is attested by the numerous tools, household goods and luxury items, objects of foreign, non-Muroma origin and coins found in burials and dwellings. Weaponry — spear and arrow heads, battle axes — matched the finest European models in quality of workmanship and fighting qualities. This shows that the Soviet historians' version of a peaceful assimilation of the Muroma by the Slavs is, at the very least, implausible. In reality it was a matter either of military confrontation or of negotiated terms of suzerainty with Kiev, and later with Chernigov and Vladimir-Meryansky, of the incorporation of Murom and the Muroma people into the political system of Eastern Europe. The second variant appears the more convincing.

Judging by the finds of the celebrated Muroma ornaments, remarkable for the inventiveness of their forms and the care of their finish, the jeweller's craft stood at a high level. The funeral costume of Muroma women was distinguished by a particular wealth of bronze and other ornaments. A distinctive feature of the Muroma cemeteries was the burial of horses and occasionally of cows, which the Muroma probably worshipped alongside the other deities of their pantheon.

On the whole the Muroma economy stood at a high level, which was connected with the favourable natural and geographical position of Murom. In the 7th–10th centuries the Muroma were — no more and no less — the trendsetters for the world of the Volga Finns.

The waves of Balto-Slavic nomads in the 10th–11th centuries were assimilated by the indigenous inhabitants of the region. Mixed Slavic-Finnish settlements and cemeteries gradually appeared.

By the 12th century the Muroma were no longer mentioned in the chronicles as a separate people — by that time Kiev and Chernigov preferred to deal with a "geographical region" rather than with a people that had mastered Slavic speech quite well as a lingua franca.

Which means that the Finno-Ugric Muroma live on their ancestral lands to this day. The question of reconstructing Muroma national self-awareness is a matter for the near future.

The first written accounts

The information given by written sources about the Muroma is scanty. Under the year 862 the Primary Chronicle reports that the Muroma made up the pre-Slavic population of the town of the same name and were its "first inhabitants".

In the east the ethnic territory of the tribe covered the lower course of the Oka: "And along the The Oka River, where it flows into the Volga, the Muroma, a tongue of their own..." (PVL, 1, 1950, p. 13). The Primary Chronicle also mentions the Muroma among the other non-Slavic peoples that paid tribute to Rus.

Burials with horses

Valuable ethnographic information about the Muroma funeral rite, which included the burial of horses, is given by the Life of Konstantin of Murom, compiled in the 16th century (Life of Konstantin of Murom, 1860, pp. 229-235). The Muroma were completely assimilated by the Slavs. Numerous toponymic and hydronymic data make it possible to assign the Muroma to the Volga-Finnic tribes, close in language to the Mordva but marked by considerable distinctiveness (Popov A. I., 1973, pp. 101, 102).

In 1840, during earthworks on the southern outskirts of the town of Murom, the first flat-grave Muroma cemetery of the 10th–11th centuries was discovered — the Pyatnitsky (Titov A., 1840). Scholarly excavations of it were carried out in 1924 and 1937.

In the 1850s, 14 km from Murom, on the Maksimovka stream, near the village of the same name, a second cemetery was found — the Maksimovsky. In various years excavations there were conducted by A. S. Uvarov, V. B. Antonovich, F. D. Nefedov, A. A. Spitsyn and F. Ya. Seleznev (Uvarov A. S., 1907, pp. 17—20; Spitsyn A. A., 1901, pp. 44-50, 105, 113, tables XXIV-XXX; Seleznev F. Ya., 1925). The cemetery was at once recognised as a monument of the chronicle Muroma. The northern orientation of the burials, the distinctiveness of the female attire, which included fillets and head cords, the original temple rings, the richly ornamented belts with buckles and a side strap, and the abundance of jingling pendants gave a clear picture of the funeral rite and grave goods of the Muroma of the 9th to the first half of the 11th century.

The western orientation of some burials with a set of Slavic objects allowed A. A. Spitsyn to suggest that the Slavs used the cemetery in the 11th century and mingled with the natives.

Discoveries of Muroma ground burial grounds followed one after another. In the 1860s the Murom burial ground was identified almost in the centre of the town. In 1895 A. A. Spitsyn carried out small-scale excavations of the Kholuy and Urvanovo burial grounds. An epoch in the study of Muroma antiquities was marked by V. A. Gorodtsov's 1910 excavations of the burial ground near the village of Podbolotnya, 12 km from Murom (Gorodtsov V. A., 1914). Early burials (6th-8th centuries) were identified, which made it possible to compare Muroma antiquities with materials from the Ryazan and Tambov burial grounds. The ritual burials of horses discovered within the area of the burial ground proved to be a characteristic feature of the Muroma funerary rite.

Muroma settlements were not studied in the pre-revolutionary period. It should be noted that Soviet archaeologists, too, gave preferential attention to excavating Muroma burials. From 1923 onwards more than 10 ground burial grounds were excavated: Kornilovo (Seleznev F. Ya., 1925), Permilovo (Seleznev F. Ya., 1925), Murom (Goryunova E. I., 1953, pp. 33-42), Kochkino (Dubynin A. F., 1966, pp. 67-79), Bezvodnoye (Krasnov Yu. A., 1980a), Zheltukha (Chernikov V. F., 1974, pp. 33-34; 1975, p. 180), Chulkovo (Avdeev A. M., Bogachev A. F., Zhiganov M. F., Zeleneev Yu. A., 1975, pp. 132, 133), Molotitsy (Rozenfeldt R. L., 1978, p. 180). They yielded a series of early burials (Kochkino, Bezvodnoye) and expanded the range of Muroma sites.

The most significant excavations were conducted by A. F. Dubynin at the Malyshevo burial ground in Selivanovo District of Ivanovo Region. Here 216 burials were uncovered, including 16 horse burials. The publications of the excavations are of a preliminary nature (Dubynin A. F., 1949a, pp. 134-136; 1949b, pp. 91-97). The excavations of the Pyatnitsky (9th-11th centuries) and Murom (8th-10th centuries) burial grounds made a substantial contribution to the historical topography of the town of Murom. In 1939 D. N. Eding excavated, near the Pyatnitsky burial ground, an unfortified settlement of the same name with a predominantly Slavic inventory (Smirnov A. P., 1952, pp. 150, 151). In 1946 N. N. Voronin and in 1948 E. I. Goryunova discovered Muroma settlements of the 8th-9th centuries on the kremlin hill of Murom and near the Church of St Nicholas on the Embankment, at the base of the town's cultural layer (Voronin N. N., 1947, pp.

