Pechenegs PDF

THE IMAGE AND ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE PECHENEGS
Florin Curta*
Keywords: Pechenegs, clay cauldrons, leaf-shaped pendants, cemetery, bridle mounts.
Cuvinte cheie: pecenegi, cldri de lut, pandantivi foliacei, necropol, plac de curea de
harnaament
Taken in the mass, this is a nation to be feared, and a treacherous one1.

Thus wrote Michael Psellos about the western barbarians, whom he regarded
as closer to the realm of animals than to the society of humans:
When they are thirsty, if they ind water, either from springs or in the
streams, they at once throw themselves down into it and gulp it up; if there
is no water, each man dismounts from his horse, opens its veins with a knife
and drinks the blood. So they quench their thirst by substituting blood for
water. After that they cut up the fattest of the horses, set ire to whatever wood
they ind ready to hand, and having slightly warmed the chopped limbs of the
horse there on the spot, they gorge themselves on the meat, blood and all. The
refreshment over, they hurry back to their primitive huts and lurk, like snakes,
in the deep gullies and precipitous cliffs which serve as their walls2.
Many at that time agreed with Psellos. In his typikon for the Bakovo
Monastery, Gregory Pakourianos, the Domestic of the West under Emperor
Alexios I, who had just battled the Pechenegs in the northern Balkans, described
them as the most terrible and most arrogant enemies who set themselves
not only against the Roman Empire, but also every race of Christians3. John
*
University of Florida, College of Liberal Art and Science, Departament of History, e-mail:
fcurta@ul.edu.
Michael Psellos, Chronographia VII 69, ed. by Emile Renauld (Paris: Les Belles Lettres,
1928), p. 126; transl. by E. R. A. Sewter (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), p. 243.
Psellos, Chronographia VII 68, ed. Renauld, p. 126; transl. Sewter, pp. 242-243. Horse meat as
a staple of Pecheneg diet is also mentioned by Otto of Freising, Chronica, ed. by A. Schmidt
and W. Lammers (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1961), pp. 448-49. See also
Victor Spinei, The Great Migrations in the East and South East of Europe from the Ninth to the
Thirteenth Century (Cluj-Napoca: Romanian Cultural Institute/Istros, 2003), p. 99.
Typikon of Gregory Pakourianos for the Monastery of the Mother of God Petritzonitissa in
Bakovo, transl. by R. Jordan, in Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents. A Complete
144
Mavropous compared them to frogs living in swampy or marshy areas. They
discovered humanity only through baptism4. Michael Attaleiates gave a gory
description of the savage mutilation of Michael Dokeianos, the Byzantine
commander captured at Adrianople in 1050. The Pechenegs opened his body,
took the guts out, cut his hands and legs, and then tossed them inside the body
instead of the entrails5. Attaleiates was also disgusted by the eating habits
of the Pechenegs, which he described as impure6. However, most authors
writing about the Pechenegs did so half a century or more after their irst major
raids into the Empire: Gregory Pakourianos, Michael Psellos and Michael
Attaleiates in the 1080s, and a little later, John Skylitzes and Theophylact
Translation of the Surviving Founders Typika and Testaments, ed. by J. Thomas and A.
Constantinides Hero (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection,
2000), p. 526. For Pakourianos victory against the Pechenegs in 1082 or 1083, see V. A.
Arutiunova, K voprosu o vzaimootnosheniiakh Vizantii s pechenegami i polovcami vo
vremiia normanskoi kampanii, Vizantiiskii Vremennik 33 (1972), 115-19; Peter Doimi de
Frankopan, A victory of Gregory Pakourianos against the Pechenegs, Byzantinoslavica
57 (1996), 278-81; Marek Meko, Notes sur la chronologie de la guerre des Byzantins
contre les Petchngues (1083-1091), Byzantinoslavica 59 (2011), nos. 1-2, 134-48, at
142. Pakourianos died in battle against the Pechenegs: Anna Comnena, Alexiad VI 14.3,
ed. by Diether Reinsch and Athanasios Kambylis (Corpus fontium historiae Byzantinae,
40)(Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2001), p. 200; transl. by E. R. A. Sewter
(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987), p. 213.
4
John Mavropous, or. 182.8-9, in Paul de Lagarde (ed.), Ioannis Euchaitorum metropolitae
quae in cod. Vat. Gr. 676 supersunt, Abhandlungen der kniglichen Gesellschaft der
Wissenschaften zu Gttingen 28 (1881), no. 1, 1-228, at 144. See also Jacques Lefort,
Rhtorique et politique: trois discours de Jean Mauropous en 1047, Travaux et mmoires
du Centre de recherches dhistoire et civilisation byzantines 6 (1976), 265-303, at 285. For
Pechenegs compared to animals, particularly to insects (bees or locusts) or to dogs, see also
Paul Meinrad Strssle, Das Feindbild der Petschenegen im Byzanz der Komnenen (11./12.
Jh.), Byzantinische Forschungen 28 (2004), 297-313, at 306. As Elisabeth Malamut,
Limage byzantine des Petchngues, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 88 (1995), 105-147 (at
123) notes, Mavropous is the only eleventh-century author who believed that the Pechenegs
had changed their ways after conversion to Christianity.
5
Michael Attaleiates, History, ed. by Immaculada Prez Martn (Madrid: Consejo Superior
de Investigaciones Cienticas, 2002), p. 27. According to Paul Stephenson, Byzantiums
Balkan Frontier. A Political Study of the Northern Balkans, 900-1204 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 94, the vestarch Michael Dokeianos served as the
irst katepano of Paradounavon. However, the seal which Stephenson attributes to him
belongs in fact to another person. See Ivan Iordanov, Pechatite ot strategiiata Preslav (9711088) (Soia: Universitetsko izdatelstvo Sv. Kliment Okhridski, 1993), pp. 143-144.
6
Attaleiates, History, p. 24.
145
of Ochrid7. Moreover, all regarded them as people from the North and, as
such, greedy and insatiable, arrogant and boasting, as well as untrustworthy.
That is why they rarely employed their supposed self-designation (Pechenegs)
and preferred instead names of ancient peoples, such as the Scyths or the
Mysians8. Skylitzes, although occasionally calling them Patzinaks, explains
that the Pechenegs were in fact Scyths pertaining to the so-called Royal
Scyths9. Echoes of Herodotus are even stronger in Theophylact of Ochrids
encomium for Emperor Alexios I10. To describe the Pechenegs Attaleiates
employed the late sixth- or early seventh-century description of the Avars in
the Strategikon11. According to Psellos, when going into battle, the Pechenegs
emit loud war cries, and so fall upon their adversaries. If the noise they
produce is suficiently terrifying and they succeed in pushing their adversaries
back, they dash against them in solid blocks, like towers, pursuing and
slaying without mercy12. At a close examination, this was also inspired by
the description the Strategikon gives of young Sclavene warriors, who in
encounters with the enemy, shout all together and if their opponents begin to
O. Schmitt, Die Petschenegen auf dem Balkan von 1046 bis 1072, In Pontos Euxeinos.
Beitrge zur Archologie und Geschichte des antiken Schwarzmeer- und Balkanraumes.
Manfred Oppermann zum 65. Geburtstag, edited by Sven Conrad, R. Einicke, A. E.
Furtwngler, H. Lhr and A. Slawisch (Langenweissbach: Beier & Beran, 2006), pp. 47383, at 473.
8
Psellos, Chronographia VII 67, p. 241: In the old days [they] had been called Mysians,
but later their name was changed to its present form. Throughout his Chronographia,
Psellos never mentions the present form of the western barbarianss. name. Attaleiates
Scyths are called in vernacular Patzinaks (Attaleiates, History, p. 24). For Anna
Comnenas use of Scyths, see Strssle, Feindbild der Petschenegen, p. 302.
9
John Skylitzes, A Synopsis of Byzantine History, 811-1057, ed. by Hans Thurn (Berlin:
Walter de Gruyter, 1973), p. 455; transl. by John Wortley (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010), p. 426. Skylitzes employs Scyths for the Rus as well.
10
Paul Gautier, Le discours de Thophylact de Bulgarie lautocrator Alexis Ier Comnne
(6 janvier 1088), Revue des tudes byzantines 20 (1962), 93-130, at 111 and 123; Strssle,
Feindbild der Petschenegen, p. 305.
11
Strategikon XI 2, ed. by Ernst Gamillscheg and George T. Dennis (Vienna: Verlag der
sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1981), p. 366. For the image of the Avars
in the Strategikon, see Bohumila Zstrov, Les Avares et les Slaves dans la Tactique
de Maurice (Rozpravy eskoslovensk Akademie Vd, 81)(Prague: Academia, 1971);
Georgios Kardaras, To schema ton Abaron sto Strategikon tou Maurikiou. Mia kritike
proseggise, Vyzantinos Domos 16 (2007-2008), 151-66.
12
Psellos, Chronographia VII 68, ed. Renauld pp. 125-126; transl. Sewter, p. 242.
7
146
give way at the noise, they attack violently13. In order to explain the surrender of
the Pechenegs who had crossed the frozen Danube in the winter of 1046/1047,
Skylitzes claims that they had found a plentiful supply of beasts, of wine and
of drinks prepared from honey of which they have never even heard. These
they consumed without restraint and were aflicted with a lux of the bowels;
many of them perished each day14. This, however, is an old topos employed
before Skylitzes by Agathias in relation to the Frankish warlord Boutelinos
operating against Narses in Italy15.
None of those late eleventh-century authors knew about the extensive
account about the Pechenegs, which Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus
had written more than a century earlier16. Many did not therefore have reliable
information about the Pechenegs on the other side of the Danube. Psellos knew
that the invasion of the Pechenegs had been caused by the activities of the
Getae, their neighbors, who by their plundering and ravaging compelled them
to abandon their own homes and seek new ones17. Anna Comnena regarded the
Pechenegs as a Scythian tribe, which having suffered incessant pillaging at
the hands of the Sarmatians, left home and came down to the Danube, where
they entered negotiations with the local people18. She also knew that Tzelgu
has been the supreme commander of the Scythian army, who had with him
Strategikon XI 4, p. 383. For a commentary on this particular passage, see Florin Curta,
The Making of the Slavs. History and Archaeology of the Lower Danube Region, c.
500-700 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 52)(Cambridge/New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 325. For tactics employed by the Sclavenes, as
relected in the Strategikon, see A. K. Nefedkin, Taktika slavian v VI v. (po svidetelstvam
rannevizantiiskikh avtorov), Vizantiiskii Vremennik 62 (2003), 79-91.
14
Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, p. 458; transl. Wortley, p. 429.
15
Agathias, Histories, ed. by Rudolf Keydell (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1967), pp. 44-45;
Malamut, Limage byzantine, p. 119. That the story was not meant to be taken literally
results from Skylitzes remark that after being aflicted by a lux of the bowels, the
Pechenegs no longer had any stomach for the battle.
16
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, On the Administration of the Empire 37, ed. by Gyula
Moravcsik, transl. by R. J. H. Jenkins (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine
Studies, 1967), pp. 166-171. There is also abundant information about the Pechenegs
in chapters 1-8, pp. 48-57. See also Malamut, Limage byzantine, pp. 109-115;
Aleksander Paro, Pieczyngowie na kartach De administrando imperio Konstantyna VII
Porirogenety, Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis. Classica Wratislaviensia 27 (2007), 97112.
17
Psellos, Chronographia VII 67, ed. Renauld, p. 125; transl. Sewter, p. 241. Most historians
believe the Getae to be the Oghuz.
18
Anna Comnena, Alexiad VI 14.1, p. 199; transl. Sewter, p. 212.
13
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about 80,000 men, Sarmatians, Scyths, and a large contingent of Dacians led
by one Solomon. But she had no knowledge of the territories from which this
large army had come, even though she mentioned that the crossing had taken
place on the upper Danube valley19. By contrast, John Skylitzes knew of
13 Pecheneg tribes (geneai), all of which have the same name in common,
but each tribe has its own proper name inherited from its own ancestor
and chieftain20. He even knew the names of the two tribes under Kegens
commandBelemarnis and Pagoumanisnone of which appears in Emperor
Constantines extensive list of clans (geneai)21. Skylitzes must have relied on
independent sources, and Elisabeth Malamut has revived Petre Diaconus
older suggestion that that source was Katakalon Kekaumenos, the governor of
Paristrion in 1043, who in 1049 was rescued by a Pecheneg named Koulinos
at the battle of Diakene22. According to her, in order to explain the Pecheneg
Anna Comnena, Alexiad VII 1.1, p. 203; transl. Sewter, p. 212. Anna calls Ister the lower
course of the river, and Danube the next segment upstream, although it is not altogether
clear where the former stops and the latter begins. Historians believe the Sarmatians
to be the Oghuz and the Dacians the Hungarians. The latter were apparently under the
command of the ex-king Salomon. See Petre Diaconu, Les Ptchngues au Bas-Danube
(Bibliotheca Historica Romaniae, 27)(Bucharest Editions de lAcadmie de la Republique
Socialiste de Roumanie, 1970), p. 117; Stephenson, Byzantiums Balkan Frontier, p. 102;
Marek Meko, Peenesko-byzantsk dobrodrustvo uhorskho kra Salamna (10831087), Kontantnove listy 4 (2011), 77-94, at 84-93.
20
21
Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, p. 456; transl. Wortley, p. 427. Of all Pecheneg clans,
Giazichopon is neighbor to Bulgaria and Kato Gyla is neighbor to Turkey (i.e., Hungary).
This is commonly interpreted as the former being in the Walachian Plain, and the other to the
northwest from the Black Sea shore. See Constantine Porphyrogenitus, On the Administration
of the Empire 37, p. 169; Victor Spinei, Moldavia in the 11th-14th centuries (Bibliotheca
Historica Romaniae, 20)(Bucharest: Editura Academiei RSR, 1986), pp. 85-86.
22
Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, p. 469; transl. Wortley, pp. 437-438; Petre Diaconu, Despre
pecenegi la Dunrea de Jos n prima jumtate a secolului al XI-lea, Studii i cercetri
de istorie veche 18 (1967), no. 3, 463-76, at 473; Malamut, Limage byzantine, pp.
118 and 126; Schmitt, Petschenegen auf dem Balkan, p. 477 with n. 30. For Katakalon
Kekaumenos as the irst duke or katepano of Paradounavon, see Alexandru Madgearu,
The military organization of Paradunavon, Byzantinoslavica 60 (1999), no. 2, 421-46,
at 424. According to Skylitzes, Koulinos knew who Kekaumenos was because he came
from the fortresses on the Danube where the peoples mingle with each other. Malamut
goes as far as to presume that the one who saved Kekaumenos was Goulinos, Kegens son.
It was from Kekaumenos that Skylitzes must have learned that Kegen had come to Silistra
with 20,000 Pechenegs and had taken shelter on a little island in the river (Danube)
(Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, p. 456; transl. Wortley, p. 427). The island in question has
19
148
invasion into the Balkans, Skylitzes re-worked the information he had obtained
from his source, which had attributed the war to the rivalries between Tyrach
and Kegen23. If so, this may explain the apparent contradictions in Skylitzes
account of that conlict. The Pechenegs graze their locks on the plains which
extend beyond the Danube from the river Borysthenon [Dnieper] to Pannonia.
Within that territory, the leader of the people was Tyrach son of Bilter, who,
despite his noble origin, proved ineffective in battling the Oghuz, and took
refuge in the marshes and lakes along the Danube. By contrast, when he
learned about Tyrachs plans to murder him, Kegen led to the marshes of
the Borysthenon to escape death. From the banks of the Dnieper, he further
contacted his relative and fellow tribesmen to mobilize them against Tyrach,
but was eventually overcome by weight of numbers. He led again to the
marshes (presumably along the Dnieper) where he decided to take refuge
with the emperor of the Romans. Skylitzes does not explain how were Kegen
and his 20,000 men capable to cross the entire territory between the Dnieper
and the Danube without encountering serious opposition from the numerically
superior forces under Tyrach, who had controlled the marshes and lakes along
the Danube from the very beginning of the conlict24.
Similarly, Skylitzess claim that the Pechenegs were nomads who
always prefer to live in tents and whose subsistence economy was based
on pastoralism is contradicted by his own account about Tyrachs Pechenegs,
who were more or less forcefully settled in the desert plains of Bulgaria
between Sardike (Soia), Naissos (Ni), and Eutzapolis (Ove Pole)25. When
they joined the Pecheneg rebels returning from their expedition to Iberia, their
fellow tribesmen were equipped with rustic axes, scythes and other iron tools
taken from the ields, which suggests that they were practicing the cultivation
of crops26. That Pechenegs could be agriculturists even without the pressure of
been (wrongly) identiied with that at Pcuiul lui Soare near Silistra: Ivan Bozhilov and
Vasil Giuzelev, Istoriia na Dobrudja (Veliko Trnovo: Faber, 2004), p. 147.
23
Malamut, Limage byzantine, p. 118.
24
Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, p. 456; transl. Wortley, p. 427. Emperor Constantine
Porphyrogenitus mentions the Dnieper in relation to the Pechenegs, but as Danapris,
not as Borysthenon. For the distribution of Pecheneg clans to the west from the river
Dnieper according to the On the Administration of the Empire, see Gyula Czebe, Turcobyzantinische Miszellen. I. Konstantinos Porphyrogennetos, De administrando imperio 37.
Kapitel ber die Petschenegen, Krsi Csoma-Archivum 1 (1922), no. 3, 209-19, at 216-7.
25
Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, p. 459; transl. Wortley, pp. 427 and 430.
26
Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, p. 461; transl. Wortley, p. 431. See also Diaconu, Les
149
the imperial government results from Anna Comnenas independent account
of the Pechenegs who when not waging war,they tilled the soil and sowed
millet and wheat.27 Psellos claims that they are not divided up by battalions,
and when they go to war they have no strategic plan to guide them. The terms
vanguard, left wing, right lank mean nothing to them28. However, it
has been noted that the earliest Pecheneg raids into the Balkans shifted from
west (1027) to east (1036), in order to spare provinces that had been attacked
in previous years. The reason for this shift in raiding appears to be that the
regions of western Bulgaria, Serbia, and Macedonia were less fortiied29. At
any rate, that the Pechenegs carefully chose their targets indicates the existence
of a strategic plan. Morevoer, when in 1086 they encountered Tatikios troops
near Beliatoba, the Pechenegs arranged themselves in Scythian fashion,
obviously spoiling for a ight and provoking the Romans30. Anna Comnena
drove the point home when noting that war is in their bloodthey know how
to arrange a phalanx31. The strategic talents of Kegen were most certainly
appreciated when, in 1047 he was given the supreme command of the troops
from Paristrion, Thrace, and Bulgaria in order to repel the invasion of Tyrachs
Pechenegs. According to John Skylitzes, Kegens strategy was to avoid
pitched battles in the ield, and to organize daily and uncessant raids on the
enemy32. It was precisely military skills who convinced Emperor Constantine
Ptchngues, p. 65. The Pechenegs settled between Soia, Ni, and Ovepole are believed
to be among the irst to have become sedentary. See Muall Uydu Ycel, Pechenegs in
the Balkans, in The Turks, edited by Hasan Celal Gzel, Cem Ouz, and Osman Karatay
(Ankara: Yeni Trkiye, 2002), pp. 632-42, at 634. However, Schmitt, Petschenegen auf
dem Balkan, p. 480 argues that the decision to settle the Pechenegs between Soia, Ni,
and Ove Pole betrays the imperial administrations intention to force the Pechenegs to
adopt a vertical, as opposed to a horizontal form of transhumance, given that the region
offered no large, lat ields for grazing. There is no evidence in Skylitzes that the Pechenegs
settled between Soia, Ni, and Ove Pole being pastoralists.
27
Anna Comnena, Alexiad VI 14.1, p. 199; transl. Sewter, p. 212.
28
Psellos, Chronographia VII 68, ed. Renauld, p. 125; transl. Sewter, p. 242.
29
Diaconu, Les Ptchngues, pp. 47-49; Georgi Atanasov, Anonimnye vizantiiskie follisy klasa
B i nashestvie pechenegov v Dobrudzhu 1036 g., Stratum+ (1999), no. 6, 111-22, at 114.
30
Anna Comnena, Alexiad VI 14.7, p. 202; transl. Sewter, p. 214. No battled ensued, as the
two armies faced each other for three days, before the Pechenegs decided to withdraw.
31
Anna Comnena, Alexiad VII 3.7, p. 211; transl. Sewter, p. 224. At Dristra, in 1087, the
Pechenegs began by placing ambuscades, binding together their ranks in close formation,
marking a sort of rampart from their covered wagons, before advancing en masse against
Emperor Alexios Is troops.
32
150
IX to send 15,000 Pecheneg warriors under the command of Soutzoun, Selte,
Karaman, and Kataleim against the Seljuks in Iberia33. Even Alexios Comnenus
showed his appreciation of Pecheneg strategy, when employing the Scythian
stratagem of the feigned retreat to obtain a victory against the Pechenegs at
Tzouroulos (orlu)34.
When going to war, the Pechenegs apparently came with large numbers
of horses. Alexios Comnenus even thought of seizing them while they were
grazing on the plain, next to the battleield35. However, not all Pechenegs
fought on horseback. In the battle at Dristra, the Pechenegs moved in with
their wagons, together with their wives and children. After the debacle, two
infantrymen leapt upon Emperor Alexios I and seized his horse by the bits,
only to be killed on spot36. The Pechenegs also knew how to take a fortiied
city such as Adrianople by illing the ditches with stones and branches. They
would have stormed the walls, had one of their chieftains not been struck by
an arrow thrown from a catapult37. Psellos claims that the Pechenegs built no
palisades for their own protection, and they are unacquainted with the idea
of defensive ditches on the perimeter of their camps38. However, in 1053, in
order to defend themselves against the army led by Michael Akolouthos and
the synkellos Basil Monachos, the Pechenegs erected a palisade adjacent to
Preslav, fortiied it with a deep moat and stockades, and enclosed themselves
inside the stronghold. Their strategy succeeded, as the Byzantines decided to
raise the siege and to withdraw, only to be massacred by Tyrach and his men
who organized a bold sortie and attacked the retreating troops39. Psellos also
claims that treaties of friendship exercise no restraining inluence over these
barbarians, and even oaths sworn over their sacriices are not respected, for
they reverence no deity at all, not to speak of God40. However, according
to John Skylitzes, Kegens Pechenegs converted to Christianity and were
baptized by a monk named Euthymios sent by Emperor Constantine IX41.
Anna Comnena, Alexiad VII 11.1, p. 232; transl. Sewter, p. 243.
35
36
Anna Comnena, Alexiad VII 3.9, p. 212; transl. Sewter, pp. 224 and 225-226.
37
Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, pp. 470-471; transl. Wortley, pp. 439.
38
39
Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, p. 475; transl. Wortley, p. 443; Malamut, Limage
byzantine, p. 127.
40
41
Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, p. 457; transl. Wortley, p. 428. According to Stephenson,
33
34
151
Kegen was certainly Christian as attested by his seal, the inscription of which
reads Lord, have mercy upon the magistros John Kegen, the archon of
Patzinakia42. After their defeat in 1047, Tyrach and 140 of his followers were
also baptized in Constantinople43. Moreover, in 1053 the Pechenegs agreed to
a thirty-year peace with Constantine IX, which they seem to have respected
for at least ifteen years, as no raids are known to have taken place before
the 1072 rebellion in Paristrion under the leadership of Tatos, Sesthlav and
Byzantiums Balkan Frontier, p. 97 the appointment of a metropolitan of Dristra with at
least ive suffragan sees in Paradounavon was not without relation to the conversion of
Kegens Pechenegs. For the conversion of the Pechenegs to Christianity, see Gerald Mako,
Two examples of nomadic conversion in Eastern Europe: the Christianization of the
Pechenegs, and the Islamization of the Volga Bulghars (tenth to thirteenth century A.D.),
M. Phil. Thesis, Cambridge University (Cambridge, 2011), pp. 36-44.
42
Ivan Iordanov, Pechati na Ioan Kegen, magistr i arkhont na Pechenegiia (1050-1051),
Numizmatika i sfragistika 5 (1998), no. 1, 96-101, at 96. According to Schmitt, Petschenegen
auf dem Balkan, p. 484, Kegen was made magistros and archon of Patzinakia in 1050 or
1051, following the failed attempt on his life, and shortly before his assassination by the
Pecheneg rebels with whom he was sent to negotiate. Patzinakia mentioned on the seal was
a region of Paradounavon (perhaps the so-called Hundred Hills) in what is now northeastern
Bulgaria. See Alexandru Madgearu, Observaii asupra revoltei din Paradunavon din 10721091, in Istorie i ideologie. Omagiu profesorului Stelian Brezeanu la 60 de ani, edited
by Manuela Dobre (Bucharest: Editura Universitii din Bucureti, 2002), pp. 34-46, at
41; Alexandru Madgearu, The periphery against the centre: the case of Paradunavon,
Zbornik radova Vizantolokog Instituta 40 (2003), 49-56, at 51. For Kegen, see Alexios
G. K. Savvidis, Kegenes, ho Patzinakos Patrikios sta mesa tou endekatou aiona, in 13
Panellenio Historio Synedrio (29-31 Maiou 1992), edited by Ioannis Karagiannopoulos
(Thessaloniki: Ekdoseis Vanias, 1993), pp. 143-55; Jarosaw Dudek, Piecz magistra
Jana Kegena jako wyraz polityki Bizancjum wobec stepowcw w poowie XI w., in Causa
creandi. O pragmatyce rda historycznego, edited by Stanisaw Rosik and Przemysaw
Wiszewski (Wrocaw: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocawskiego, 2005), pp. 327-43.
43
Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, p. 459; transl. Wortley, p. 430. When converting to Christianity,
Tyrach and his 140 followers did so from a position inferior to that of Kegen and his
men, because they had all been disarmed before coming to Constantinople. Nonetheless,
the conversion must be regarded as a sine qua non condition for the integration of those
warriors into the Byzantine army, especially since the intention seems to have been to send
them against the Seljuks. See Schmitt, Petschenegen auf dem Balkan, p. 481; Victor
Spinei, The Romanians and the Turkic Nomads North of the Danube Delta from the Tenth
to the Mid-Thirteenth Century (East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 4501450, 6)(Leiden: Brill, 2009), p. 109; Sergei A. Kozlov, Byli li pechenezhskie soiuzniki
vizantiitsev khristoliubivym voinstvom? in Kondavoskie chteniia III. Chelovek i epokha.
Antichnost-Vizantiia-drevniaia Rus, edited by N. N. Bolkov (Belgorod: Izdatelstvo
Belgorodskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 2010), 238-44.
152
Satzas44. When confronted with Kegens repeated raids across the Danube,
Tyrach protested and asked the emperor to stop attacks on the Pechenegs
with whom he had treaties and whom he viewed as his allies45. According
to Michael Attaleiates, the mixobarbaroi of Paradounavon were paid annual
subsidies in cash, while the Pechenegs received gifts46. However, the
Pechenegs were clearly accustomed to the use of the Byzantine coins. At the
beginning of his reign, Emperor Romanos III Argyros ransomed the prisoners
held in Patzinakia after the raid of 102847. Less than ten years later, Gregory
Mavrokatakalon was captured by the Pechenegs and ransomed by Emperor
Alexios I for 40,000 pieces of money48. Following the debacle at Dristra, the
emperor also sent for a large sum of money from Constantinople to buy back
his men who had fallen into the hands of the Pechenegs49.
The late eleventh-century authors writing about the Pechenegs have very
little to say about their daily life, customs, dress, and political institutions.
This is surprising, given the relatively large number of prisoners who spent
some time among the Pechenegs before being ransomed, and who could have
offered details about what they had seen and heard during their captivity. One
of them, Nikephoros Melissenos, a Byzantine general, even wrote to Emperor
Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, p. 457; transl. Wortley, p. 428. See Diaconu, Despre
pecenegi, p. 471.
46
Attaleiates, History, p.150.
47
Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, p. 375; transl. Wortley, p. 354. Patzinakia refers here to
the territories north of the river Danube. Nothing is known about the ive commanders
captured by the Pechenegs in 1036 (ed. Thurn, p. 399; transl. Wortley, p. 376), but it is
likely that they too were ransomed, following Harald Hardradas successful expedition
against the Pechenegs. See Krijnie N. Ciggaar, Harald Hardrada: his expedition against
the Pechenegs, Balkan Studies 21 (1980), 385-401, at 401. The eleventh-century hoards
of Byzantine gold from Borneti, Tega, and an unknown site in northeastern Walachia
most likely are ransom payments to the Pechenegs. See Ernest Oberlnder-Trnoveanu,
Aurul monetizat n spaiul romnesc - dou milenii i jumtate de istorie, in Colecii din
Muntenia-Collections from Wallachia, Muzeul Judeean Buzu, Muzeul Dunrii de Jos
Clrai, Muzeul Teohari Antonescu Giurgiu Muzeul Judeean de Istorie i Arheologie
Prahova, edited by Ernest Oberlnder-Trnoveanu (Bucharest: CIMEC - Institutul de
Memorie Cultural, 2001), pp. 7-51, at 11.
48
Anna Comnena, Alexiad VI 2.3, p. 205; transl. Sewter, p. 219. For his seals found in Preslav
and Silistra, see Gheorghe Mnucu-Adameteanu, Aspecte ale politicii mpratului Alexios
I Comnenul la Dunrea de Jos n lumina ultimelor descoperiri sfragistice i numismatice,
Revista Istoric 6 (1995), 345-66, at 349.
49
44
45
153
Alexios I from captivity to inform him about the plans of the Pechenegs to
sell their prisoners of war50. Even when not in captivity, the Byzantines were
often suficiently close to their enemies to note that, when partying, they were
dancing to lutes and cymbals or that some of their leading men spoke the
language of the Cumans51. The conference held by the four Pecheneg leaders
sent with 15,000 horsemen to Iberia to ight against the Seljuks was presumably
called komenton in their own language52. Skylitzes, who seems to have been
better informed than others, calls Tyrach an emperor (basileus) and explains
that the Pechenegs honored him for his family although they preferred
Kegen for his outstanding bravery and his skill in war53. He also knew that
Kegen received from the Emperor Constantine IX the title of patrician, in
addition to three of the fortresses standing on the banks of the Danube and
many hectares of land, and that he was inscribed among the friends and
allies of the Romans54. It remains unclear what exactly was given to Kegen
the actual fortresses or the revenue from the tax-exempted hectares of land
Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, p. 473; transl. Wortley, p. 441; Anna Comnena, Alexiad VIII
5.6, pp. 247-48; transl. Sewter, p. 257.
52
Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, p. 460; transl. Wortley, p. 431. Skylitzes source for this detail
may have been the patrician Constantine Hadrobalanos who was sent with the Pechenegs
as a guide (and chaperon, apparently) to Iberia. When, at Kataleims recommendation, the
Pechenegs rose in rebellion and returned to the Balkans, Constantine Hadrobalanos is said
to have escaped them by hiding on the upper loor of a three-storied house in Damatrys,
not far from Constantinople. For the meaning and origin of the word komenton, see Gyula
Moravcsik, - pechenezhskoe ili russkoe slovo? Acta Antiqua Academiae
Scientiarum Hungaricae 1 (1951-1952), 349-60; Nicholas Oikonomides, Des Valaques
au service de Byzance? A propos de lutilisation du mot komenton aux Xe et XIe sicles,
Revue des tudes sud-est-europennes 25 (1987), 187-90.
53
Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, p. 456; transl. Wortley, p. 427. Some have interpreted this
passage as evidence that the Pechenegs were organized in a complex (so-called compound)
chiefdom, in which several simple chiefdoms united as semi-autonomous, or vassal units
subordinated to the administration of a paramount chief, such as Tyrach. See A. V. Marey,
Social-political structure of the Pechenegs, in Alternatives of Social Evolution, edited
by N. N. Kradin (Vladivostok: Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
2000), pp. 289-93, at 292. Schmitt, Petschenegen auf dem Balkan, p. 476 believes that
Tyrach may have been accepted as a paramount chief in the aftermath of the defeat inlicted
upon the Pechenegs by Yaroslav the Wise (1036), followed by the incursions of the Oghuz
into the Pecheneg territories in Left-Bank Ukraine.
54
Skylitzes, Synopsis, ed. Thurn, p. 456; transl. Wortley, p. 428; Malamut, Limage
byzantine, p. 119.
50
51
154
in their hinterland. If the latter, Kegen is one of the earliest, if not the earliest
recipient of a pronoia55. As for Tyrach, after being set free in 1048 or 1049,
he became again a chieftain in 1053, when the military threat of a Byzantine
invasion of the Hundred Hills forced the Pechenegs to seek unity against a
common enemy. However, he does not appear at the subsequent negotiations
leading to the thirty-year peace. As a matter of fact, no Pecheneg chieftains are
mentioned in relation to that peace treaty and after 1053 Tyrach disappears from
the radar of the written sources56. With the exception of Tzelgu, no paramount
chiefs are known to have led the Pechenegs during their confrontations with
the Byzantine armies under Emperor Alexios I57.
Anna Comnena has an interesting story in relation to those confrontations.
Blocked by the Pechenegs at Chirovanchoi, not far from Constantinople,
Alexios made a sortie against his enemies, who were getting ready for a meal
and rest, while others were busy plundering the hinterland. After killing some
and taking many prisoners, the emperor clothed his soldiers in the Scyths
uniforms and told them to ride the Scythian horses. He then went down
with the Scythian standards and his men clad in Scythian uniforms to the
river which lows near Chirovanchoi. The returning Pechenegs, seeing them
55
56
57
Diaconu, Les Ptchngues, p. 58 with n. 162; Vasilka Tpkova-Zaimova, Vtorata

