Treasure from the first decades of the city’s life was found in Novgorod

A treasure of 1,800 coins was found during excavations before the construction of a private house.

One of the earliest treasures was found in Veliky Novgorod – it dates back to the second half of the 970s. Among the oldest treasures in the city, it is also the largest – it contains about 1,800 coins and more than 80 jewelry made of this metal, the total weight of the objects is about 3 kilograms. The find is reported on the website of the Institute of Archeology (IA) RAN.

Employees of this institute carried out excavations on Vozdvizhenskaya Street (Sofia Side), on one of the private plots. Its owners decided to build a house and financed archaeological work at the future construction site. Archaeologists explored a small area – 132 square meters, but the thickness of the cultural layer was about 5 meters. In the XII–XV centuries. it was the central part of the city estate, judging by the finds, not an ordinary one.

The treasure was found at the end of the excavations, when archaeologists reached the mainland – a layer of clay untouched by humans. There was a hole in it, in which there were coins. There are about 500 complete coins, the rest are fragmented. The earliest complete coin is Sasanian drachma Khosrow II (591–628), the latest – Samanid Mansura b. Nuha (974/975). Most of the coins of the complex belong to the Samanid coinage, but there are dirhams of various rulers of the Arab Caliphate, banknotes from Volga Bulgaria, a German denarius of the emperor Otto I (936–973) and nine Byzantine miliarisi: Constantine VII Porphyrogenete (945–959) and Joanna Tzimiskes (969–976).

The Sasanian drachma, the German denarius and the coins of Constantine VII have ears attached, which means that these banknotes were used in Novgorod as decorations and pendants. Some later coins also have such ears. Others show graffiti. The most notable of these is the hammer of Thor on the Samanid dirham of 939/940.

In addition to coins and pendants made from them, the treasure also contained eighty-three ornaments. Most of them are made of silver: a ring, a temple ring, buttons, a cross, moons, pendants, beads. Many of them are decorated with grain. Nine more beads are made of glass (most are made using the technique millefioriand one is crystal.

Archaeologists believe that the treasure’s decorations are the remains of two or three necklaces. Many beads have abrasions (traces of use), and some have repairs. The composition of the treasure differs from those usually left by jewelers – with ingots and scrap, so it is most likely a family “treasure”.

The decorations of the treasure have analogies in complexes from the Novgorod region, Gnezdovo, and Scandinavia. The cross is of the “Scandinavian” type – it is one of the earliest objects of Christian cult in Rus’. There are not very many dated finds of such crosses; the Novgorod one is one of the oldest. It seems that this is a trace of the penetration of Christianity into Novgorod even before the “official” baptism of Rus’.

It is expected that after a complete study of the treasure, he will add new information about the life of Novgorod in the first decades after its founding – about trade, money circulation, costume, etc.