136-139; Goryunova E. I., 1953, p. 33). In his polemic with E. I. Goryunova, I. P. Bogatov was unable to adduce convincing arguments in defence of the thesis of Murom as a Russian town from 862 (Bogatov I. P., 1959, pp. 223-226). The 1970-1971 works of N. V. Tukhtina near the Church of St Nicholas on the Embankment, close to N. N. Voronin's excavation of 1946, showed the small size of the Murom settlement, which spread along the bank of the Oka. Its growth began only in the 11th century and was already connected with the activity of the Slavs (Tukhtina N. V., 1980, pp. 131-133).

The origin of the Muroma

The fragmentary nature of archaeological work in Murom and the unstudied state of the 10th-century horizon leave open the question of the participation of Muroma settlements in the formation of the town. It is unknown where the earliest centre of the town was located and whether it was fortified in the 10th century. An idea of the Muroma village of the 9th-11th centuries is given by the only settlement subjected to large-scale excavations, that near the village of Tumovka, 7 km from Murom. It was investigated by E. I. Goryunova in 1937-1950 (Goryunova E. I., 1961, pp. 163-182). In the 1960s-1980s a fairly large number of settlements were surveyed, but they were not excavated. Hillforts have not been studied either. S. K. Kuznetsov saw in the Muroma one of the subdivisions of the Merya (Kuznetsov S. K., 1910, pp. 108-127). V. F. Gening believed that the Muroma took shape within the Merya ethnic community, and that consequently their distant ancestors should be sought among the tribes of the eastern variant of the Dyakovo culture (Gening V. F., 19676).

The most convincing hypothesis is that of the origin of the Muroma, like the Mordva, from the tribes of the Gorodets culture, whose local groups occupied, from the middle of the 1st millennium BC, the Murom and Ryazan reaches of the Oka and the basins of the Tsna and Moksha rivers. The undoubted ethnocultural closeness of the Muroma and the Mordva has been interpreted by researchers in different ways. Thus, A. A. Geraklitov (Geraklitov A. A., 1931) identified the Muroma with the Mordva outright. P. D. Stepanov, and more recently V. N. Martyanov and D. T. Nadkin, held that the Muroma took part in the formation of the Mordva (Martyanov V. N., Nadkin D. T., 1979, pp.

103-133). A view was also expressed of the Muroma as one of the Mordvin tribes (Smirnov A. P., 1940, p. 143) or as one of the tribes related to the Mordva-Moksha but having a somewhat different language (Goryunova E. I., 1961, p. 159). A. E. Alikhova and A. F. Dubynin defended the view of the Muroma as a tribe related to the Mordva but independent, still preserving in the 10th century its own language and its own ethnic territory (Alikhova A. E., 1949b, pp. 26-30; Dubynin A. F., 1949a, pp. 134-137). Specific features of the material culture of the Muroma can be traced already in the early burials of the Malyshevo and Podbolotyevo burial grounds. In the 9th-11th centuries the Muroma, by the sum of the ethnographic features that can be established by archaeologists, appear as an independent ethnic community.

The greater part of the archaeological sites of the Muroma is located on the left bank of the Oka, between its tributaries the Ushna and the Unzha and the right bank of the Klyazma (map 16). Muroma sites also occupied the left bank of the Klyazma, adjoining to the north-west, along the river Teza, the burial grounds and settlements of the Merya. The northernmost Muroma site is the burial ground near the village of Kochkino in Palekh District of Ivanovo Region, on the river Lukh, a left tributary of the Klyazma. The long-standing residence of the Muroma here is attested by the names of the nearest settlements, Bolshaya and Malaya Muromka (Dubynin A. F., 1966, p.

67). Burial grounds such as Nizhnyaya Vereya, Urvanovo and Chulkovo testify that the Muroma also settled the left bank of the Oka. Separate groups of the Muroma could have advanced further east into the Nizhny Novgorod reaches of the Volga. It is probably in this light that the appearance here of the Zheltukha and Bezvodnoye burial grounds should be viewed. The investigator of the latter burial ground, Yu. A. Krasnov, while acknowledging this burial ground's closest affinity to the Muroma group of sites, regards the population that left it as a distinct group of Volga Finno-Ugrians of the 5th-6th centuries, close to the Muroma but subsequently assimilated by the Mordva (Krasnov Yu.

A., 1980a, pp. 117-119). The Mordva were the eastern and south-eastern neighbours of the Muroma, the Meshchera their southern neighbours. The appearance of the Slavs in the territory of the Muroma dates to the 10th century. At that time burials with a western orientation and a set of Slavic objects appear in Muroma burial grounds. The attempts of some researchers to push this date considerably further back, explaining the rite of cremation and the horse burials as the Slavicisation of the Muroma (Smirnov A. P., 1952, pp. 147, 148), are untenable. By the end of the 11th century the process of assimilation of the Muroma by the Slavs was in the main complete.

The layout of settlements

The most widespread type of Muroma settlement was the unfortified settlement (map 17). Reliably early settlements contemporary with the earliest burials of the burial grounds (6th-7th centuries) have not yet been found. Many settlements with a broad date (8th-9th centuries?) have been discovered by surveys along the banks of the river Ushna (Gusek, Chebashikha, Yuromka), but they have not been excavated. Settlements are usually situated on the high plateau of the bedrock bank of small rivers, in whose floodplains there are water meadows. Test pits reveal an insignificant cultural layer, represented almost exclusively by handmade pottery. The area of the settlements is 1.5-2 hectares. The settlements mentioned above within the bounds of the town of Murom (on the kremlin hill and at St Nicholas on the Embankment) have been only partly touched by excavation.

The layer of the St Nicholas on the Embankment settlement is characterised by handmade pottery, finds of bone spindle whorls, arrowheads and bast-weaving awls, a large quantity of domestic animal bones and millet grains. The settlement is dated to the 8th-9th (or 8th-10th) centuries. The only well-studied Muroma settlement is that of the 9th-early 11th century near the village of Tumovka, 7 km south-west of Murom, on the left bank of the river Ilemna. Its area is more than 2 hectares; the cultural layer, about 0.3 m thick, has been ploughed. The Tumovka settlement was investigated by E. I. Goryunova in 1947-1950. Thirty-seven dwelling, production and household structures of different periods were discovered.

The dwelling houses are represented by three types. The early period is characterised by rectangular semi-dugouts up to 1.2 m deep, with an area of up to 44 sq. m, with one or two hearths. Besides the usual type of hearths built of stones, ovens with a clay-daubed vault were discovered here. Some houses were connected with one another by covered passages. A later type of house was the aboveground log house, with an earthen floor sunk by 0.2-0.3 m and an oven with a clay-daubed vault. Structures of the same type of small size and without hearths evidently served as storerooms. The layout of the settlement was disorderly. To the latest period in the life of the settlement belong the foundations, discovered in the southern excavation, of aboveground rectangular structures with a plank floor and underfloor pits up to 1 m deep.