varvarizaciia na Dunavskite gradove (XI-XII v.), in Srednovekovniiat blgarski grad,
edited by Petr Khristo Petrov (Soia: Blgarsko istorichesko druzhestvo, 1980), pp. 47-55,
at 48; Schmitt, Petschenegen auf dem Balkan, p. 477.
Schmitt, Petschenegen auf dem Balkan, p. 486.
To be sure, Sctyhian leaders are mentioned in relation to the battle at Dristra (1087),
but they are not named. Anna Comnena, Alexiad VII 2.8, p. 208; transl. Sewter, p. 228.
Anna mentions two names in connection with the Scyths, but none of them belongs to a
Pecheneg chieftain. Travlos was the leader of the Paulicians in Thrace, who had married a
daughter of a Scythian chieftain and strove to foster a Scythian invasion in order to hurt
the emperor (Alexiad VI 4.4, p. 174; transl. Sewter, p. 187). Tatos, who ruled in Dristra
at the time of Emperor Alexios Is siege of that city in 1087 was deinitely not a Pecheneg,
but a chieftain of the local populationthe people living near the river in Annas words
(the mixobarbaroi mentioned by Attaleiates). For Pechenegs as clearly different from the
mixobarbaroi, see Madgearu, Observaii, p. 45; Jacek Bonarek, Le Bas Danube dans
la seconde moiti du XI-me sicle: nouveaux tats ou nouveaux peuples? in Byzantium,
New Peoples, New Powers: the Byzantino-Slav Contact Zone,From the Ninth to the
Fifteenth Century, edited by Miliiana Kaimakamova, Maciej Salamon and Magorzata
Smorg Rycka (Cracow: Towarzystwo Wydawnicze Historia Iagellonica, 2007), pp.
193-200. For Tatos as not Pecheneg, see Teodora Krumova, Pecheneg chieftains in the
Byzantine administration in the theme of Paristrion in the eleventh century, Annual of
Medieval Studies at the CEU 11 (2005), 207-21, at 218.
155
standing there and mistaking them for their fellow tribesmen, fell into the trap
and were massacred or captured. Alexios then returned to Constantinople with
the prisoners in a convoy, having the men holding the Scythian standards
irst, followed by captives, each guarded by natives of the country (i.e.,
Byzantines). Others held aloft the severed heads of the Pechenegs on spears,
and behind them at a moderate distance, was the emperor himself with his men
and the Roman standards. This bizarre procession was suficiently convincing
to fool George Palaeologos, who caught up with it in the plain of Dimylia
and thought that he had stumbled upon Pecheneg marauders58. The story is
signiicant, because if we are to trust Anna Comnena, there deinitely were
such things as Pecheneg uniforms, horses, and standards. While one may
be ready to admit the historical reality of the latter, perhaps also inclined to
imagine that the Pechenegs rode smaller horses of a species different from that
of the Byzantine horses and thus easy to distinguish, it remains unclear what
exactly was a Scythian uniform. That Annas story should not necessarily
be taken at face value results from her remark following the description of the
reaction George Palaeologos and his men had when irst seeing the convoy
set up by Emperor Alexios: On this occasion, the use of Scythian uniforms
tricked and deceived our own folk59. Initially used by the Byzantines to
trick the Pechenegs, the Pecheneg dress can now confuse the Byzantines
themselves. The story is therefore meant to be taken as a joke (and apparently
was intended as such by Emperor Alexios) and is indeed reminiscent of the
parodos in Thesmophoriazusae with its strong emphasis on the comical
effects of cross-dressing and disguise60. In other words, there is only a thin
line between Roman and barbarian. Dressed up as barbarians, the Byzantines
appear as Pechenegs, just as, in Psellos eyes, the Pechenegs could blend into
the surrounding nature to escape their pursuers: One hurls himself into a
river, and either swims to land or is engulfed in its eddities and sinks; another
goes off into a thick wood and so becomes invisible to his pursuers61.
One cannot therefore be sure whether the Scyths of the late eleventhcentury Byzantine sources are truly Pechenegs or Byzantines in disguise. Nor
can those sources inform us in any detail about who the Pechenegs thought they
58
59
60
61
Anna Comnena, Alexiad VIII 2.2, p. 239; transl. Sewter, p. 249.

Anna Comnena, Alexiad VIII 2.2, p. 239; transl. Sewter, p. 250.
Anna Comnena certainly knew Aristophanes, whose name she mentions in the Alexiad I
8.2, p. 30; transl. Sewter, p. 23.
156
were, their understanding of their new position in the Balkans, their relations
to the Empire, or to other Scyths across the river Danube. Undoubtedly
under the inluence of the image of the Pechenegs as constructed in the written
sources, archaeologists studying the eleventh-century Balkans have equally
identiied the Pechenegs with destruction and massacre. The Pechenegs have
been blamed for the abandonment of Capidava, the burial of the Garvn I hoard,
and the blocking of the gate, as well as the subsequent abandonment of the
stronghold at Pcuiul lui Soare62. The absence of anonymous folles of class B,
which are attributed to Emperor Romanos III Argyros, is taken to indicate that
the sites from which they are missing must have been destroyed or abandoned
before those coins came into being or shortly after that63. No source mentions
the sacking of Pliska, but the Pechenegs are blamed for a layer of destruction
by ire identiied in the earliest excavations on the site conducted between
1899 and 1900 by Karel Shkorpil near the eastern and northern gates, inside
the northeastern round tower and within the pentagonal tower to the north from
the eastern gate64. At Odrci, the presence of skeletons with traces of trauma
in graves dug into the ruins of the tenth-century settlement on the Kaleto hill
have been interpreted as victims of a Pecheneg attack which destroyed the
settlement in the 1030s65. The mass burials at Garvn and Capidava (the latter
62
63
64
65
Emil Condurachi, Ion Barnea and Petre Diaconu, Nouvelles recherches sur le Limes
byzantin du Bas-Danube aux Xe-XIe sicles, in Proceedings of the XIIIth International
Congress of Byzantine Studies. Oxford, 5-10 September 1966, edited by Joan M. Hussey,
Dimitri Obolensky and Steven Runciman (London/New York/Toronto: Oxford University
Press, 1967), 179-93, at 191; Krumova, Pecheneg chieftains, p. 208.
Atanasov, Anonimnye vizantiiskie follisy, p. 111; Krumova, Pecheneg chieftains, p. 209;
Gheorghe Mnucu-Adameteanu and Ingrid Poll, Un tezaur de folles anonimi din clasa A2A3 descoperit la Noviodunum-Vicina (?)-Isaccea, Pontica 39 (2006), 435-59, at 438.
Liudmila Doncheva-Petkova, Pliska i pechenezite, Pliska-Preslav 9 (2003), 244-58,
at 245. Pavel Georgiev and Stoian Vitlianov, Arkhiepiskopiiata-manastir v Pliska (Soia
Akademichno Izdatelstvo Prof. Marin Drinov, 2001), pp. 33-34 have even linked the
destruction to the Pecheneg raids of 1032 and 1036.
Liudmila Doncheva-Petkova, Adornments from a 11th century Pechenegs necropolis
by Odartsi village, Dobrich district (north-eastern Bulgaria), Archaeologia Bulgarica 6
(1998), no. 3, 126-37, at ?. The last coins found on the Kaleto Hill are anonymous folles
of class B. Coins have been used to link the end of occupation on different sites to various
Pecheneg raids. The end of occupation at Dervent and Capidava is attributed to the invasion
of Tyrachs Pechenegs in 1046/7. Several sites in the interior (Enisala, Slcioara, Ghiolul
Pietrei, and Histria) were supposedly destroyed by the raid of 1036, even though others
on the Black Sea coast (Constana and Mangalia) show no signs of destruction. See
Diaconu, Despre pecenegi, p. 467; Gheorghe Mnucu-Adameteanu, Les invasions des
157
dated to the reign of Michael IV by means of the associated folles of class
C), and the decapitated skeletons of the last phase of occupation at Dervent
have all been blamed on the Pechenegs66. A historian even wrote of a second
barbarization of the northern Balkans, thus suggesting a direct parallel between
Late Antiquity and the second half of the eleventh century67. The phenomenon
may supposedly be recognized archaeologically in the abandonment of the
quasi-urban network in the region and in ephemeral housing in the ruins of old
buildings. At Odrci, for example, the fort appears to have been re-occupied
soon after its destruction and the new inhabitants are believed to be Pechenegs
recently converted to Christianity, because of the associated pottery, especially
fragments of clay kettles68. Ever since Karel Shkorpils irst excavations on the
site, archaeologists have widely accepted the idea that after sacking Pliska,
Pechenegs also settled on the site, and various categories of artifacts have
been attributed to them, from clay kettles and handmade pottery to leaf-shaped
pendants with open-work ornament, horseman-shaped amulets, jingle bells,
appliqus, and bridle mounts, arrow heads, and stirrups. The eleventh-century
population of Pliska appears to have lived in scattered groups amongst the
ruins of the city, including those of the archbishops palace and the adjacent
monastery69. Four sunken-loored buildings discovered in 1995 and 1996 have
Petchngues au Bas Danube, in Numizmatichni i sfragistichni prinosi km istoriiata na
zapadnoto Chernomorie. Mezhdunarodna konferenciia, Varna, 12-15 septemvri 2001 g.,
edited by Valeri Iotov and Igor Lazarenko (Varna: Zograf, 2004), pp. 299-311, at 306.
66
Diaconu, Despre pecenegi, p. 470; Mnucu-Adameteanu, Les invasions des
Petchngues, pp. 303-5. A skeleton associated with a layer of destruction by ire next to
the remains of a sunken-loored building in the southern segment of the excavations carried
out at Pliska by the western rampart of the Inner Town has also been interpreted as that
of a victim of a Pecheneg attack. See Liudmila Doncheva-Petkova, Novi prouchvaniia
krai zapadnata krepostna stena na Pliska, Pliska-Preslav 6 (1993), 79-84, at 79 ig. 1;
Doncheva-Petkova, Pliska i pechenezite, p. 248
67
Tpkova-Zaimova, Vtorata varvarizaciia, pp. 48-49.
68
Liudmila Doncheva-Petkova, Zur ethnischen Zugehrigkeit einiger Nekropolen des 11.
Jahrhunderts in Bulgarien, in Post-Roman Towns, Trade, and Settlement in Europe and Byzantium,
edited by Joachim Henning (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), pp. 643-60, at 644.
69
Pecheneg artifacts have been found within the central area of the Inner Town in building
, a building excavated in 1968 by Stoian Damianov to the north from the Court Basilica,
and a building excavated by Atanas Milchev to the south from Shkorpils grave. To a
Pecheneg occupation have also been attributed two sunken-loored buildings, one near
the eastern rampart of the Inner Town, the other to the west from the palatial compound,
near the northern rampart. An eleventh-century occupation has been by now signaled in
the Outer Town as well. Finally, a number of burial chapels in the southeastern corner
158
been promptly attributed to the Pechenegs because of the ceramic remains
handmade pottery with a decoration similar to that of pots found in Skala and
Car Asen together with fragments of clay kettles70. In Silistra, the Pechenegs
buried their dead in the narthex of the basilica, as supposedly demonstrated by
a leaf-shaped pendant with open-work ornament found in one of the graves71.
A presence of the Pechenegs in Thrace is now supposedly attested by inds of
clay kettles from Sliven72. On several sites in Dobrudja, the appearance of leafshaped pendants with open-work ornament and of clay kettles is believed to
coincide in time with the arrival of Kegens Pechenegs shortly before 104673.
Nonetheless, if circumspection is required when dealing with the image
of the Pechenegs in the written sources, any effort to recognize the Pechenegs
in the archaeological record by means of speciic artifact categories must be
regarded with suspicion, especially when associated with the idea that the
archaeological record is expected to illustrate what we already know from
of the Inner Town, in the northwestern corner of the Outer Town, and by the eastern gate
into the Outer Town have all been dated to the same period. See Doncheva- Petkova,
Pliska i pechenezite, pp. 247-48. The irst fragment of a clay kettle to be discovered in
Pliska was published by Karel Shkorpil, Domashnii vid i promysel, Izvestiia Russkogo
arkheologicheskogo instituta v Konstantinopole 10 (1905), 301-17, at 302 and pl. LX.7.
70
Ianko Dimitrov and Khristina Stoianova, Zhilishta v iztochnata chast na taka narechenata
citadela v Pliska (razkopki prez 1995-1996), in Blgarskite zemi prez srednovekovieto
(VII-XVII v.). Mezhdunarodna konferenciia v chest na 70-godishninata na prof. Aleksandr
Kuzev, edited by Valeri Iotov and Vania Pavlova (Varna: Regionalen istoricheskii muzei,
2005), 121-34, at 126. However, in one of the four buildings excavated in Pliska handmade
pottery with incised ornament was found together with fragments of glazed ware of an
undoubtedly Byzantine manufacture.
71
Liudmila Doncheva-Petkova, Dobrudja v kraia na X-XI v., in Blgarskite zemi prez
srednovekovieto (VII-XVII v.). Mezhdunarodna konferenciia v chest na 70-godishninata
na prof. Aleksandr Kuzev, edited by Valeri Iotov and Vania Pavlova (Varna: Regionalen
istoricheskii muzei, 2005), 63-72, at 67-68.
72
Boris Borisov and Gergana Sheileva, Arkheologicheski danni za ksni nomadi na iug
ot Balkana, Pliska-Preslav 8 (2000), 247-51 at 247 and 249 ig. 1a. For clay kettles in
Dobrudja, see Antal Lukcs, Observaii privind rspndirea cldrilor de lut de pe teritoriul
Romniei, Studii i cercetri de istorie veche i arheologie 35 (1984), no. 4, 320-30, at 325
ig. 2. In Car Asen, fragments of clay kettles appear in the last phase of occupation, which is
dated with anonymous folles of class B. See Liudmila Doncheva-Petkova, Mittelalterliche
Tonkessel aus Bulgarien, in Die Keramik der Saltovo-Majaki Kultur und ihrer Varianten,
edited by Csand Blint (Budapest: Institut fr Archologie der Ungarischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften, 1990), 101-11, at 105.
73
Mnucu-Adameteanu, Les invasions des Petchngues, p. 306.
159
the written sources. Nobody seems to have been intrigued by the fact that the
presence of the Pechenegs in the Balkans is supposedly betrayed by cooking
kettles and ornaments of the female dress, but no warrior graves have so far
been found on any site in Dobrudja or in Bulgaria, which could be associated
with the Pechenegs, even though the information regarding the Pechenegs in
the written sources is overwhelmingly about the devastation and plundering
done by groups of armed men. The serious problems of interpretation of the
archaeological evidence are currently obscured by a heavy reliance on the
written sources, even though it has been long recognized that none of them
relects, even remotely, the perspective of the Pechenegs.
The idea of linking inds of clay kettles to the tenth- and eleventhcentury nomads of the steppe lands north of the Black Sea and of tracing by
such means the migration of the Pechenegs to the Danube and the to Balkans
has been irst put forward by the Romanian archaeologist Petre Diaconu. He
noted that, although clay kettles seem to appear earlier in Dobrudja than in
Transylvania, they must have originated in the East. According to him, the
Pechenegs settled in the highlands of present-day Moldavia, the region in which
the clay kettles must have irst been used and from which they later spread to
both Dobrudja and Transylvania74. A very large number of inds have come to
light since the publication of Diaconus study in the mid-1950s in Moldova,
Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria, some of them in well datable assemblages.
Gheorghe Postic, Liudmila Doncheva-Petkova, Mikls Takcs, and Victor
Spineis studies have considerably modiied our understanding of this ceramic
category, of its function and chronology75. It is now very clear that clay kettles
appeared in Bulgaria long before the earliest Pecheneg raid mentioned in
the written sources. Over 400 such kettles are known from Topola, seven of
Petre Diaconu, Cu privire la problema cldrilor de lut n epoca feudal timpurie, Studii
i cercetri de istorie veche 7 (1956), nos, 3-4, 421-37, the Russian version of which has
been published as K voprosu o glinianykh kotlakh na territorii RNR, Dacia 8 (1964),
249-64, at 257 and 260.
75
Gheorghe Postic, Glinianye kotly na territorii Moldavii v rannesrednevekovyi period,
Sovetskaia Arkheologiia (1985), no. 3, 227-40; Doncheva-Petkova, Mittelalterliche
Tonkessel; Mikls Takcs, Die arpadenzeitlichen Tonkessel im Karpatenbecken
(Budapest: Varia Archaeologica Hungarica, 1986); Victor Spinei, Die Tonkessel aus dem
Karpaten-Dnestr-Raum, in Die Keramik der Saltovo-Majaki Kultur und ihrer Varianten,
edited by Csand Blint (Budapest: Institut fr Archologie der Ungarischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften, 1990), pp. 327-42.
74
160
which were found intact in a kiln excavated on that site76. A whole vessel is
also known from Devnia, and clay kettles made of Gray Ware with burnished
ornament have been found in Odrci (Bulgaria) and Castelu (Romania). All
those vessels may be dated before 900, although some may have remained
in use after that as well77. A different type of clay kettle appears on sites in
northeastern Bulgaria in the eleventh century. In Car Asen and Odrci, such
vessels have been found in association with anonymous folles of class B, which
suggests that the eleventh-century clay kettles came into being in the 1030s,
although they most certainly remained in use throughout the eleventh century
and even after 110078. Clay kettles also appear on tenth- and eleventh-century
sites in Moldavia and Walachia, where they must have been produced in some
quantity, as demonstrated by the sand-tempered fabric similar to that of the
local wares79. Whole kettles have also been found on contemporary sites near
the Danube Delta, at Bohate, Krynychne, and Orlivka IV, but fragments are
known from farther up north, at Tvardia, Chiriet-Lunga, and Novo Ivanivka
(Fig. 1)80 While in the Lower Danube region, clay kettles occasionally appear
even in assemblages attributed to the tenth- or eleventh-century Pechenegs81,
they are conspicuously absent from the lands farther to the east. Not a single
clay kettle has so far been found on any site to the east from the river Dniester
76
77
78
79
80
81
Liubka Bobcheva, Dve grncharski peshti v rannosrednovekovnoto selishte pri s. Topola,

