NEW FINDS OF EARLY MEDIEVAL LEAD RHOMBIC CROSS PENDANTS FROM MORAVIA. THEIR POSSIBLE GENESIS AND IMPORTANCE

• Authors: Kouřil Pavel
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The article is devoted to new finds of cast early medieval lead rhombic cross pendants decorated with crosshatched ornament from Moravia, which are regarded as Taufgeschenke – christening gifts. It is likely that these artefacts were meant to evoke the schematised body of the Saviour. In the vast majority of cases, they are part of necklaces belonging to sexually intact little girls and young ladies buried in rural cemeteries. Most probably, they were based on older simple rhombus-shaped pendants-amulets, which were eventually incorporated into the newly emerging religion and thus acquired a new quality. Their conspicuous concentration in the vicinity of the Mikulčice central site suggests that this area could have been one of the key Christianisation centres in Great Moravia. After the demise of this power-political unit, they completely disappeared from the group of devotional objects. Chronologically, they are synchronised with the final decades of the 9th c. and the beginning of the 10th c.

Keywords

EN

MORAVIA; GREAT MORAVIA; CHRISTIANISATION; RHOMBIC CROSS PENDAN

• Publisher: Slovak Academy of Sciences, Archaeological Institute
• Journal: Slovenská archeológia (Slovak Archaeology)
• Year: 2023
• Volume: 71
• Issue: suppl. 3
• Pages: 143 – 153

Contributors

author

Kouřil Pavel

• Archeologický ústav AV ČR Brno, v. v. i., Čechyňská 19, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic

• https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0880-3281

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31577/slovarch.2023.suppl.3.10