The area of such houses was only 10-12 sq. m. The ovens were of clay daub, with a stone hearth floor and a clay-daubed vault. The houses were set in a single line, as if in a street arrangement. Adjoining the house was a yard with outbuildings and a shelter for livestock. Clay-daubed platforms (4 x 4 m) were identified on the territory of the settlement, probably representing communal threshing floors. In the southern excavation an ore-roasting furnace and two smithing and casting workshops were discovered. In the 11th century Slavs lived at the Tumovka settlement together with the Muroma. Along the river Ushna, Slavic-Muroma settlements of the 10th-12th centuries have been surveyed.

Thus, the settlement near the village of Novlenka occupies an area of up to 10 hectares, and the thickness of its cultural layer ranges from 0.25 to 1 m. The Muroma element in it is represented by handmade pottery. At the 10th-12th-century settlement near the village of Malyshevo, A. F. Dubynin carried out small-scale excavations in 1950. Its cultural layer was about 0.45 m thick. Remains of aboveground houses with clay-daubed ovens and undercrofts were discovered. Among the Muroma finds at the settlement should be counted handmade vessels, clay spindle whorls and an iron implement resembling a spoon-spatula. There are grounds for believing that hillforts of the Gorodets culture were used by the Muroma for settlement or as refuges.

Thus, in the upper layer of the hillfort near the village of Oznobishino (Selivanovo District of Ivanovo Region), A. F. Dubynin's excavations of 1950 uncovered Muroma handmade pottery, iron buckles and clay spindle whorls with punched ornament. Unfortunately, the highly interesting Chaadayevo hillfort near Murom, where, according to tradition, the old town stood, remains unstudied. I. P. Bogatov assigned it to the 9th century. A. A. Spitsyn found on the platform of the hillfort a bronze openwork chape of a sword scabbard of Scandinavian workmanship (Spitsyn A. A., 1901, table XXVIII, 2). From there too comes an Abbasid dirham (821-822), kept in the Murom Museum (inv. No. 10350).

Burial culture

The cemeteries are characterized by the arrangement of burials in rows. The distance between the rows and the number of graves in them varies. Burials with horses and graves with separate horse interments are located across the area of the cemeteries between the rows of human graves or intermingled with them, without forming separate groups. Despite the long period during which individual cemeteries were in use, the grave pits rarely overlap one another. The cemeteries are biritual (Table 6). Cremations appear at the beginning of the second half of the 1st millennium AD, but are most widespread in the 9th — first half of the 10th century. The grave goods in cremation and inhumation burials are identical.

The burning of the bodies took place elsewhere, on special platforms or in cremation pits, discovered at the Bezvodninsky, Kochkinsky and Muromsky cemeteries. Graves with cremations, as a rule, have the same dimensions, orientation (north—south, north-west — south-east, isolated ones east—west) and rectangular shape as the grave pits with inhumations. There are also grave pits of irregular rounded shape. The calcined bones were usually laid in a heap, but sometimes were scattered over the bottom of the pit. Objects were placed on the bones or beside them. At the Bezvodninsky cemetery, weapons and bits were laid to the north or south of the calcined bones, which corresponded to their position at the feet or the head of those buried by the rite of inhumation, while socketed axes (celts) were laid to the west (by the pelvic bones).

At the Kochkinsky cemetery, pits of irregular rounded shape were as a rule used for burying the remains of cremations. Paired (male and female) cremations predominated here, with the calcined bones together with the sets of female and male objects placed at different depths or in different parts of the grave pit. In a number of cases the female ornaments were wrapped in birch bark, bast or cloth. In the fill of the graves individual bones of domestic animals were encountered, as well as parts of horse and cow carcasses, and in one male burial of the Podbolotyevsky cemetery there was a heap of bear bones. In some Muroma cemeteries (Muromsky, Malyshevsky and others) a rite of partial cremation with the preliminary severing of the skull was also observed.

The latter was laid on the bottom of the grave, in its northern part, while the calcined bones were placed in a heap or scattered to the south of the skull. In a number of female burials of the Kochkinsky and Nizhnevereysky cemeteries the skulls, with the headbands and temple rings preserved on them, were set upright on their base, while the remaining ornaments were laid out to the south and in the same order in which they had been worn in life. Under the rite of inhumation the dead were placed in the graves without coffins, but the bottom of the pit was first lined with bast or birch bark, and sometimes strewn with sand.

At the Bezvodninsky cemetery fires were lit in some graves before burial. The dead were sometimes wrapped in bast or matting. The position of the dead is on the back, with the hands folded at the pelvic bones or on the chest. At the Bezvodninsky, Kochkinsky and Malyshevsky cemeteries secondary burials are known, in which the remains of the dead are represented by an incomplete set of skeletal bones lying without anatomical order (sometimes a skull was buried). Several male inhumations together with the remains of female cremations have also been encountered. Muroma burials are characterized by an orientation to the north and north-west. Only for a few early burials of the Bezvodninsky, Kholuysky, Podbolotyevsky and Malyshevsky cemeteries is an orientation to the south, south—south-east and south—south-west known.

No more than seven early burials at the Kholuysky, Kochkinsky and Podbolotyevsky cemeteries had an eastern orientation. In two of them radiate-headed and cruciform brooches and imitations of them were found. V. V. Sedov holds that these burials belong to an incoming (Baltic) population (Sedov V. V., 1966a, p. 96). At the Kochkinsky cemetery eight inhumations out of nine had a western orientation. Almost all of them date to the 8th—9th centuries; their grave goods are purely Finnic. At the Podbolotyevsky cemetery there are 14 burials with a western orientation; they are located in the later part of the cemetery. At the Maksimovsky cemetery there are six such burials. Burials with a western orientation have scanty grave goods.

Slavic objects are sometimes present in them; some of the burials have no grave goods at all. As A. A. Spitsyn supposed, such burials at the Maksimovsky cemetery // (p. 84) were left by Slavs or by a Christianized Muroma population. The date is the end of the 10th — first half of the 11th century. Women were buried with a full set of ornaments — from the headdress to the footwear. Common finds in burials are clay spindle whorls and awls, and vessels. The character of the ornaments changed over time. Female attire, like the other grave goods, reflected the property, family and social standing of the woman. Thus, the burials of women metal-casters were accompanied by tools and semi-finished products.