Tolbukhinski okrg, Izvestiia na Narodniia muzei Varna 13 (1977), 172-77; Glineni kotli
ot rannosrednovekovnoto selishte pri s. Topola, Tolbukhinski okrg, Izvestiia na Narodniia
muzei Varna 16 (1980), 126-30; and Prablgarsko selishte pri s. Topola, Tolbukhinski
okrg. Pliska-Preslav 2 (1981), 198-201.
Doncheva-Petkova, Mittelalterliche Tonkessel, pp. 103-4.
Doncheva-Petkova, Mittelalterliche Tonkessel, p. 105. Those are the same clay kettles as
Postics class II (cauldron-like kettles; Postic, Glinianye kotly, pp. 232-35)
Spinei, Tonkessel, pp. 328 and 330. There are many more specimens in Moldavia and
Moldova than in Walachia. Clay kettles are more commonly found in assemblages of the
so-called Rducneni culture (which is believed to begin in the mid-eleventh century) than
in those of the previous Dridu culture. See Victor Spinei, Contribuii la istoria spaiului
est-carpatic din secolul al XI-lea pn la invazia mongol din 1241, Memoria Antiquitatis
6-8 (1974-1976), 93-162, at 125-26.
Ion Tentiuc, Populaia din Moldova central n secolele XI-XIII (Iai: Helios, 1996), pp.
119; 246 ig. 3.
Fragments of eleventh-century clay kettles have been found in the illing of grave 2 in barrow
3 at Crneni. See T. Demchenko and G. F. Chebotarenko, Pogrebeniia kochevnikov v
kurganakh nizhnego Podnestrovia, in Srednevekovye pamiatniki Dnestrovsko-Prutskogo
mezhdurechia, edited by P. P. Byrnia (Kishinew: Shtiinca, 1988), p. 95-105, at 102-103.
161
or in the Middle Dnieper region of Ukraine, a region which, according to
the written sources, the Pechenegs most certainly inhabited in the tenth and
eleventh century82. Moreover, there are now in Dobrudja and Bulgaria more
inds of clay kettles securely dated to the eleventh century than in the lands
to the north of the river Danube. This may well be a relection of the current
state of research, but all inds of clay kettles from Walachia, Moldavia, and
Moldova are from local settlement sites. Even if one would admit that the
source of inspiration for the production of clay kettles in the Balkans came
from the lands north of the river Danube, there is no reason whatsoever to
treat that ceramic category as nomadic pottery83. Instead, it may well be
an indication of the strong contacts between communities in Walachia and
Moldavia with the towns and forts in Paristrion, contacts which are otherwise
well documented in the archaeological record84. That in Bulgaria, the cauldronlike kettles irst appear in the 1030s, often in association with the last phase
of occupation on several sites cannot be a coincidence. In other words, there
is nothing nomadic about the eleventh-century clay kettles, but it is not
impossible that they became fashionable at the time of the Pecheneg raids
into the Balkans, perhaps in connection with new ways to prepare the meat
over an open ire85. In other words, while it is deinitely possible that some of
Spinei, Contribuii, p. 125; Lukcs, Observaii, p. 323. For the earliest presence of
the Pechenegs in Ukraine, see Ruslan S. Orlov, Pro chas poiavy pechenigiv na terytorii
Ukrainy, in Etnokulturni protsesy v Pivdenno-Skhidniy Evropi v I tysiacholitti n.e. Zbirnyk
naukovykh prats, edited by Rostislav V. Terpylovskyy, N. S. Abashina, L. E. Skiba and V.
I. Ivanovskyy (Kiev/Lviv: Instytut arkheologii NAN Ukrainy, 1999), pp. 174-85.
83
Dimitr I. Dimitrov, Nomadska keramika v severoiztochna Blgariia, Izvestiia na
Narodniia muzei Varna 11 (1975), 37-58. No clay kettles have so far been found on sites
north of the river Danube, which could be dated before 900 with any degree of certainty.
However, the production of such kettles in ninth-century Bulgaria is now well documented
through excavations in Topola (Bobcheva, Dve grncharski peshti and Glineni kotli).
This in turn raises the possibility of the clay kettles in Bulgaria (and the regions north of the
river Danube) having a local, and not eastern or nomadic origin.
84
Spinei, Contribuii, pp. 131-40; Ion Tentiuc, Some considerations regarding Byzantine
inluence in the East of the Carpathians in the 10th-13th centuries, In Exchange and Trade
in Medieval Europe, edited by Guy de Boe and Frans Verhaeghe (Zellik: Instituut voor het
Archeologisch Patrimonium, 1997), pp. 15-22.
85
That no inds of eleventh-century clay kettles are known from other regions of the Balkans in
which the Pechenegs settled shows that it is wrong to establish a direct correlation between
a ceramic type and ethnic identity. In the mid-eleventh century, Dobrudja and northeastern
Bulgariathe only region of the Balkans in which kettles have so far been foundwere
the home of Attaleiates mixobarbaroi.
82
162
those whom the written sources call Scyths or Patzinaks used clay kettles
to cook their stew, there is no indication that this particular ceramic category
served as a badge of Pecheneg, or any other kind of ethnicity.
The question of the archaeological visibility of the Pechenegs may also
be approached from a different perspective. Ever since Svetlana A. Pletneva
and German Fedorov-Davydovs pathbreaking studies, the archaeological
evidence pertaining to the medieval nomads of the Eurasian steppe lands has
been primarily collected from burial sites86. Fedorov-Davydov distinguished
several groups of burials, the irst one of which he dated to the late tenth and
eleventh century. Most typical for this group, according to him, are burials in
small barrows or, more often, graves dug into prehistoric mounds; either no
grave pits properly speaking or only small pits; the deposition of the skull and
legs of a horse, commonly on the left side of the human skeleton, either directly
in the pit or in a small, adjacent niche; sometimes, the pit loor is covered with
organic material, most likely the hide of the sacriiced horse; cenotaphs in
which there are no human bones, just the skull and the legs of a horse; and the
west-east orientation of the grave. This group is particularly well represented
by the cemetery excavated in Belaia Vezha (Sarkel, in the Volgograd province
of Russia), which is the largest cemetery of its kind in Eastern Europe87. On the
basis of analogies from that cemetery, Svetlana Pletneva has also advanced the
idea that certain artifact categories, such as snafle bits with rigid mouth-pieces
or certain varieties of sabers are most typical for Pecheneg warrior graves88.
The earliest such grave in the region immediately to the north of the river
Danube was discovered in 1997 during excavations in Platoneti, not far from
Svetlana A. Pletneva, Pechenegi, torki i polovcy v iuzhnorusskikh stepiakh, in Trudy
Volgo-Donskoi arkheologicheskoi ekspedicii, edited by Mikhail I. Artamonov (Moscow/
Leningrad: Izdatelstvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1958), pp. 151-226; German A. FedorovDavydov, Kochevniki Vostochnoi Evropy pod vlastiu Zolotoordynskikh khanov.
Arkheologicheskie pamiatniki (Moscow: Izdavatelstvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 1966).
To date, no camp sites have been found which could be dated between the tenth and the
thirteenth century.
87
Fedorov-Davydov, Kochevniki, pp. 115 and 134-145; Svetlana A. Pletneva, Kochevniki
iuzhnorusskikh stepei v epokhu srednevekovia, IV-XIII veka. Uchebnye posobie (Voronezh:
Izdatelstvo Voronezhskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 2003), pp. 124-125.
88
Svetlana A. Pletneva, Pechenegi i guzy na Nizhnem Donu (po materialam kochevnicheskogo
mogilnika u Sarkela- Beloi Vezhi) (Moscow: Institut Arkheologii AN SSSR, 1990). For
a critique of the use of such criteria for either dating or ethnic attribution, see Spinei,
Romanians and the Turkic Nomads, pp. 292-295.
86
163
Balta Ialomiei in eastern Walachia. The skeleton (presumably, of a male) was
found next to the head and legs of a horse, together with a saber and a ceramic
pot dated to the tenth or possibly even the late ninth century89. In Moldavia,
the earliest burial assemblage attributed to the Pechenegs is Grozeti, which
has equally been dated to the tenth century on the basis of a bit similar to inds
in the Sarkel cemetery90. Farther to the east, Iablonia and Antonivka (in the
region of Mykolav, Ukraine) belong to a group of inhumations with bridle
mounts which has been dated to the last quarter of the ninth century and are
believed to be the earliest Pecheneg presence in the northern Black Sea area91.
Grave 7 in barrow 10 excavated in Bdragii Vechi (northern Moldova) has
been dated to the tenth or eleventh century on the basis of the associated silver
belt set (Fig. 2)92. A similar date has been assigned to the belt set found in
Trapivka, the decoration of which is regarded as most typical for a group of
burials with silver bridle mounts richly decorated in a style directly inspired
by the Byzantine art (Fig. 3)93. Those burials have therefore been attributed
Adrian Ioni, Morminte de clrei la nordul Dunrii de Jos n sec. X-XIII, in Prinos lui
Petre Diaconu la 80 de ani, edited by Ionel Cndea, Valeriu Srbu and Marian Neagu (Brila:
Istros, 2004), pp. 461-88, at 465 and 474. Because of the early date of the assemblage and
the fact that the grave was within a very large cemetery in which burial has begun in the
ninth century, the grave has been attributed to a Bulgar, not Pecheneg warrior. Most other
burials in the Walachian Plain cannot be dated with more precision than to the eleventh and/
or the twelfth century.
90
Spinei, Moldavia, p. 101. Most other early nomadic burials attributed to the Pechenegs
have also been dated on the basis of snafle bits with rigid mouth-pieces (for a list, see
Spinei, Romanians and the Turkic Nomads, p. 294).
91
Orlov, Pro chas poiavy pechenigiv, pp. 179 and 181-82. See also Evgenii V. Kruglov, K
voprosu o pechenegakh, in Problemy vseobshchei istorii. Materialy nauchnoi konferencii,
sentiabr 1993 g., Volgograd), edited by D. M. Tugan-Baranovskii (Volgograd: Izdatelstvo
Volgogradskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, 1994), pp. 35-41, at 36-37.
92
A. Iu. Chirkov, Novye dannye o pozdnikh kochevnikakh Srednego Poprutia, in
Arkheologicheskie issledovaniia molodykh uchenykh Moldavii, edited by Valentin A. Dergachev
(Kishinew: Shtiinca, 1990), pp. 158-68, at 166 and 162 ig. 4. Four miliaresia struck for John
Tzimiskes are known to have been found in a burial on the border between the Tarutino district
of the Odessa region and the Cuani district of Moldova, while an unidentiied, tenth-century
Byzantine coin is reported from Izhytske. In both cases, nothing else is known about the grave
goods found in those burials. See Elena S. Stoliarik, Essays on Monetary Circulation in the
North-Western Black Sea Region in the Late Roman and Byzantine Periods (Late 3rd CenturyEarly 13th Century AD) (Odessa: Polis, 1992), p. 99; A. O. Dobroliubskii, Kochevniki SeveroZapadnogo Prichernomoria v epokhu srednevekovia (Kiev Naukov Dumka, 1986), pp. 96-97.
93
A. O. Dobroliubskii and L. V. Subbotin, Pogrebenie srednevekovogo kochevnika u
89
164
to the elite of the Pecheneg society94. There were eighty bridle mounts on the
horse skull deposited on the right side of a human skeleton found in Myrne
(Fig. 4). One of those mounts has a good analogy in a grave from Gaivka
(in the Voronezh region of Russia), which was found together with a gold
coin struck for Emperors Basil II and Constantine VIII (976-1025)95. On the
other hand, a good analogy for the large, heart-shaped mount from Myrne
is known from Tuzla, a burial assemblage which can also be dated to the
eleventh century96. Most burial assemblages that can be dated with any degree
of certainty are of an eleventh-, not tenth-century date. Out of over seventy
assemblages so far known from the area between the Danube and the Dnieper
(Fig. 5), a considerable number may have coincided in time with the raids
and invasions into the Balkans mentioned in the written sources. Almost all
of them have been dug into prehistoric barrows which must have been much
taller in the eleventh century than they are now. The vast majority of the sites
on which those graves have been discovered are within less than 100 km from
the river Danube97. Twelve out of 21 sites on which graves with weapons have
been found are also located close to the Danube. In three cases, two graves
sela Trapovka, in Pamiatniki rimskogo i srednevekovogo vremeni v Severo-Zapadnom
Prichernomore. Sbornik nauchnykh trudov, edited by A. V. Gudkova (Kiev: Naukova
dumka, 1982), pp. 169-73, at 169.
94
Many more burials with richly ornamented bridle mounts have been found in northern Crimea
and the neighboring steppe lands. See Ruslan S. Orlov, Pivnichnoprychornomorskii tsentr
khudozhnoi metaloobrabotky u X-XI st., Arkheolohiia 47 (1984), 24-44, at 25, 26, 27 ig.
2, and 30.
95
N. G. Dokont, Kochevnischeskoe pogrebenie XI v. u s. Mirnoe, in Arkheologicheskie
issledovaniia severo-zapadnogo Prichernomoria. Sbornik nauchnykh trudov, edited by
V. P. Vanchugov, G. O. Dzys-Raiko, Petr O. Karyshkovskii, Isaak B. Kleiman and V. N.
Stanko (Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1978), 193-96, at 194, 195 ig. 1.8, and 196; FedorovDavydov, Kochevniki, p. 264.
96
V. N. Stanko, Detskoe zakhoronenie kochevnika v XI v. vozle s. Tuzly, Zapiski Odesskogo
arkheologicheskogo obshchestva 1 (1960), 281-83.
97
In Moldova, there is also a cluster of graves near Cueni on the Lower Dniester, in the
vicinity of the ford at Tighina-Tiraspol. See Gheorghe Postic, Civilizaia medieval timpurie
din spaiul pruto-nistrean (secolele V-XIII) (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Romne, 2007),
p. 91. For graves found between the Dniester and the Dnieper, see Fedorov-Davydov,
Kochevniki, p. 140 ig. 20; A. O. Dobroliubskii, Drevnosti srednevekovykh kochevnikov
v Nizhnem Podnestrove (materialy raskopok I. Ia. Stempkovskogo), in Kurgany v zonakh
novostroek Moldavii, edited by I. I. Artemenko (Kishinev: Shtiinca, 1984), pp. 155-73, at
164-166; Dobroliubskii, Kochevniki, pp. 84, 86, and 93-101.
165
with weapons were planted within one and the same burial mound98. There is
a cluster of weaponsother than bows and arrowsin the Walachian Plain
(battle axes at Vitneti and Bucharest-Tei, saber at Bucharest-Tei, and lance
head at Jilava)99 and in the Budzhak (swords at Iablonia and Trapivka, saber
at Pavlivka)100. On the other side of the Danube, most Byzantine strongholds
known to have been in operation at some point during the eleventh century
are either on the bank of the river or within a very short distance from it. This
distribution reminds one of the Crimea, where tenth- and eleventh-century
graves with weaponsall in prehistoric moundsappear within a short
distance from the main Byzantine settlement area centered upon Chersonesos
and Sudak101. A grave discovered in 1961 in Chokchura near Simferopol, on
the left bank of the Salhyr River, produced a long, single-edge sword and bow
Vitneti: Valeriu Leahu and George Trohani, Dou morminte de clrei nomazi din Cmpia
Teleormanului, Studii i cercetri de istorie veche i arheologie 29 (1978), no. 4, 529-39, at
529-30. Licoteanca (the barrow at Movila Olarului): Nicolae Haruche and Florea Anastasiu,
Morminte de clrei nomazi descoperite n judeul Brila, Istros 1 (1980), 263-80, at 267
and 269. In Taraclia and Pavlivka, there were two graves in the same barrow, but only one of
them produced weapons (bow and arrow in Taraclia; 7 arrow heads and a saber in Pavlivka):
Gheorghe Postic, Eugen Sava, and Sergei M. Agulnikov, Morminte ale nomazilor turanici
medievali din tumulii de lng localitile Taraclia i Cazaclia, Memoria Antiquitatis 20
(1995), 141-71, at 149; Victor Spinei, Realiti etnice i politice n Moldova meridional n
secolele X-XIII. Romni i turanici (Iai: Junimea, 1985), p. 115.
99
For Vitneti, see above, n. 100. For Bucharest-Tei, see Sebastian Morintz and Dinu V.
Rosetti, Din cele mai vechi timpuri i pn la formarea Bucuretilor, in Bucuretii de
odinioar n lumina spturilor arheologice, edited by Ion Ionacu (Bucharest: Editura
tiiniic, 1959), 11-47, at 33-34. For Jilava, see Dinu V. Rosetti, Siedlungen der Kaiserzeit
und der Vlkerwanderungszeit bei Bukarest, Germania 18 (1934), 206-14, at 209.
100
For Trapivka, see above, n. 95. For Pavlivka, see above, n. 100. For Iablonia, see Orlov,
Pro chas poiavy pechenigiv, pp. 179-81. The sabers found in Bucharest-Tei, Copanca,
and Pavlivka remained unknown to A. V. Evgelevskii and Tatiana M. Potemkina,
Vostochnoevropeiskie pozdnekochevnicheskoe sabli, in Stepy Evropy v epokhu
srednevekovia. Sbornik statei, edited by Svetlana A. Pletneva, O. V. Sukhobokov, P. V.
Dobrov, R. D. Liakh and G. P. Erkhov (Donetsk: Institut Arkheologii NAN Ukrainy/
Doneckii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 2000), 117-80.
101
Tatiana I. Makarova and Aleksandr I. Aibabin, Krym v X-pervoi polovine XIII veka, in
Krym, severo-vostochnoe Prichernomorie i Zakavkaze v epokhu srednevekovia, IV-XIII
veka, edited by Tatiana I. Makarova and Svetlana A. Pletneva (Moscow: Nauka, 2003),
68-86 and 130-45, at 74. In the eleventh century, the Byzantine power was reduced to
Chersonesos and Sudak, but most tenth- and eleventh-century rural sites and forts on the
southern coast of Crimea and in the mountains witnessed a period of economic boom,
which is to be attributed to the Byzantine rule.
98
166
reinforcement plates. Another grave found in 1924 in Bakchi-Eli (now within
the suburb of Simferopol known as Krasnaia Gorka) was dug into a barrow
and contained a male skeleton, 25-30 years of age at death, with the head and
limbs of a horse on his right side, and a 1.25-m long saber on his left side102. In
the Walachian Plain, the Budzhak, and the Crimean Lowlands, the prehistoric
mounds in which a few select warriors were buried were prominent features
in the steppe landscape. Those were therefore not just burials, but monuments
of power and prestige. Their proximity to Byzantine settlements suggests that
those monuments served as markers of territory and inluence. The fact that
the graves with weapons in Walachia and the Budzhak were so close to the
Byzantine fortresses manned in the eleventh century by Kegens Pechenegs
may be further interpreted as a powerful statement on the frontier between
Patzinakia of old and the new Patzinakia established on Byzantine soil.
But where did all those warriors come from? Where were their homes
and their families? Archaeologists currently draw a sharp distinction between
native settlement sites and burial sites of the late nomads103. The former are
believed to have survived the onslaught of the nomads well into the eleventh
century. Proof of that is, among other things, the anonymous follis of class B
found in a sunken-featured building of the native settlement excavated in
endreni, near Galai104. The abandonment of those native settlements in the
Walachian Plain, southern Moldavia, and the Budzhak came only in the mideleventh century, and the population in the contact zone between the lowlands
and the highlands moved out completely by the late twelfth century. However,
during the late tenth and the irst half of the eleventh century, both native
settlements and nomadic burial assemblages appear to have co-existed,
E. N. Cherepanova and and A. A. Shchepinskii, Pogrebeniia pozdnikh kochevnikov v
stepnom Krymu, in Arkheologicheskie issledovaniia srednevekovogo Kryma, edited by
O. I. Dombrovskyi (Kiev: Naukova dumka, 1968), pp. 181-201, at 188, 190, 192-193;
190 igs. 8-9; 191 ig. 10; 193 ig. 13. The oldest Pecheneg grave in Crimea was found in
Tankova near Krasnoperekovska, on the Chatyrlyk river and was dated to the tenth century.
103
E.g., Spinei, Romanians and the Turkic Nomads, pp. 213-220 and 279-298.
104
Dan Gh. Teodor, Descoperiri arehologice de la endreni-Galai, Danubius 1 (1967),
129-35, at 129-130 and 134 ig. 4; Spinei, Great Migrations, p. 120. For the identiication
of the coin, see Stoliarik, Essays, p. 145, who mentions ive more coins of that class from
the same region of the Lower Danube. Romanian archaeologists currently believe that the
Pechenegs did not appear on the Lower Danube before the early eleventh century, shortly
before their irst raids into the Balkans. See Mnucu-Adameteanu, Les invasions des
Petchngues, p. 299; Spinei, Great Migrations, p. 218.
102
167
often on one and the same site105. Moreover, artifacts commonly associated
with Pecheneg burialsarrow heads, snafle bits with rigid mouth pieces,
and leaf-shaped pendants with open-work ornamentshave been found on
several native sites106. There was therefore no physical separation between
natives and late nomads, and it is quite possible that the homes and the
families of the warriors buried in prominent barrows in the steppe were in
the neighboring villages. The collapse of the network of native settlements
in the mid-eleventh century could then be explained in terms of the conlict
between Kegens Pechenegs in Byzantine service and Tyrachs Pechenegs
north of the Danube. Irrespective of the accuracy of the numbers advanced
by the Byzantine sources, the many people who migrated to the Balkans in
the winter of 1046/7 as well as latermen, women, and childrenmay not
have come from afar. If so, the absence of the archaeological evidence of
the Pechenegs in the Balkans is remarkable. There are no eleventh-century
graves in burial mounds in Dobrudja and Bulgaria and no burials with the
skull and legs of a horse deposited next to the human skeleton107. To day, no
Spinei, Romanians and the Turkic Nomads, p. 349. For native settlements in Brlad
and Bucharest-Tei, see Nicoleta Ciuc, Descoperiri de tip protodridu la Brlad-cartierul
Munteni, jud. Vaslui, Materiale i cercetri arheologice 10 (1973), 225-29; Morintz and
Rosetti, Din cele mai vechi timpuri, pp. 33-34. In Curcani, the nomadic burial is said to
have cut through the occupation phase of a native settlement, an indication that the grave
post-dates the abandonment of the settlement.
106
Victor Spinei, Relations of the local population of Moldavia with the nomad Turanian
tribes in the 10-13th centuries, in Relations Between the Autochthonous Population and the
Migratory Populations on the Territory of Romania, edited by Miron Constantinescu, tefan
Pascu and Petre Diaconu (Bucharest: Editura Academiei RSR, 1975), pp. 265-76, at 271-73.
107
This is particularly signiicant, given that burials in prehistoric mounds are known from
those regions in Hungary, which have been settled by Pechenegs in the eleventh century. See
Istvn Erdlyi, O pechenegakh na territorii Vengrii (k postanovke voprosa), in Materialy
I tys. n. e. po arkheologii i istorii Ukrainy i Vengrii, edited by Istvn Erdlyi, Oleg M.
Prykhodniuk, A. V. Simonenko and Eugnia Szimonova (Kiev: Naukova dumka, 1996),
pp. 163-66, at 164. To be sure, graves dug into prehistoric barrows have also been found
to the east from the Inner Town at Pliska. Over ninety of them were discovered in barrow
34, a situation reminding one of sixty secondary burials in barrow 52 in Vyshneve, 46 of
which have been dated between the tenth and the fourteenth century. See Doncheva-Petkova,
Pliska i pechenezite, p. 250; L. V. Subbotin, A. N. Dzigovskii, and A. S. Ostroverkhov,
Arkheologicheskie drevnosti Budzhaka. Kurgany u sel Vishnevoe i Belolese (Odessa: Unda
LTD, 1998), p. 8. However, in the absence of any irm chronological markers, dating the
Pliska graves to the eleventh century must be treated with suspicion. Similarly, no solid
evidence exists of an eleventh-century date for the horseman grave found next to the southern
105
168
inds of snafle bits with rigid mouth-pieces are known from the Balkans
and no bridle mounts have been found there, which may be compared to
the exquisite specimens decorated with ornaments of Byzantine inspiration
from the burial assemblages in Saraily Kiiat, Novokamianka, Bulhakove,
Pershokostiantynivka, or Trapivka. Besides clay kettles, the only other artifact
category commonly attributed to the Pechenegs is the leaf-shaped pendant
with open-work ornament. Two such pendants have been found with a female
skeleton in a grave discovered in 1972 in the ruins of the Roman bath at
Histria (Fig. 6). Both pendants were found next to the jawbone and were most
likely part of a necklace including 11 glass beads of various colors108. A leafshaped pendant with open-work ornament was also found together with a
string of glass beads in the grave of a child in Palanca (northern Moldova)109.
To date, 35 leaf-shaped pendants with open-work ornament are known from
the Lower Danube region, 29 of which have been found on sites in Dobrudja
and northeastern Bulgaria (Fig. 7)110. No such pendants are known from any
