Original scientific paper
The Middle Way of the Middle Avar Age: Remarks on the Semicircular Pendants with Open-Work Ornament
Florin Curta
; University of Florida 202 Flint Hall Gainesville 36611-7320 FL (US) P. O. Box 117320
Abstract
A curious dispute has recently erupted between Ante Milošević and Maja Petrinec over an apparently
insignificant category of artifacts—the semicircular pendants with open-work ornament, such as found in
grave 54 of the cemetery excavated in Maklinovo Brdo, near the village of Kašić. Who then is right? At
stake appears to be more than just chronology. For a long while now, Milošević has been an advocate for
the continuity of the local population from Late Antiquity into the early Middle Ages. Petrinec, however,
insists upon the cultural chasm separating the late antique from the earliest medieval assemblages that
could be attributed to the “Old Croats.” To say that grave 54 in the Kašić-Maklinovo brdo cemetery is of
a 7th-century date is to imply, therefore, that that cemetery began much earlier than the date commonly
accepted for the “Old Croatian culture.” Ultimately, that also means to challenge the idea of a migration
of the Croats into Croatia at some point during the 9th century. Through the examination of 21 semicircular
pendants with open-work ornament known so far, this article proposes a new date for this category of
artifacts. The specimen from Ston is very similar to that recently discovered in Krneza, which is associated
with a belt suspension ring dated to the Middle Avar age (630-680). To a similar date points the association
in grave 1 of the cemetery excavated in Prosek (Albania) of a semicircular pendant with a fibula with bent
stem. The middle third of the 7th century is therefore most likely the date for the semicircular pendants with
open-work ornament. In other words, those artifacts are neither of an early 7th-, nor of an 8th-century date.
They are most likely of a different age - the Middle Avar age.
Keywords
Kašić - Maklinovo brdo; Komani culture; middle Avar Age; Croatia; Albania
Hrčak ID:
224675
URI
Publication date:
6.9.2016.
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