Rich female burials stood out not only by their grave goods but also by horse interments. Male burials are characterized by fire-striking sets (strike-a-lights, flints, wick tubes) and socketed axes (celts) driven into the ground. Among other tools, knives, ice picks and, on one occasion, a sickle are encountered. Burials of male craftsmen with tools (smiths, casters) are known only from the 10th century. Male burials with horses are usually distinguished by the richness of their grave goods; in some cases female interments were also found with them. Almost every male burial contained weapons arrowheads, spearheads, extremely rarely swords). Sometimes female ornaments presented as gifts are found in them. Usually the latter lie to one side, but in some cases they lie on the deceased, in the place they occupied in the female attire.

A remarkable feature of the Muroma funerary rite is horse interments. They are known from the 6th—7th centuries, but the majority belong to a later time. Ninety-six such burials have been discovered at 11 cemeteries. They are represented by burials of people with horses (29) and burials of horses (67). According to the observation of Yu. A. Krasnov, about half of the horse skeletons of the Bezvodninsky cemetery belonged to young animals that could not yet be used for riding; these were buried without harness. On eight occasions horses were found in female burials. These facts convince us that the slaughter and interment of horses were carried out for ritual purposes (Map 18).

It should be noted that the types of horse interments are similar both in the early (Bezvodninsky) and in the later Muroma cemeteries, and that a southern orientation of the horse interments predominates, which testifies to the existence of enduring traditions in the rite of horse burial among the Muroma. Burials of a person with a horse fall into two groups: with a dismembered horse carcass and with a whole horse carcass. Within each group, types of burial are distinguished according to the particulars of the position of the slaughtered horse and the differences in the funerary rite of the deceased. Burials with a dismembered horse carcass fall into six types.

Type 1 is represented by four burials with inhumations at the Bezvodninsky cemetery (44, 57, 90, 150), two female and two male, oriented to the north and south. Part of the horse's carcass (forelimbs, vertebrae, ribs, skull) was placed in the fill in the southern part of the grave, while the bones of the hind part were laid on the bottom in its northern part. The skull is tilted up, turned with its incisor part to the south. Type 2 is represented by three burials with inhumations (3, 41, 151) at the Bezvodninsky cemetery (the last two female). The orientation is north-north-west and indeterminate. Part of the horse's carcass was laid on special ledges in the northern and southern parts of the grave.

As in the first type, the arrangement of the bones in anatomical order was maintained, with the skull to the south. Type 3 is represented by two male inhumations, oriented to the north—north-west and south—south-east, in a single grave (16) of the Bezvodninsky cemetery. Only the forelimbs of two horses and two skulls, oriented with their incisor parts to the south, were buried. The horse bones lay on the bottom of the grave at the feet and by the head. Type 4 is represented by burials 12, 151 and 179 of the Malyshevsky cemetery, in which the person was interred by the rite of cremation. The horse bones — the hind and fore legs, on which the skull was placed — lie at the level of, or below, the calcined human bones.

The horse's skull is oriented to the north-west. In burials 151 and 179 bits, stirrups, harness ornaments, arrowheads and battle axes were found. Burial 122 of the Podbolotyevsky cemetery belongs to the same type. The calcined human bones lie below the horse's skull. The orientation of the latter is unknown. Type 5 — horse interments accompany the inhumation of a person. Three such cases are known, including two male burials (124 and 169) of the Podbolotyevsky cemetery. In the first burial there were a socketed axe (celt), a strike-a-light, a belt with mounts, and a casting ladle. Parts of the horse's carcass (the fore legs and the skull placed upon them) were buried above the person.

In interment 169 the buried man is oriented to the north, and the horse's remains were placed in the northern part of the grave. The next, burial 3 of the Maksimovsky cemetery, is female; bracelets, finger rings, a breast plaque with a small door, and a silver bowl were found with it. The horse's bones and teeth were covered with birch bark, on which harness ornaments lay. Type 6 is represented by two male burials (23, 33) of the Podbolotyevsky cemetery performed by the rite of inhumation, oriented to the north and north—north-west. The horse's bones lie at the same level as the human remains. In both burials the horses' heads were laid by the person's head.

In burial 23 two horses were interred, and the head of the second horse was placed on the person's left knee. Three burials with inhumations can be assigned to any type, since their orientation and the position of the horse's bones in relation to the person are unknown. These are the paired burial 4 (a man and a woman) of the Maksimovsky cemetery and the female burial 17 of the same cemetery. In burial 4 were found bits, parts of harness, two stirrups, a spear, shield-shaped temple rings, finger rings, bracelets, and a pendant with a bear's head. In burial 17 there were bits, parts of harness, part of a head cord with a spiral winding, and bronze ornaments in the form of half-cylinders with jingling pendants.

The third is the male burial 5 of the Permilovsky cemetery. Burials with a whole horse skeleton are differentiated into two types. Type 1. Inhumations of a person with the head to the north. The horse (with its head tilted up, the incisor part to the south) was laid in the grave, as a rule, to the left of the person, on the bottom of the grave or on a low step or in a niche. It is represented by burials 12, 40, 54—55 and 61 of the Bezvodninsky cemetery (the first female, the rest male). In the latter, spears and socketed axes (celts) were found. Type 2. Represented by the male inhumation (88) of the Podbolotyevsky cemetery.

With the skeleton, oriented to the north — north-east, were an axe, a knife, a spiral finger ring and a buckle. The horse was placed above the person in the fill of the grave pit, oriented in the same way. Beside the horse lay bits, stirrups and an ice pick. Two interments of men at the Zheltukhinsky cemetery cannot be assigned to any type owing to a lack of information. The horses are oriented to the south; the details are unknown. Among the horse burials proper two groups stand out: I — interments of dismembered horse carcasses; II — burials of whole skeletons. At each cemetery the interments of dismembered horse carcasses had their own particular features, which makes it possible, using the classification proposed by Yu.

A. Krasnov, to distinguish several types. Type 1. The cut-up parts of the horse's carcass (at the Bezvodninsky cemetery — without the caudal vertebrae) // (p. 86) were placed in the grave in anatomical order, with the skull to the south. The hind limbs were laid on the bottom of the grave, the fore limbs higher, in the fill. The horse's neck and head are raised upward. To this type belong 14 burials (17, 24, 25, 42, 43, 51, 59, 60, 64, 82, 88, 89, 132, 138) of the Bezvodninsky cemetery (Krasnov Yu. A., 1980a, p. 33) and two burials (20, 26) of the Malyshevsky. In each grave one horse is usually buried, but in grave 17 of the Bezvodninsky cemetery there were two.