part of the steppe lands north of the Black Sea. All other analogies are from
sites located to the east from the river Don111. A fragmentary specimen was
found together with another pendant on the left side of the neck in a child
rampart at Pliska. The associated stirrups could just as well be of an earlier date. See Ivan
Zakhariev, Iuzhnata krepostna stena na Pliska i nekropolt, otkrit do neia (razkopki prez
1971-1974 g.), Pliska-Preslav 1 (1979), 108-38, at 137.
108
Alexandru Suceveanu, Un mormnt din sec. XI la Histria, Studii i cercetri de istorie
veche 24 (1973), no. 3, 495-502. According to Doncheva-Petkova, Dobrudja, pp. 6768, another pendant is from a grave discovered in the narthex of the basilica in Silistra.
However, nothing is known about the sex or the age of the associated skeleton.
109
V. D. Gukin and S. I. Kurchatov, Pozdnekochevnicheskoe pogrebenie u sela Palanka,
Arkheologicheskie vesti 4 (1995), 143-45.
110
For specimens from Romania, see Petre Diaconu, Dou pandantive foliforme de bronz de
la Pcuiul lui Soare, Cultur i civilizaie la Dunrea de Jos 3-4 (1987), 113-14; Spinei,
Romanians and the Turkic Nomads, pp. 293-294. For Bulgarian inds, see Valeri Iotov, O
materialnoi kulture pechenegov k iugu ot Dunaia - listovidnye azhurnye amulety XI v.,
Stratum+ (2000), no. 5, 209-12, at 210; Teodora Krumova, Pechenezhskie pamiatniki
v severno-vostochnoi Bolgarii, Analele Asociaiei Naionale a Tinerilor Istorici din
Moldova 1 (1999), 142-49, at 143; 147 ig. 1.1, 3.
111
Only 26 specimens are known to date from the entire region of the Lower Volga and
the Lower Don, as well from the lands between the Volga and the Ural rivers. See L.
M. Gavrilina, Kochevnicheskie ukrasheniia X v., Sovetskaia Arkheologiia (1985), no.
3, 214-26, at 214; Gennadii N. Garustovich, Aleksei I. Rakushin, and A. F. Iaminov,
Srednevekovye kochevniki Povolzhia (konca IX-nachala XV veka) (Ufa: Gilem, 1998), pp.
119 and 139; 315 pl. XII.1 and 332 pl. XXIX.9.
169
burial from Sarkel (Fig. 8)112. Unlike Histria and Palanca, there were no beads
in that assemblage. A mid- to late tenth-century date for, at least, some of those
leaf-shaped pendants may be advanced on the basis of the association of four
different specimens with four dirhems struck in 954/5 and a fels struck in 958/9
in a female grave found in the Caspian Depression at Lapas (in the Astrakhan
region of Russia)113. In both the Lower Danube and the Lower Volga regions,
leaf-shaped pendants with open-work ornament have been found in graves of
females or children. In graves of females, such artifacts often appear in pairs
(even two pairs, as in the Lapas grave), often around the neck or next to the
skull, while in child burials they appear singly. None of those burials was
particularly rich and it has been suggested that the artifacts themselves may
have been amulets related to fertility114. Almost all of those found in the Volga
region have a long appendix, which led to the conclusion that they were used
as ear-cleaners115. Of all specimens known from the Lower Danube region,
only three have appendices116. Most other specimens with the leaf-shaped
pendant still intact have a broken appendix and some of them seem to have
been cast without it. A fragmentary casting model made of lead and found in
the Roman bath at Varna suggests that the production of those artifacts may
have taken place on one or several sites in the northern Balkans117. Whatever
Svetlana A. Pletneva, Kochevnicheskii mogilnik bliz Sarkela-Beloi Vezhi, in Trudy
Volgo-Donskoi arkheologicheskoi ekspedicii, edited by Mikhail I. Artamonov (Moscow/
Leningrad: Izdatelstvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1963), pp. 216-59, at 233 and 256 ig. 27.1;
Pletneva, Pechenegi i guzy, 18, 17 ig. 4.59, and 73 ig. 26.5-7. Two more specimens are
known from the fortiied settlement.
113
V. A. Filipchenko, Pogrebenie X v. v Astrakhanskoi oblasti u s. Lapas, Sovetskaia
Arkheologiia (1959), no. 2, 239-42, at 239, 240 ig. 1.4, and 241. As in Palanca and Histria,
the four pendants were most likely attached to a string of 13 beads.
114
Gavrilina, Kochevnicheskoe ukrasheniia, pp. 222-223.
115
Svetlana S. Riabceva, O listovidnykh ukrasheniiakh - podveskakh, kopoushkakh i reshtakh,
Revista Arheologic 1 (2005), no. 1, 350-58, at 356; Vladimir A. Ivanov, Kulturnye sviazi
srednevekovykh kochevnikov Evrazii (po materialam dekorativno-prikladnogo iskusstva), in
Drevnetiurkskii mir. Istoriia i tradiciia, edited by A. A. Arslanova, V. F. Baibulatova and I. K.
Zagidullin (Kazan: Institut istorii Akademii Nauk Respubliki Tatarstan, 2002), 106-24, at 115.
However, Gavrilina, Kochevnicheskoe ukrasheniia, p. 214, rightly argues that ear-cleaners with
open-work ornament may have also served as dress accessories and amulets at the same time.
116
Victor Spinei, Dcouvertes de ltape tardive des migrations Todireni (dep. de
Botoani), Dacia 17 (1973), 277-92, at 277-82; 279 ig. 1.3, 4; 281 ig. 2.3, 4; Riabceva,
O listovidnykh ukrasheniiakh, pp. 350; 351 ig. 1.10.
117
Iotov, O materialnoi kulture, p. 210.
112
170
their initial functionear-cleaner, amulet, or a simple dress accessoryleafshaped pendants with open-work ornament appear only in two regions of
Eastern Europe at a distance of more than 900 miles from each other. They
do not appear in the Middle Dnieper region, northern Crimea, and Left-Bank
Ukraine, where large groups of Pechenegs are known to have lived during the
tenth and the eleventh centuries. How could this distribution be explained? It is
important to note at this point that almost ive times more pendants have been
found south than north of the river Danube. Moreover, at a closer examination,
most specimens do not have exact analogies in the Lower Volga region. The
pendants found in Garvn, Nufru, Pcuiul lui Soare, Varna, and Glodzhevo
are much simpliied imitations of specimens with more elaborate decoration.
Of all pendants found in the Balkans, only one of the two specimens from
Histria has a close analogy in Sarkel, but the other is almost identical to
pendants found in Varna and Pliska. Leaf-shaped pendants with open-work
ornament seem to have suddenly become very popular in the northeastern
Balkans. The demand triggered by that fashion led to the production of a
relatively large number of imitations of a few genuine ear-cleaners from the
Lower Volga region. Judging from their state of preservation, however, most
imitations may not have been used as ear-cleaners at all. Unfortunately, there
is yet no incontrovertible evidence for establishing a irm chronology for this
phenomenon, but it is only in the eleventh century that exotic dress accessories
from the Lower Volga region could have become the fashion in the northern
Balkans. I would suggest that the adoption of this fashion has much to do
with the political changes taking place in the middle decades of that century,
particularly with the confrontation between Kegen and Tyrach, the creation
of an almost independent Pecheneg district in the Hundred Hills region,
and the Pecheneg-Cuman conlicts. It is in the circumstances surrounding the
Pecheneg wars of the second half of the eleventh century, that a new sense of
identity was created out of bits and fragments of the traditions of the steppe.
This is further substantiated by the examination of the largest eleventhcentury cemetery so far found in the region. No less than 535 graves have been
found during the excavations carried out between 1983 and 1991 at the foot of
the hill on which stood the Byzantine fortress in Odrci118. Several graves
118
A number of graves have also been found within the ruins of the fort as well. Many of them
cut through the loors or even the walls of houses built during the last phase of occupation.
See Liudmila Doncheva-Petkova, Odrci 2. Nekropoli ot XI vek (Soia: AI Prof. Marin
Drinov, 2005); Doncheva-Petkova, Zur ethnischen Zugehrigkeit, p. 646.
171
overlap a number of houses of a late antique settlement, and a number of
ancient coins have been found in the graves, including coins struck for Emperor
Justinian (graves 6, 9, and 393)119. Many graves are lined up or, sometimes,
covered with stones. Some are even covered with piles of stones, which the
excavator interpreted as smaller-size imitations of barrows120. Almost half of
all burials are of children, an unusual rate for medieval cemeteries in Europe.
There are only 14 adults who died after reaching 45 years of life (ive males
and nine females) and only one who died at an age older than 60121. Twenty
gravesmany of which are female burialscontain skeletons with lexed
knees, while skeletons in two other graves (both under piles of stones) have
folded arms or legs122. There are also several cases of mutilated bodies: missing
skulls or skulls spearated from the body and buried face down; severed legs
placed next to the skeleton; or skeletons without legs.In many cases, a large
stone was placed over the head, the chest or the feet of the deceased123.
However, the most spectacular feature revealed by the anthropological analysis
is the fact that more than a third of all skeletons have trephined skulls. Those
are skeletons of individuals who died between 30 and 40 years of age, 20
males and 23 females124. All are cases of symbolic trepanation, in that the
surgical operation performed on the calvaria of a living subject did not
penetrate the inner table of the skull. In fact, it was all done by burning or
Doncheva-Petkova, Odrci 2, p. 158; Doncheva-Petkova, Zur ethnischen Zugehrigkeit,
p. 654. There were nine graves inside the perimeter of house 121, one of 17 late antique
dwellings discovered at the foot of the Kaleto hill.
120
Doncheva-Petkova, Zur ethnischen Zugehrigkeit, p. 647. Three of those graves have
skeletons with a north-south orientation, in sharp contrast to most other graves in the cemetery.
121
Doncheva-Petkova, Zur ethnischen Zugehrigkeit, p. 650.
122
123
124
Real (i.e., surgical) trepanation has been recognized on the skull of the seven-year old child
in grave 92 . See Iordan Iordanov and Branimira Dimitrova, Danni ot antropologichnoto
izsledvane na pogrebanite v srednovekoviia nekropol no. 2 pri s. Odrci, Dobrichko,
XI. v., in Doncheva-Petkova, Odrci 2, p.444. Trephined skulls have also been found
in some of the graves excavated in Pliska (Doncheva-Petkova, Pliska i pechenezite, p.
252). A relatively large number of trephined skulls is also known from the Hansca-Cprria
cemetery, in which it is more often associated with older men and women (who were more
than 30 years of age when dying). See Ion Hncu, Kapraria - pamiatnik kultury X-XII vv.
(Kishinew: Shtiinca, 1973), pp. 19, 20, 21, 23-24, 39-40, and 40-41. On the other hand,
large numbers of trephined skull have not been identiied on any other sites in the steppe
lands of Eastern Europe (Spinei, Great Migrations, p. 215).
119
172
scraping the external lamina of the skull, mostly on the cranial sutures125. The
purpose of this operation may have been or believed to be medical, but its high
incidence betrays in the Odrci cemetery betrays ritual concerns. The excavator
claims that graves with traces of trepanation do not form any cluster within the
cemetery, but the distributions of graves with trephined skulls and stone-lined
graves, respectively, are mutually exclusive (Fig. 9). Graves with a few stones
around the pit are much more evenly distributed (Fig. 10). Further details
about the burial ritual have been obtained from the analysis of pit illings.
Several graves contained charcoal and traces of a ire puriication of the grave
pit126. Some produced animal bones (primarily cattle, sheep, pig, and horse).
They cluster in the western part of the cemetery (Fig. 11). By contrast, coins
appear especially in the central and eastern parts of the cemetery (Fig. 12).
The most recent coins are miliaresia of Leo VI (grave 109), Basil II (in graves
109 and 118), and Constantine IX (grave 495), and bronze coins struck for
Basil II and Constantine VIII (grave 33). The two coins of Constantine IX can
only give a terminus post quem of 1042-1055 for the grave in which they were
found, because, like all others found in the cemetery, this coin was pierced and
may have been worn as a pendant for a long period of time127. Nonetheless, an
eleventh century date for at least some of the graves excavated in Odrci is
supported by the analysis of grave goods. To be sure, most burials had no
grave goods whatsoever (Fig. 13). The correspondence analysis of 73 features
and artifact categories identiied in 159 graves conirms the opposition between
stone-lined graves, on one hand, and graves with stone markings and burials
with animal bones, on the other hand (Fig. 14). However, the most interesting
aspect of this analysis is another outlier, namely arrow heads. The only
weapons known from the Odrci cemetery, they have all been found in graves
on the western side of the cemetery (Fig. 15). A large number of burials with
Iordan Iordanov, Branimira Dimitrova, and Sp. Nikolov, Symbolic trepanations of skulls
form the Middle Ages (IXth-Xth century) in Bulgaria, Acta Neurochirurgica 92 (1988),
15-18; Iordanov and Dimitrova, Danni,pp. 446, 449-451, and 456.
126
In grave 12, the ire was set to the pit after the body had been laid out inside it, for the skeleton
displays charred vertebrae and ribs (Doncheva-Petkova, Zur ethnischen Zugehrigkeit,
p. 650). Krumova, Pecheneg chieftains, p. 214 believes that placing of charcoal in the
grave pit is a typical feature of nomadic (speciically, Pecheneg) burial sites in the steppe
lands of southern Russia, but no such feature appear on any of the sites with burials in
mounds in the Walachian Plain, southern Moldavia, or the Budzhak.
127
Spinei, Great Migrations, p. 215. With one exception, the coin in grave 33, all coins were
found on the upper chest of the skeleton, an indication that they were worn as pendants.
125
173
grave goods cluster in the cloud near the intersection of the orthogonal axes,
an indication that they all are of relatively the same age (Fig. 16). In addition,
there does not seem to be any clear-cut gender or age differentiation, despite
the relatively larger number of female burials in the irst than in the second
quadrant. However, a closer examination of some artifact categories reveals
interesting contrasts. There are fewer burials with earrings in the western than
in the central and eastern parts of the cemetery (Fig. 17). This is also true for
the distributions of beads, buttons, and jingle bells (Figs. 18-19). Pectoral
crosses, medalions, and various types of pendants have an even more restricted
distribution (Figs. 20-21). Many analogies for the pendants are known from
tenth- and eleventh-century cemeteries in Hungary and Slovakia, with only
one from the lands north of the river Danube128. There is a group of graves with
bracelets in the center of the cemetery, although no clusters based on various
types of bracelets (Fig. 22). The same is true for mounts of various shapes,
which were found in thirty assemblages either with graves of young women
(who died between 20 and 25 years of age) or with child burials. More often
than not, such mounts have been found in rich burials, commonly around the
neck of the deceased, underneath the jawbone, or on the forehead129. Given
that almost all circular mounts, irrespective of their size, each have two
diametrically opposed perforations, and that traces of thread have been found
on some of them, it has been suggested that those mounts were stitched to the
clothes or perhaps to a linen headcover or headband. Teodora Krumova, who
studied this phenomenon, believes that such mounts served for the decoration
of the bridle and that in the steppe lands from which the Pechenegs had come
bridle mounts have been found only in burials with horses130. There are,
however, several cases of single mounts found in female burials in positions
very similar to those in which the Odrci mounts were found. A single bridle
boss, for example, was found on the head of the female skeleton in a grave dug
into a prehistoric barrow at Kato (in the Volgograd region of Russia)131. Closer
Doncheva-Petkova, Odrci 2, pp. 90-91. One of the hearth-shaped pendants in grave 4 has a good
analogy in Dneti. See Mircea Petrescu-Dmbovia and Emilia Zaharia. Sondajul arheologic de
la Dneti (r. Vaslui), Materiale i cercetri arheologice 8 (1962), 52-56, at 54 ig. 9.1.
129
Doncheva-Petkova, Odrci 2, p. 130.
130
Teodora Krumova, Secondary usage of Pecheneg bridle-bosses as dress decoration,
Archaeologia Bulgarica 5 (2001), no. 3, 65-70, at 66.Most analogies for the small, circular
mounts in Odrci (Doncheva-Petkovas types I-IX) are from burial assemblages in Hungary
and Slovakia, not in the steppe lands of Eastern Europe (Doncheva-Petkova, Odrci 2, p. 152)
131
Garustovich, Rakushin, and Iaminov, Srednevekovye kochevniki, pp. 139 and 329 pl.
128
174
to the Lower Danube region, a bridle mount of conical shape with circle-anddot ornament was found on the collar bone of a female skeleton in Belolese132.
In the Hansca-Cprria cemetery, silver bridle mounts were found in the pelvic
area, both in a child and in a male burial (Fig. 24)133. Much like in Odrci, none
of them came from a grave with traces of trepanation. All circular mounts
from Hansca-Cprria have double perforations suggesting that they had
initially been made for a different purpose than the one which they served at
the moment of their burial deposition. Such recycled mounts have also been
found in the cemetery discovered in 1989 during the salvage excavations in
front of the eastern gate into the Outer Town at Pliska134. The excavations
revealed 131 graves to the east, southeast, and northeast of a small chapel. The
northern wall of the chapel cut through grave 125, but other graves seem to
have been dug inside the built chapel. Another (grave 118) appears to have
been placed within the ruins of the chapel, believed to have been destroyed by
the Pecheneg attacks of the 1030s. As in Odrci, most burials are stone-lined
graves without any grave goods. There is a large number of child burials (41
percent of all burials, and 80 percent of all burials with grave goods). Two
anonymous folles of classes A2 and B found in graves 7 and 30, respectively,
suggest that the Pliska cemetery started in the late tenth or early eleventh
century, when the chapel was most probably built. After its destruction,
presumably in the 1030s, the cemetery continued to be used. The stones used
XXVI.15. Heart- and cross-shaped bridle ornaments appear on the horse skull found in
Bolgarka I (southern Ural region) together with a female skeleton dressed up in a caftan
with small circular mounts decorating its sleeves and the lower margins. See S. Gucalov,
Pogrebenie oguzo-pechenezhskogo vremeni v kurgane Bolgarka I (Aktiubinskaia
oblast), in Novoe v srednevekovoi arkheologii Evrazii, edited by Vera B. Kovalevskaia
(Samara: Istoriko-kulturnaia associaciia Artefakt, 1993), 91-94, at 91-92 and 94 ig.
1.17-19, 21. In Pershokonstiantynivka, the bridle mounts and strap end were deposited in
a small niche next to the human skeleton. There were no horse bones in the grave and the
bridle must have served as pars pro toto. See Anatolii I. Kubyshev and Ruslan S. Orlov.
Uzdechnyi khabor XI v. iz Novo-Kamenki, Sovetskaia Arkheologiia (1982), no. 1, 23846, at 245 and ig. 5. At any rate, there are comparatively fewer heart- or shield-shaped
bridle mounts in the steppe lands north of the Black Sea than in the Ural-Volga region. See
Ivanov, Kulturnye sviazi, pp. 114-115.
132
Subbotin, Dzigovskii, and Ostroverkhov, Arkheologicheskie drevnosti, pp. 90 and 91 ig. 33.3-4.
133
Hncu, Kapraria, pp. 11and 18.
134
Ianko Dimitrov, Crkva i nekropol vv Vnshniia grad na Pliska (kraia na X-XI v.),
Pliska-Preslav 7 (1995), 42-70.
175
for the lining of grave 94 are from the ruins of the chapel135. Bridle mounts very
similar to those from Odrci have been found exclusively in child burials, often
on the skull or next to the jawbone, either singly or in groups of 3, and in
association with glass beads and bracelets136 Much like in Odrci and HanscaCprria, the graves with bridle mounts were centrally located and adjacent to
each other (Fig. 25). Although the hypothesis will need to be veriied in the
future by means of the DNA analysis of their bone remains, it is likely that in
Odrci and in Pliska, children and young women buried together with recycled
bridle mounts were members of the same kin groups. Judging by the number
and quality of the grave goods with which they were buried, those may have
been the most prominent kin groups in their respective communities.
Burial around a chapel is a clear indication of a church graveyard, and
the cemetery excavated in Pliska by the eastern gate into the Outer Town
has rightly been interpreted as Christian137. Although no church was found
within or near the cemetery in Odrci, the presence of pectoral crosses and of
a medallion with the portrait of St. George strongly suggests that at least some
burials were Christian138. Liudmila Doncheva-Petkova even believed that the
community in Odrci must have been recently converted to Christianity, for the
burial rituals preserved pre-Christian elements, such as burial in a contracted
or semi-contracted position, the use of trepanation and of charcoal in the grave
pits, as well as the placement of stones over the body139. According to her, the
archaeological evidence from Pliska points to a mixed population, most likely
Attaleiates mixobarbaroi, some of whom were supposedly Pechenegs140. By
contrast, Doncheva-Petkova concluded that the community burying their dead
in Odrci must have been all Pecheneg, because there was no settlement around,
a sign that that community was one of nomads141. The Pechenegs in Odrci
supposedly looked back to their ethnic heritageas demonstrated by the use of
Dimitrov, Crkva i nekropol, p. 51. No indication exists that the cemetery was still in
use after ca. 1100.
136
Dimitrov, Crkva i nekropol, pp. 53, 56, 58, and 62-63; 61 ig. 10.1-8, 10; 67 ig. 13.
137
Doncheva-Petkova, Pliska i pechenezite, pp. 253-254. In Preslav, twenty graves have
been found, ifteen of them to the east from a church, and many cutting through the ruins
of three buildings coin-dated to the eleventh century. There were several bridle mounts
around the skull of the child in grave 7 (see Krumova, Pecheneg chieftains, p. 217).
138
Doncheva-Petkova, Odrci 2, p. 97.
139
Doncheva-Petkova, Adornments, p. 137.
140
Doncheva-Petkova, Pliska i pechenezite, p. 253.
141
135
176
bridle bossesbut adapted and applied their traditions to a new environment142.
However, there are no traditions linking the burial assemblages found north of
the Black Sea and near the Danube River to the cemetery in Odrci. There are
no parallels in the steppe lands for the idea of burying together large numbers
of children and adults; for inhumations in stone-lined graves; for burials in
contracted position under piles of stones; or for large-scale trepanation. To
bridge the gap between the world of the steppe and the material culture of
the Odrci community, Liudmila Doncheva-Petkova and Teodora Krumova
rely primarily on the bridle mounts. The engraved decoration on the silver
specimen found in grave 123 is said to be similar to the ornamental patterns
of the mounts from Gaevka, Novokamianka, and Pershokonstiantynivka, and
most other mounts are regarded as similar to those found in Rus assemblages
of the tenth and eleventh century143. Even the chemical analysis of the alloy
shows that a very similar composition for artifacts found in Odrci and in
Pecheneg graves of the Middle Dnieper region144. On the other hand, there are
so many late tenth- and eleventh-century belt and bridle mounts in Bulgaria
and Dobrudja that Stanislav Stanilov suggested that they were all locally
made, and not brought from afar145. Even Doncheva-Petkova admits that at
least some of the mounts found in Odrci may have been produced on the site
and that one or more workshops for the manufacturing of bridle mounts were
in operation somewhere in Dobrudja or northeastern Bulgaria146.
It remains unclear how much we can rely on the reconstruction
Doncheva-Petkova proposed for the dress of the female buried in grave 326 in
Odrci147. Its Oriental look, particularly the use of shalwars and long boots
for which there is actually no evidence in the archaeological record, is in sharp
contrast with Doncheva-Petkovas own observations concerning the bridle
mounts found around the skull of the skeleton. Such mounts have analogies
142
143
144
145
146
147
Krumova, Secondary usage, p. 66.

Doncheva-Petkova, Odrci 2, pp. 147 and 151.
Doncheva-Petkova, Odrci 2, p. 148. Given that the same raw material (most likely
Byzantine coins and silver or bronze jewelry) was used for the production of artifacts
in both Bulgaria and the Middle Dnieper region, there is no surprise that their chemical
composition is the same.
Stanislav Stanilov, Staroblgarski remchni ukrasi ot Nacionalniia arkheologicheski
muzei, Razkopki i prouchvaniia 22 (1991), 5-70, at 28; and Metalni garnituri za remci
i obleklo ot dvoreca vv Veliki Preslav, Pliska-Preslav 7 (1995), 110-35, at 122.
Doncheva-Petkova, Odrci 2, p. 173 ig. 27.
177
either in other burial assemblages in Odrci or in Garvn, but not on any site
north of the Danube River and the Black Sea148. Even more instructive is the
examination of the analogies which Doncheva-Petkova has (correctly) found
for the many dress accessories in grave 376, the richest of the entire cemetery
in Odrci149. Many of them have been found around the neck together with a
large number of glass beads, some of which have no parallels in other graves.
There was a bronze bracelet on each arm and inger-rings on both hands
of the female skeleton. As in grave 326, some mounts and bracelets have
analogies in other graves excavated in Odrci, while others have no analogies
whatsoever150. When plotted on a map of Southeastern Europe, the analogies
Liudmila Doncheva-Petkova identiied for the bridle mounts, the bracelets,
the inger-rings, some of the glass beads, the button, and the pendant found in
grave 376 appear as much stronger in a northwestern and southwestern than
in a northern and northeastern direction (Fig. 26). With just ive exceptions
(only three of which are from nomadic burials) there are no analogies in
the whole of Eastern Europe for the dress accessories of the woman buried
in grave 376. While most analogies for bracelets and inger-rings are from
contemporary sites in Macedonia or Serbia, analogies for mounts are mostly
from Hungary and Slovakia. The presence of the Pechenegs in eleventhcentury Hungary is of course well documented in the written sources, and
there is also evidence that some of them came from the Balkans151. Since
148
149
150
151