Type 2. Only the horse's fore legs were buried, with the skull placed upon them, the incisor part to the south. It is represented by two burials (112, 165) of the Bezvodninsky cemetery and two (54, 55) of the Malyshevsky. In burial 54 four fore legs and two skulls were interred. Type 3. The fore and hind legs were buried separately from the skull. In two burials (27 and 190) of the Malyshevsky cemetery the skulls were oriented to the south. In grave 27 bits, a bell and jingling pendants were found. In burial 1 of the Chulkovsky cemetery the skull lay in the north-western part of the grave. Type 4.

Interments of parts of horse carcasses with the skulls severed, without vertebrae and ribs. The remaining bones were placed in anatomical order, with the front part to the north. It is represented by three burials of the Kochkinsky cemetery. Two interments were made in graves, one in a cremation pit. In two cases the dismembered carcasses of cows were buried together with the horse. Type 5. The parts of the skeletons are scattered, the skull is absent. To it belong burial 13 of the Podbolotyevsky cemetery and 98 of the Malyshevsky. In the burial of whole skeletons (group II) the horses were laid in the grave on the belly, with the legs tucked under.

Sometimes the carcass had fallen over on its side. Several types of such interments stand out. Type 1. The characteristic position of the neck is extended and raised. The skull is tilted up, turned with its incisor part to the south or south-east. At the Bezvodninsky cemetery there are five such burials (23, 37, 56, 80, 83). The caudal vertebrae are cut off. At the Malyshevsky cemetery there are likewise five burials of this type (20—22, 28, 29). In one the horse was bridled (bits, a bridle with a headstall, stirrups, spherical bells, a bell). At the Kornilovsky cemetery one similar burial was discovered. In the grave were found a bridle, a headstall, an axe and a knife.

At the Pyatnitsky cemetery there were two burials of this type (13 and 14), and at the Nizhnevereysky and Podbolotyevsky (burial 115) one each. The position of the horse's skull in the last burial is unclear; the horse was bridled. Type 2. The position of the horse in the grave, with the neck extended and the skull tilted up, is the same as in the first type, but the orientation is unstable. At the Kochkinsky cemetery eight graves were found, and in one of them two skeletons. The orientation of the horses: southern (two), northern (three), eastern (two), western (one). In two graves bits and a knife were found. Type 3.

Orientation to the north with deviations. Fifteen burials of the Podbolotyevsky cemetery are oriented to the north and north—north-east. It is unclear whether the heads of the interred horses were tilted up. Ten horses were bridled. Besides bits, stirrups and buckles were found in the burials, and in two of them axes, a spear and knives. In two burials, together with the bridled horse, female ornaments wrapped in birch bark were placed in the grave. At the Kornilovsky cemetery one horse burial was uncovered, oriented to the north-west. Bits were found with it. In addition, items of horse equipment have been found in a number of burials without horses, and in the early burials there are more of them than in the late ones.

Thus, bits were encountered in 16 burials of the Bezvodninsky cemetery (five of them female) and in 10 of the Kochkinsky (twice in female burials). In such a large cemetery as the Podbolotyevsky, bits and stirrups were found in only seven male burials. The ethnically defining items for Muroma women were the headdress, the belt and the footwear, reconstructed from the surviving metal details and ornaments (Map 19). The headdress included cords, headbands, straps, temple rings and braid ornaments. The head cords were made of horsehair, of linen or woollen threads, of strips of leather or birch bark rolled or sewn into the form of a tube. They were secured with open bronze rings, wound about with thin leather straps wrapped in spirals and tube beads.

Closed cords encircled the woman's head all the way round, from the forehead to the nape. Arc-shaped cords are the most distinctive feature of the Muroma headdress: they are unknown among other Finnic tribes (Alikhova A. E., 1949b, p. 28). Cords of both forms have already been found in the early interments of the Bezvodninsky cemetery. In the 8th—10th centuries the head cords were massive and were invariably wound with a bronze spiral. Headbands were worn on the forehead: at the crown their ends were tied or fastened with a buckle. At the Kochkinsky cemetery the headbands consisted of three narrow straps with spiral tube beads, joined at intervals by rectangular clasps with stamped ornament (Table XXXIII, 1, 2).

The same headbands are known from the Bezvodninsky cemetery as well. At the Podbolotyevsky cemetery headbands were found made of cylindrical tubes, spirals and clasps strung on straps. As the finds at the Bezvodninsky cemetery have shown, headbands were also made of strips of leather or cloth and decorated with beads, small spirals and clasps sewn onto the outer side. A narrow head strap (up to 1 cm), decorated with bronze spirals, clasps and trapezoidal pendants and encircling the head all the way round (tied at the crown), is known (in combination with a headband) from the burials of the 6th—7th centuries of the Malyshevsky and Podbolotyevsky cemeteries. It remained a constant element of the headdress in later times as well, but in the 9th century a wide (up to 3 cm) head strap appeared in addition to it.

The latter was put on the head above the narrow one. It was usually decorated with bronze clasps, but sometimes it was cut into three to five narrow straps, onto which spirals or silver cylindrical tubes were strung in combination with rectangular clasps. In this case it took the place of the headband. At the beginning of the 11th century this complex headdress went out of use. The early stage of the Muroma cemeteries (6th—7th centuries) is characterized by two types of temple ring: plain wire rings and rings with a shield. Plain bracelet-like rings with blunt converging ends were usually made of silver. The diameter of the rings is 5—11 cm; two of them are found in a burial.

They occur at the Bezvodninsky, Kochkinsky and other cemeteries (Table XXXIII, 9, 10). The most widespread ethnic ornament of the Muroma was the temple ring with a shield, made chiefly of bronze. In the 6th—7th centuries these rings, 6—7 cm in diameter, had a miniature shield of indeterminate shape and were placed two to four per burial. In the 8th—9th centuries they become somewhat larger, the shield grows and takes on an oval outline. Sometimes the rings are supplemented by jingling pendants and spirals (Table XXXIV, 3). Up to eight rings are found in a burial. In the second half of the 9th—10th centuries the diameter of the ring increases to 10—13 cm; the shield, on the contrary, becomes smaller, losing its regular shape.

The number of rings in a burial reaches 12—14. In the 10th century bronze ring-shaped temple rings also come into use. At the same time the headdress is supplemented by massive lunate temple rings. They were worn one on each side of the head, together with the shield-shaped ones. Lunate temple rings are usually of silver, measuring 6.5 x 7.5 cm and smaller. Some of them were furnished with pendants and decorated with engraving. From the burials of the Bezvodninsky cemetery braid ornaments are reconstructed as composite ornaments consisting of thin straps plaited into the braid with cylindrical tube beads, spirals and clasps strung on them. At the bottom, bottle-shaped pendants or pyramidal bells were attached to the straps.