Doncheva-Petkova, Odrci 2, pp. 136, 137, and 143.
E.g., the mounts shown on plates 134.4 and 135.13.
Sixty Pechenegs are mentioned coming with their families from Bulgaria and being granted
royal protection by King Stephen. See Hartvik, Life of St. Stephen, ed. by Emma Bartoniek,
in Scriptores rerum Hungaricarum tempore ducum regumque stirpis arpadianae gestarum,
vol. 2 (Budapest: Academia litteraria Hungarica, 1938), p. 426. In 1071, the Pechenegs
crossed the Sava from the south and raided southern Hungary. King Salomon pursued the
marauders to the walls of Belgrade, and then besieged the city. Its inhabitants called the
Pechenegs for help, but the city was eventually conquered and the Pechenegs defeated by
Count Ian of Sopron, who took many prisoners, all of whom he then moved to the county of
Sopron. It is possible that the Pechenegs in question were Byzantine border guards. There
were Pecheneg guards of the royal domain near Zsitvabeseny in what is now southwestern
Slovakia, when King Gza I donated that village to the Abbey of Garam St. Benedict.
See Hansgerd Gckenjan, Hilfsvlker und Grenzwchter im mittelalterlichen Ungarn
(Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des stlichen Europa, 5)(Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner,
1972), pp. 98 and 112; Zoltn Kord, A magyarorszgi besenyk az rpd-korban, Acta
Universitatis Szegediensis de Attila Jozsef nominatae. Acta Historica 90 (1990), 3-21;
178
Hungarian and Slovak specimens are themselves linked to specimens from the
Balkans, the distribution of analogies points to fashions spreading from south
to north and not the other way around. There is, in other words, no substantial
reason for taking grave 376 in Odrci for a nomadic, much less a Pecheneg
burial, and such skepticism must also be extended to the interpretation of the
entire cemetery.
In the material presented in this paper, one can easily see the development
of a critique similar to the general approach to ethnicity, which is now gaining
momentum among students of the early Middle Ages: written sources are late
and in any case cannot be trusted, while the archaeology has been largely
misused to it preconceived ideas about barbarians. The recycling of the
stereotypes embedded in the ethnographic literature of the Late Antiquity by
eleventh- and twelfth-century authors, so well illustrated by the use of archaic
names such as Scyths instead of any new names or self designations, seems
to raise the serious question of whether (re-)reading those authors can truly
inform us about the eleventh-century Pechenegs, or is rather another way to
reveal the rhetorical sophistication of the medieval sources152. The conversion
to Christianity of some of those Pechenegs who settled on Byzantine soil and
the extraordinary dificulties which several emperors had in the second half
of the eleventh century to control the political and military situation in the
northern Balkans may have offered unexpected opportunities for ethnographic
commentary. More often than not, however, that commentary is cast in the
language and the conceptual framework of the late antique ethnography.
On the other hand, archaeologists failed to notice the double incongruence
of the material pertaining to the presence of the Pechenegs in the Balkans.
First, there is no one-to-one correlation between the features and the artifacts
attributed to them in the lands north of the river Danube and the Black Sea, on
152
Gbor Hathzi, A beseny megtelepeds rgszeti nyomai Fejr megyben, Savaria. A