Braid ornaments made of tube beads, clasps and bells are known both from the early and from the late burials of the Malyshevsky and Podbolotyevsky cemeteries. From the 9th century, and especially in the 10th, complex back pendants in the form of yokes came into use (Table XXXIV, 18). They consist of crossbars (from one to four) with jingling pendants, made of bronze (or of antler or wood wound with a bronze spiral), and of straps joining them vertically, with bronze facings, or of narrow straps that were threaded through cylindrical tube beads (Table XXXV, 13). Back pendants are known from burials of the Malyshevsky, Podbolotyevsky, Maksimovsky, Pyatnitsky and Kornilovsky cemeteries.

This ornament is usually interpreted as a braid ornament. V. N. Martyanov and D. T. Nadkin, however, suppose that it is part of a belt ornament of the Mordvin pulagai type (Martyanov V. N., Nadkin D. T., 1979, pp. 125—130), although there is little evidence for this. Unlike the neighbouring tribes, where leather belts were an item of male costume, among the Muroma leather belts with metal mounts and // (p. 88) strap-ends were worn by women as well. At the Bezvodninsky cemetery belts are known with additional side straps, richly decorated with plaque-mounts and jingling pendants. The classic form of the Muroma woman's belt — with a wide and long side strap on the right — becomes most widespread in the 10th century.

The strap was covered entirely with bronze mounts. Particular attention was paid to the decoration of the front part of the belt. Here two to four large cast openwork buckles or plaques were placed, furnished with jingling pendants (Table XXXIV, 17; XXXV, 9). Sometimes tube beads were strung on the strap — half-cylinders with bells or with pendants in the form of goose feet. The jingling ornaments of the belt were meant to frighten off evil spirits. The protective significance of the belt is also attested by the little-horse amulets hanging from the belt down to the level of the woman's pubis in burial 2 of the Kornilovsky cemetery. Bronze ornaments of leather footwear have been discovered in female and children's burials of the Bezvodninsky cemetery.

They consisted of tube beads, clasps and various plaques with small rings hung from them, which were sewn to the footwear in the area of the foot. In the late Muroma burials the footwear ornaments are represented by various types of cast pendants, rectangular or rounded (umbo-shaped), furnished with jingling pendants (Table XXXIV, 13). The legs from the ankles to the middle of the shin were tightly wound with a strap entirely covered with bronze mounts. The Muroma leg ornaments are typologically distinct from the Mordvin ones. The clothing of the Muroma woman was made of linen and woollen fabrics and of fur. Its cut is difficult to judge. Possibly a belted garment of the shirt type was worn bloused over the belt, and its hem, with jingling pendants sewn on, reached the middle of the shin, leaving the richly decorated legs exposed.

The attire of the Muroma woman gradually evolved. In the 7th century the headdress, consisting of head cords, a headband and temple rings, was decorated with cruciform brooches or imitations of them. The latter are of local workmanship, cast without pins and sewn onto cloth or leather (Table XXXIII, 3). Red paste beads occurred as part of the necklace. Among the neck torcs, rod torcs with hooks or with ends wound about with wire and with beads strung on them predominated, as well as plate torcs and narrow sickle-shaped ones (Table XXXIII, 4). At the Bezvodninsky, Kochkinsky and Podbolotyevsky cemeteries massive trapezoidal pendants on double loops have been found (Table XXXIII, 5).

The breast ornaments included plate plaques with a small door and six triangular openings and cast round clasps with false-cord ornament and jingling pendants (Table XXXIII, 6). On the arms were worn spiral, rod and plate bracelets (Table XXXIV, 9, 11) and spiral finger rings. The 8th—9th centuries are characterized by neck torcs with a "little boat" (Table XXXVI, 9) and rod torcs with a shield. In the 9th century there appear: breast plate plaques without openings and round openwork plaque-buckles with a projection (Table XXXIV, 8); finger rings with pendants or with a shield and a setting; belt ornaments in the form of cast rectangular plaques with false granulation and filigree, in whose ornament volutes are present (Table XXXIV, 17, 19), and with jingling pendants; back pendants in the form of a yoke (Table XXXIV, 18).

For the 9th—10th centuries differences can be traced between the maiden's and the woman's headdress. According to the observations of A. F. Dubynin, the maiden's headdress consisted of a closed cord, a head strap, a headband, temple rings and a braid ornament. Sometimes tube beads in the form of half-cylinders with jingling pendants, or bottle-shaped pendants with jingling pendants, were attached to the narrow head strap at the temples. In a married woman the headdress was supplemented by two arc-shaped cords (Table XXXVI, 2—5). In the 10th century bronze ornaments covered the woman literally from head to foot. All of them, beginning with the temple rings, are larger and more massive than in the preceding period.

Thus, among the neck torcs those of the Glazov type predominate (Table XXXVI, 10). In the composition of the necklace the number of metal jingling pendants of various designs increases. The most widespread are cylindrical tube beads, to which "legs" are soldered vertically or obliquely from below — narrow tubes of spirally wound wire with loops, from which triangular plates are suspended (Table XXXV, 6). Necklaces were formed from such pendants, and in three burials of the Maksimovsky and Kornilovsky cemeteries they were found as part of a maiden's headdress. The design of the cast openwork belt plaques and buckles with jingling pendants becomes more complex. Besides finger rings with pendants, large ring-shaped pendants appear, which were put on torcs or sewn to clothing.

Up to eight jingling pendants on long chains were attached to them (Table XXXV, 5). Lunulae with jingling pendants become larger (Table XXXV, 4). Round breast plaque-buckles with an openwork design on the ring increase in diameter; the number of jingling pendants on them reaches 12 (Table XXXV, 3). Zoomorphic ornaments appear: little-horse amulets with jingling pendants and horse pendants. Horse pendants of the Muroma type (Table XXXV, 7) differ from the Meryan and Mordvin ones in that they have "legs" (up to seven) in the form of narrow tubes with loops of spirally wound wire. On the back there is a decorative loop, spirals, or an ornament resembling the sun with rays.

A strap was threaded through the loops from the reverse side, and the pendant was worn on the breast, as part of a necklace or of a belt ornament. Almost half of the pendants were found in cremations, and therefore it is difficult to establish their principal place in the female attire. Six pendants, which is one third of all the finds, were found in burials with dirhams, the latest of which date to the end of the 10th century (Golubeva L. A., 1976, pp. 75-78, figs. 1, 2). Composite horse pendants — with a square and a trapezoidal shield — are represented by two types, the first of which is marked by individual features in the filling of the inner space of the shield and by the small size of the latter (Table XXXV, 1), while the second, later one, belongs among the serial castings produced // (p.