Vas megye mzeumok rtesitje 22 (1992), no. 3, 223-48.
Vasilka Tpkova-Zaimova, Lemploi des ethnica et les problmes de la communication
Byzance, In He epikoinonia sto Byzantio. Praktika tou B diethnous symposiou, 4-6
oktobriou 1990, edited by Nikos Moschonas (Athens: Kentro Vyzantinon Ereunon,
1993), pp. 701-09 ; Walter Pohl, Die Namen der Barbaren: Fremdbezeichnung und
Identitt in Sptantike und Frhmittelalter, in Zentrum und Peripherie - gesellschaftliche
Phnomene in der Frhgeschichte. Materialien des 13. internationalen Symposiums
Grundprobleme der frhgeschichtlichen Entwicklung im mittleren Donauraum, Zwettl,
4.8. Dezember 2000, edited by Herwig Friesinger and Alois Stuppner (Vienna: Verlag der
sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2004), pp. 95-104.
179
one hand, and those resulting from the excavation of settlement and cemetery
sites in Dobrudja and Bulgaria. Driven by their own commitment to a culturehistorical interpretation of the archaeological record, archaeologists do not
seem to have been at all surprised that, once they crossed the Danube, the
Pechenegs seem to have become archaeologically invisible, at least by the
standards employed for their identiication in the steppe lands of Eastern
Europe. Impervious to the inconsistency of their own mode of thinking, those
archaeologists seem to have been happy with using selected artifactsclay
kettles, leaf-shaped pendants with open-work ornament, or bridle mountsas
ethnic badges for the identiication of the elusive Pechenegs of the eleventhcentury Balkans. Second, there is currently no attempt to explain either the
gender-speciic use of such artifacts as the leaf-shaped pendants and the bridle
mounts, or the lack of any archaeological correlate of the martial poses of
various Pecheneg chieftains, which are so prominent in the written sources.
Radically different kinds of representation through mortuary ritual were at
work north and south of the river Danube. Furthermore, nobody seems to
have noted that such contrast matches the admittedly biased testimony of
the written sources. In fact, many of those sourcesno doubt perpetuating
an old topos of the ethnographic literatureclaim that the barbarians were
transformed one way or another simply by virtue of them crossing the Danube:
they came to know about food and beverages of which they had no previous
knowledge; they accepted baptism; they settled and turned to the cultivation
of crops; they formed political alliances and were capable of agreeing to
long-term peace treaties with the Empire. And, as the evidence from Anna
Comnenas Alexiad seems to suggest, in order to survive, the Byzantines too
had to become a bit more like the Pechenegs, to adopt their ways of living
and ighting, to incorporate their tactics, and to learn their language. One has
therefore every reason to wonder about the archaeological invisibility of the
Pechenegs in the Balkans. The cluster of burial monuments in the Walachian
Plain and the Budzhak in plain sight of the Byzantine fortresses on the right
bank of the river Danube suggests that the material culture attributed to the
Pechenegs before and during their migration to the Balkan provinces was
already inluenced, if not even conditioned, by the political and military
developments in the Empire. The existence of large cemeteries with stonelined graves in northeastern Bulgaria, such as those as Odrci and Pliska,
must equally have a social and political explanation. According to the written
sources, this was the region of the Balkans inhabited by a mixed population
180
(to which Michael Attaleiates referred with a phrase lifted from the ancient
literature, mixobarbaroi), including large numbers of Pechenegs. A general
tendency towards the adoption of the Christian burial, including cofin-like
structures associated with stone-lined graves as well as burial in and around
cemetery chapels, seems to have worked rapidly through a number of factors,
which did not necessarily lead to the eradication of pre-Christian practices.
It seems as if traits that are not at all prominent in the archaeological record
of the East European steppe landstrepanation, charcoal in the grave pit, or
bridle mounts recycled as dress accessorieswere now activated to mark the
material culture boundaries of a new sense of group identity. The absence
from the region of any signs of the military posturing so typical for burials in
prehistoric barrows north of the river Danube is simply the other side of the
same coin.
Instead of concentrating on individual traits or even artifact categories,
let me inish by discussing the implications of this new interpretation of the
evidence. I started off by trying to pin down the characteristics of various
Pecheneg groups, which entered the Balkans at several moments during
the second half of the eleventh century. Most of the evidence from written
sources shows, however, that without names of political and military leaders,
Byzantine authors were incapable of differentiating between those groups and
do not seem to have been aware of their possibly different group identities.
All treated the Pechenegs as a single nation with multiple tribes, which,
to paraphrase Skylitzes, have a common name, even though each tribe is
also known by the name of its ancestor. From the little of what we know
about the political developments among the Balkan Pechenegs, it seems that
a certain sense of regional identity formed in the region of the Hundred Hills.
That identity may have at times operated like a magnet for dispersed groups
or individuals, but was otherwise different from the identity of the warriors
who, for example, followed Tzelgu in 1087. More importantly, the regional
identity in the Hundred Hills area seems to have been created on the basis of
the political agreement which allowed Kegens Pechenegs to occupy three
fortresses on the bank of the river Danube and to live off the tax-exempted
lands in their hinterland. From a purely historical point of view, there seems
to be no evidence for the identity of Kegens groupwhatever that was
morphing into the regional identity of the later decades of the eleventh
century. Archaeologically speaking, the 1050s do not have any signiicance in
the understanding of the material culture of the region.
181
The rise of a regional identity in northeastern Bulgaria relates very
closely to the conclusions Liudmila Doncheva-Petkova drew from her
analysis of the cemetery in Odrci. She believed that the cemetery belonged to
a community of recently converted Pechenegs, who were nomads practicing
pastoralism in the steppe-like landscape of the Ludogorie plateau. According
to her, the non-Christian traits of the mortuary rituals could only be attributed
to the contacts with the cultural milieu of the pagan Pechenegs still roaming in
the East European steppe lands. For Doncheva-Petkova, as well as for Teodora
Krumova, the dominant characteristic of the Odrci cemetery was that women
were buried with head-covers, head-bands, veils, or other clothes displaying
mounts initially made to decorate the horse bridle. This in turn showed that
although by now in an accelerated process of acculturation, the Pechenegs
were still holdingone way or anotheronto their cherished steppe traditions.
The re-examination of the cemetery, which I have offered in this
paper, presents a different picture. The cemeteries excavated in Odrci and
Pliska stand out among all similar sites in the Balkans because of the unique
combination of cultural traits, which can be related primarily to practices and
objects in use in Southeastern Europe since at least the tenth century. Elements
regarded as relections of the traditions of the steppe may have well been
in fact quotes designed to give a Pecheneg look to a regional identity
at a time of considerable political and social turmoil. It is no accident that
the markers of that look were attached especially to the dress of (young)
women and children. Burying them with leaf-shaped pendants with openwork ornament cannot be taken as the deceased persons declaration of ethnic
membership; it is rather a mirror of the political aspirations of those who
buried that person and for whom the meaning attached to those pendants could
have signaled political and military allegiance. Because of their ephemeral
success in establishing an almost independent polity in the northern Balkans
and the resounding victories they had obtained against many armies sent from
Constantinople, the Pechenegs may have appeared in eleventh-century
Paristrion as upstarts worth emulating. Two leaders of the Paulician rebels in
the environs of PhilippopolisLekas and Travlosmost certainly thought
so when marrying Pecheneg princesses. But do not take my word for that: let
Anna Comnena show you those men of her fatherall dressed up in Scythian
uniforms and with Scythian standards standing in wait on the bank of the
river in Chirovanchoi. Would you not say they look just like Pechenegs?
182
IMAGINEA I ARHEOLOGIA PECENEGILOR