89) in the territory of the Mari. They have been found in burials of the Podbolotyevsky, Malyshevsky and Urvanovsky cemeteries (Golubeva L. A., 1979b, p. 51). The date of these pendants is the 10th — first half of the 11th century. The Muroma woman of that time is characterized by trapezoidal and bottle-shaped pendants sewn onto the sleeves, the hem and the seams of the clothing (Table XXXVI. 10). In the first half of the 11th century the costume of the Muroma woman becomes simpler: Slavic types appear among the ornaments; little crosses and slate spindle whorls are encountered. Male clothing cannot be reconstructed from the archaeological evidence. The strike-a-lights encountered in almost every male burial belong to the plate type and are subdivided into two variants (Golubeva L. A., 1965, pp.

258—260): in the form of a plate with a handle, and an oval curved plate with converging ends (Table XXXVII, 8, 4). Both variants of strike-a-light are ethnically defining features of Muroma culture. It should be noted that strike-a-lights of the second variant are present at the Kochkinsky and Bezvodninsky cemeteries in burials of the 6th—7th centuries. The same period is characterized by small socketed axes (celts) (Table XXXVII, 11), rhomboid arrowheads, and socketed spearheads with a two-barbed or rhomboid blade. The 8th—9th centuries are marked by celts of a more elongated form (Table XXXVII, 12), which at the end of the 9th — beginning of the 10th century are replaced by shaft-hole axes with cheek-pieces (Table XXXVII, 13).

In the 9th—10th centuries strike-a-lights of both the first and the second variant occur in burials. Axes acquire more elongated and narrow blades. Spears are socketed, two-barbed, with a blade of rhomboid and elongated-triangular form (Table XXXVII, 14, 15). At the end of the 10th — beginning of the 11th century tanged spears with a leaf-shaped blade and axes with a notch appear. In burials of the 10th — beginning of the 11th century leather purses and scales with weights are known.

Development of crafts

In the rich male burials of the Malyshevo cemetery (40, 72, 84), bronze cauldrons, wooden ladles and similar bowls with silver plating were found. The economy of the Muroma in the 5th—8th centuries was based on animal husbandry (especially horse breeding) and agriculture. Iron mining and processing had probably already become an independent branch of production, but specific evidence of this is lacking. Casting was evidently in the hands of women. This is attested by four burials of female casters from the Malyshevo, Zheltukhino and Bezvodnoye cemeteries. Casting spoons, awls and a casting mould were found in the burials. As a rule, these graves stand out for the richness of the female costume (Chernikov V. F., 1974, p.

34; 1975, p. 180). The burial of a female caster from the Bezvodnoye cemetery stood out for the particular splendour of the attire, the silver items and the multitude of bronze ornaments. The social significance of the craftswoman is emphasised by the placing of a horse bit in the grave and by the size of the pit — the largest in the cemetery (Krasnov Yu. A., 1980a, pp. 18, 175, 176). The female casters probably served the needs of their own community, and their production was not yet commercial. An idea of the Muroma village of the 9th — early 11th century is given by the excavations of the Tumovo settlement.

Animal husbandry remained the main branch of the economy of the settlement's inhabitants in this period as well. The composition of the herd: pig, horse, cow, sheep. Agriculture was evidently extensive in character. Fragments of sickles, hoes and stone hand mills — querns — were found. Great importance was attached to hunting (for furs), fishing and beekeeping; domestic crafts were developed — weaving, bone carving, pottery (without the use of the potter's wheel). A distinctive feature of the economic activity of the settlement's inhabitants was ironworking, which left its trace in almost every dwelling. Such economic specialisation was evidently determined by the proximity of local raw material — outcrops of brown ironstone near the village of Panfilovo (small-scale extraction of iron ore continued here up to and including the 19th century).

A destroyed bloomery furnace was discovered near the settlement. Excavations on the area of the settlement investigated an ore-roasting furnace and two smithing and casting workshops. The furnace was a round pit coated with a thick (up to 0.2 m) layer of clay on a wooden frame. The internal diameter of the furnace was 1.5 m, the depth 0.5 m. Beneath the bottom of this peculiar "clay cauldron" lay the firebox. One of the workshops was situated in a semi-dugout dwelling, the second on the surface, under a canopy. Near the large stone hearths slag, blooms and fragments of pots with iron residues were found, as well as parts of crucibles, casting spoons and semi-finished items, testifying to the combination of ironwork and copperwork in the hands of a single craftsman.

The production structures date to the end of the 10th — beginning of the 11th century. Alongside the specialisation of iron-making and smithing crafts, copper casting retained to a greater degree the character of a domestic craft, and at the Tumovo settlement it was practised by women. This conclusion may be extended to bronze casting (in particular, jewellery making) in the Muroma village as a whole. In six Muroma cemeteries of the 9th—11th centuries (Kornilovo, Maksimovka, Malyshevo, Nizhnyaya Vereya, Podbolotye, Pyatnitsa), 23 burials of female casters were found. Most of the burials date to the 10th century. The set of tools in the burials still includes casting spoons, moulds and awls.

Muroma casting spoons have the form of a small oval ladle with a single spout. The craftswomen of this period not only worked to order, creating genuine masterpieces of the jeweller's art, but also produced many types of ornaments serially, by a simplified technology, replacing painstaking assembly work with casting. Such items were intended for sale on the market. The transformation of casting into a craft coincides with the appearance in the 10th—11th centuries of burials of male casters. Two such burials are known, both from the Podbolotye cemetery. In burial 124 only a casting spoon was found; in burial 2 — a casting spoon, a casting mould, women's ornaments and a set of smith's tools.

Both burials seem to illustrate the passing of casting and jewellery making into the hands of men. The development of crafts among the Muroma did not reach its highest stage — the urban craft. Remaining rural, the material culture of the Muroma long preserved its ethnic distinctiveness. Their encounter with the Slavs, significantly later than that of the Merya, al- // (P.90) so affected the long survival of traditional techniques in smithing and pottery, and the persistence of local types of tools, weapons and ornaments. Thus, Muroma smiths at the end of the 10th century still continued to make the most widespread tools — knives — by a primitive technology: from solid iron.

The appearance at the end of the 10th century of Slavic kalach-shaped fire strikers did not displace the traditional plate-shaped strikers from everyday use. A tool used in metallurgical production in the form of an iron-and-steel spoon-spatula (also known among the Ves and the Merya) has been found in six male Muroma burials. Such a tool was also discovered at the Tumovo settlement (table XXXVII, 1). The ethnic traditions of the Muroma manifested themselves most clearly in the long persistence of clay vessels, which Muroma women in the 11th century made without the potter's wheel. The vessels were usually made with a large admixture of quartz, more rarely of grog, which made their walls rough.