Rezumat
Izvoarele bizantine ce i privesc pe pecenegi sunt pline de stereotipuri culturale care
sunt mai des folosite pentru descrierea lor dect s-a crezut pn n momentul de fa. Cu
toate acestea, arheologii i-au pus ncrederea n aceste izvoare i, ca urmare, au pus pe seama
pecenegilor orice urm de distrugere sau masacru identiicat prin intermediul spturilor
arheologice. Se prea poate, totui, ca piese de inventar arheologic precum cldrile de lut,
pandantivii foliacei cu decor ajurat sau plcile ornamentale ale curelelor de harnaament s
i servit nevoilor de a crea o identitate de grup n regiunea autonom peceneg cunoscut
sub numele de Patzinakia, care a luat natere n regiunea de nord a peninsulei balcanice n
decursul celei de-a doua jumti a secolului al XI-lea.
183
Fig. 1. The distribution of clay kettles on late tenth- and eleventh-century

sites in the Lower Danube region. Data after Spinei, Die Tonkessel (see n.
75), Doncheva-Petkova, Mittelalterliche Tonkessel (see n. 72), and Tentiuc,
Populaia (se n. 80), with additions.
184
Fig. 2. Bdragii Vechi (Moldova), barrow 10, grave 7: grave plan and
associated belt set. After Chirkov, Novye dannye (see n. 92)
185
Fig. 3. Trapivka (Ukraine): grave plan, belt set, and arrow heads. After
Dobroliubskii and Subbotin, Pogrebenie (see n. 92).
186
Fig. 4. Myrne (Ukraine): earring and bridle mounts. After Kubyshev and
Orlov, Uzdechnyi khabor (see n. 131).
187
Fig. 5. The distribution of eleventh-century strongholds (large squares) and

graves (circle) in barrows with belt sets (triangle), weapons (small square),
and bridle mounts (star): 1 Antonivka; 2 Bdragii Vechi; 3 Brlad; 4
188
Belolese; 5 Bilozirka; 6 Bucharest-Tei; 7 Bulhakove; 8 Capidava; 9
Car Asen; 10 Crneni; 11 Cernavod; 12 - Chirileni; 13 Ciulnia; 14
Constana; 15 - Copanca; 16 Curcani; 17 Dridu-Snagov; 18 Fridensfeld;
19 Garvn; 20 Gorozheno; 21 Grdite; 22 Grivia; 23 Hrova;
24 Horodnie; 25 Iablonia; 26 Isaccea; 27 Izhytske; 28 Jilava; 29
Kalanchak; 30 Krilos; 31 Licoteanca; 32 Matca; 33 Myrne; 34
Movilia; 35 Novo Kamianka; 36 Nufru; 37 - Ogorodnoe; 38 Okorsh;
39 Oltenia; 40 Opaci; 41 Pcuiul lui Soare; 42 - Palanca; 43 Parkany;
44 Pavlivka; 45 Petreti; 46 Plavni; 47 Pliska; 48 Ploskoe; 49
Podles; 50 - Pomazany; 51 Potik; 52 Preslav; 53 Rmnicelu; 54 Ruino;
55 Sii; 56 Srata; 57 Sculeia; 58 Serbka; 59 Silistra; 60 Skala;
61 - Sredishte; 62 Staia Znelor; 63 Stepantsi; 64 tiubei; 65 Tangru;
66 Taraclia; 67 - Trapivka; 68 Tulcea; 69 Tuzla; 70 Ulmeni; 71
Umbrreti; 72 Vadu lui Isac; 73 Vyshneve; 74 Vitneti; 75 Ziduri.
189
Fig. 6. Histria (Romania): female grave with associated leaf-shaped pendant

with open-work ornament.
190
Fig. 7. The distribution of leaf-shaped pendants with open-work ornament in

the Lower Danube region. Smallest symbols represent one specimen, larger
ones two and three or more specimens, respectively. with open-work ornament.
191
Fig. 8. Belaia Vezha (Sarkel), grave 59: grave plan and associated pendants
with open-work ornament.
Fig. 9. The distribution of graves with traces of trepanation (circle) and of

stone-lined graves (triangle) within the eleventh-century cemetery at Odrci
192
Fig. 10. The distribution within the eleventh-century cemetery at Odrci of

graves with a few stones around the grave pit.
Fig. 11. The distribution of animal bones inside the eleventh-century cemetery
in Odrci
193
Fig. 12. The distribution of Late Roman (circle) and Byzantine (square) coins
inside the eleventh-century cemetery in Odrci
Fig. 13. The distribution within the eleventh-century cemetery in Odrci of

burials without grave goods
194
Fig. 14. The correspondence analysis of 73 features and artifact categories

identiied in 159 graves of the eleventh-century cemetery in Odrci: B-S
stone beads; B1 glass beads (Doncheva-Petkovas type I); B2 glass beads
(Doncheva-Petkovas type II); B3 glass beads (Doncheva-Petkovas type
III); B4A glass beads (Doncheva-Petkovas type IVA); B4V-D glass beads
(Doncheva-Petkovas type IVB-); B5- glass beads (Doncheva-Petkovas
type V); B6 glass beads (Doncheva-Petkovas type VI); B8 glass beads
(Doncheva-Petkovas type VIII); B11 glass beads (Doncheva-Petkovas type
XI); B12 glass beads (Doncheva-Petkovas type XII); B13 glass beads
(Doncheva-Petkovas type XIII); B14 glass beads (Doncheva-Petkovas type
XIV); B15 glass beads (Doncheva-Petkovas type XV); B16 glass beads
(Doncheva-Petkovas type XVI); B17 glass beads (Doncheva-Petkovas
type XVII); B18 glass beads (Doncheva-Petkovas type XVIII); B19
glass beads (Doncheva-Petkovas type XIX); BR-B bracelet, bronze wire;
BR-F bronze bracelet, band; BR-G glass bracelet; BR-I bronze bracelet,
interwoven wires; BR-Ir iron bracelet; BUT1 button (Doncheva-Petkovas
195
type I); BUT3 button (Doncheva-Petkovas type III); BUT5 button
(Doncheva-Petkovas type V); CIST stone-lined grave; COIN coin; CROS
pectoral cross; EAR1 earring, simple; EAR2 earring, spiral end; F-BEZ
inger-ring with raised bezel; F1 inger-ring (Doncheva-Petkovas type I);
F2 inger-ring (Doncheva-Petkovas type II); F9 inger-ring (DonchevaPetkovas type IX); F11 inger-ring (Doncheva-Petkovas type XI); F13
inger-ring (Doncheva-Petkovas type XIII); F15 inger-ring (DonchevaPetkovas type XV); FLI lint; JBEL jingle bells; KNIF knife; LOCK lock
ring; M1 circular mount (Doncheva-Petkovas type I); M2 - circular mount
(Doncheva-Petkovas type II); M3 - circular mount (Doncheva-Petkovas type
III); M4 - circular mount (Doncheva-Petkovas type IV); M5 - circular mount
(Doncheva-Petkovas type V); M6 - circular mount (Doncheva-Petkovas type
VI); M12 - circular mount (Doncheva-Petkovas type XII); M13 - circular
mount (Doncheva-Petkovas type XIII); M13B - circular mount (DonchevaPetkovas type XIII); M13D - circular mount (Doncheva-Petkovas type
XIII); M14 - circular mount (Doncheva-Petkovas type XIV); M16 - circular
mount (Doncheva-Petkovas type XVI); M18 - circular mount (DonchevaPetkovas type XVIII); M19 - circular mount (Doncheva-Petkovas type
XIX); M21 - circular mount (Doncheva-Petkovas type XXI); M23 - circular
mount (Doncheva-Petkovas type XXIII); M28 - circular mount (DonchevaPetkovas type XXVIII); M37 - circular mount (Doncheva-Petkovas type
XXXVII); M51 - circular mount (Doncheva-Petkovas type LI); MARK
grave with stone markings; MEDAL medallion; P1 oval pendant; RECTA
rectangular grave pit; RING iron ring; SHEET bronze sheet, pierced;
STONE grave with a few stones around the pit
196
Fig. 15. The distribution of arrow heads within the eleventh-century cemetery
in Odrci
Fig. 16. The correspondence analysis of 159 graves of the eleventh-century

cemetery in Odrci: male (triangle), female (white square), and child (full
square) burials
197
Fig. 17. The distribution of earrings within the eleventh-century cemetery in

Odrci
Fig. 18. The distribution of beads within the eleventh-century cemetery in

Odrci
198
Fig. 19. The distribution of buttons (circle) and jingle bells (square) within
the eleventh-century cemetery in Odrci.
Fig. 20. The distribution of pectoral crosses (square) and medallions (circle)
within the Odrci cemetery
199
Fig. 21. The distribution of pendants within the eleventh-century

cemetery in Odrci
Fig. 22. The distribution of glass (circle), bronze band (square) and rod (star)
bracelets, and of bracelets made of interwoven wires (triangle) within the
eleventh-century cemetery in Odrci
200
Fig. 23. The distribution of (bridle) mounts within the Odrci cemetery. Symbols:
heart - heart-shaped mounts; circle small, circular mounts (Doncheva-Petkovas
types I-IX); square middle-size, circular mounts (Doncheva-Petkovas types
X-XXVI); triangle large, circular mounts (Doncheva-Petkovas types XXVIXXXIV); L leaf-shaped mounts; o Doncheva-Petkovas types XXXVXXXVI; * - Doncheva-Petkovas type XXXIX.
Fig. 24. The distribution of bridle mounts

(star) and skeletons with trephined skulls
(square) within the Hansca-Cprria
cemetery.
201
Fig. 25. The distribution of bridle mounts (circle) and beads (star) within the
cemetery next to the eastern gate into the Outer Town at Pliska
Fig. 26. Odrci, grave 376: plan of

the upper part of the skeleton with
associated bridle mounts, beads, and
bracelets
202
Fig. 27. Plotted analogies for the dress accessories (mounts, bracelets, ingerrings, some glass beads, button, and pendant) found in Odrci in grave 376.
The size of the line shows the number of analogies with one and the same site,
from one (thinnest) to over three (thickest).

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THE IMAGE AND ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE PECHENEGS

Taken in the mass, this is a nation to be feared, and a treacherous one1.

Diaconu, Les Ptchngues, p. 58 with n. 162; Vasilka Tpkova-Zaimova, Vtorata

Anna Comnena, Alexiad VIII 2.2, p. 239; transl. Sewter, p. 249.

Liubka Bobcheva, Dve grncharski peshti v rannosrednovekovnoto selishte pri s. Topola,

Krumova, Secondary usage, p. 66.

Doncheva-Petkova, Odrci 2, pp. 140 and 142.

Gbor Hathzi, A beseny megtelepeds rgszeti nyomai Fejr megyben, Savaria. A

IMAGINEA I ARHEOLOGIA PECENEGILOR

Fig. 1. The distribution of clay kettles on late tenth- and eleventh-century

Fig. 5. The distribution of eleventh-century strongholds (large squares) and

Fig. 6. Histria (Romania): female grave with associated leaf-shaped pendant

Fig. 7. The distribution of leaf-shaped pendants with open-work ornament in

Fig. 9. The distribution of graves with traces of trepanation (circle) and of

Fig. 10. The distribution within the eleventh-century cemetery at Odrci of

Fig. 13. The distribution within the eleventh-century cemetery in Odrci of

Fig. 14. The correspondence analysis of 73 features and artifact categories

Fig. 16. The correspondence analysis of 159 graves of the eleventh-century

Fig. 17. The distribution of earrings within the eleventh-century cemetery in

Fig. 18. The distribution of beads within the eleventh-century cemetery in

Fig. 21. The distribution of pendants within the eleventh-century

Fig. 24. The distribution of bridle mounts

Fig. 26. Odrci, grave 376: plan of

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