The main forms of vessels: flat-bottomed pot-shaped or jar-shaped with a wide mouth; bowl-shaped, squat, with a carination (table XXXVII, 6—9). Vessels made of well-kneaded clay with an admixture of fine river sand in the fabric, with carefully smoothed or burnished walls, are also encountered. In the opinion of E. I. Goryunova, these vessels imitated imported Bulgar ware. Muroma vessels were usually not ornamented.

Trade

The absence of hoards of Oriental coins along the course of the Volga from Yaroslavl to Nizhny Novgorod, and the small number of archaeological sites here, testify that this stretch of the Volga was not included in the Great Trade Route. From the Upper Volga region the route went out to the Oka via the Kotorosl, the Nerl Klyazminskaya, the Klyazma and the Moskva rivers. The middle and lower course of the Oka right up to the Volga constituted the main stretch of the Great Volga Route. Along the Oka and the Desna a trade route to Kiev was also open. About one third of the dirham hoards found in Eastern Europe fall within the Oka basin (Mongait A. L., 1961, p.

95). Considering the question of whose hands the transit trade along the Oka was in, A. L. Mongait rejected any appreciable participation in it by the Normans. Finds of Scandinavian objects both in the Ryazan and in the Muroma stretches of the Oka are isolated. Mongait assigned the leading role in this trade to the Slavs, who in his opinion began their colonising movement in the 9th century not only into the Middle but also into the Lower Oka. He considered the penetration of Slavic objects into the assemblages of Muroma cemeteries to be considerable for the 9th century (Mongait A. L., 1961, p. 97). E. I. Goryunova rightly pointed to the participation of Bulgar merchants in the Oka trade.

She saw in them the "principal agents" of the trading movement along the Oka and suggested that they may not have limited themselves to short visits, but maintained constant and close ties with the local population, obtaining furs, wax and honey from them. Bulgar pottery has been found at many Muroma settlements. In their turn, representatives of the Muroma visited Bolgar. In 1978 E. P. Kazakov excavated male and female Muroma burials of the 10th century in the Tankeyevka cemetery. Of particular interest is the rich female burial with crescent-shaped and shield-shaped temple rings, horse-shaped pendants with trapezoidal shields, a ring-shaped jingling bead on a neck torc, footwear ornaments and so on.

The local Chud tribes, in the opinion of A. L. Mongait, long remained aloof from trade with the East. Until the 10th century they possibly "recognised only barter and did not take dirhams into account in payment for goods sold" (Mongait A. L., 1961, p. 96). As proof he referred to the fact that in the Kornilovo and Maksimovka cemeteries all the dirhams supposedly date to no earlier than the 10th century. Only under the influence of Slavic colonisation, in his words, was the Muroma drawn into the eastern trade. However, the collection of the Murom museum holds Oriental coins of the 6th—9th centuries gathered in the region, though without an indication of the exact place of discovery.

Among the coins whose find spot is known, there are two dirhams struck in 757—758, found in Murom (Fasmer R. R., 1929, no. 20) and in the village of Lesnikovo (Murom museum, numismatic collection, no. 10169). On the territory of the Muroma, 30 burials with coins are known. The earliest — an Abbasid dirham of 753—754 from burial 5 of the Maksimovka cemetery (Uvarov A. S., 1907) — was found with objects of the 9th — early 10th century. Abbasid coins of the 9th century (without later coins) struck in 820 and 825, 867 and 880—881 were discovered in burials 16, 9 and 6 of the Maksimovka cemetery (Uvarov A. S., 1907), which are dated by their objects to the 9th and the beginning of the 10th century.

In the Kornilovo cemetery a coin of 853—862, struck in Merv, was encountered. Two Abbasid coins of the 9th century come from the Podbolotye cemetery (Murom museum, numismatic collection, nos. 12027—12028). Two dirhams struck in 821—822 were found in Murom (Fasmer R. R., 1929, no. 22) and at the Chaadayevo hillfort (Murom museum, numismatic collection, no. 10350). One Abbasid coin of the 9th century together with two Samanid coins of the 10th century was discovered in burial 1 of the Kornilovo cemetery. The burials with coins of the 8th and 9th centuries belong to the local Finnic population, whose participation in the eastern trade began long before the mass Slavic settlement.

In 21 Muroma burials (18 of them from the Malyshevo cemetery) and at two settlements — Tumovo and Murom — dirhams of the 10th century were found (Fasmer R. R., 1929, p. 288). Five burials with scales and weights have been recorded in the Malyshevo, Maksimovka and Podbolotye cemeteries. They date to the 10th century. For storing folding scales, leather cases were used here, as among the neighbouring Merya. Weights for small weighings have also been found at settlements: on Voyevodskaya Hill in Murom and at the Tumovo settlement. At the latter a disc-shaped weight was also found. One may agree with E. I. Goryunova, who maintained that the local rural population took "direct and active part in trade with the Bulgars" (Goryunova E. I., 1961, p. 181). Muroma craftsmen required a large quantity of imported raw material — copper and coin silver, which went in considerable measure for remelting // (P.91)

The greatest rise of the eastern trade and the increased import of coin silver into Europe fall in the first half of the 10th century. With the participation of the Slavs in the land of the Muroma, the growth of crafts and trade accelerated, the process of town formation developed successfully, and the eastern trade received a new impulse.

Interesting facts

  • The name of the capital city — Murom — has preserved its original name to this day. The Erzya have also preserved their capital: it is Arzamas) in the Nizhny Novgorod Region.
  • In Murom one of the largest hoards of Oriental coins was discovered, buried after 939. It was found in 1868 in the Oka garden. The clay jug contained 11,077 whole coins; the copper one held only broken ones. The total weight of the hoard was two poods 33 pounds (45.2 kg). The coins of the hoard date to 715—939 (Markov A. K., 1910, pp. 5, 6). A second hoard was found in 1924 near Murom in the village of Savkovo. It numbered more than 200 coins, the latest of which date to 996 (Fasmer R. R., 1929, p. 290). The hoard also includes West European coins. The latest coin of West European minting — a denarius of Henry IV of Bavaria (995—1002) — is known from burial 1 of the Maksimovka cemetery.

Bibliography

  • 1. Smirnov A. P., Essays on the Ancient and Medieval History of the Peoples of the Middle Volga and Kama Regions, Moscow, 1952 (in the series Materials and Research on the Archaeology of the USSR, no. 28)
  • 2. Goryunova E. I., Ethnic History of the Volga-Oka Interfluve, Moscow, 1961

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