The Glass Beaker With Eclectic Features From Burial No. 112 of the Shyshaky Cemetery

Abstract

In 2014 the burial No. 112 was excavated on the territory of the Shyshaky cemetery of Scythian period and Cherniakhiv culture. A woman aged about 18—20 was buried there. The interesting fact is that this woman had 34 teeth (18 on the upper jaw and 16 on the lower jaw). Near the right hand of the woman a conical glass cup with a capacity of 0,6 liters was found. The item is decorated with glass drops of different colours: amber, light-blue and deep blue. Polychromy of coloured drops is common for wares of the west Roman workshops. The scheme of ornaments and the quality of this item indicate that it was made in the later period. There are no analogies and that’s why here we can mention a new type of glass cups with coloured drops the «Shyshaky-112 type». Obviously, the burial No. 112 belongs to the group of the latest burials of the Shyshaky cemetery. It is difficult to date this burial correctly because there are no analogies of such items. However, it is reasonable to assume that this complex belongs to the Nuns time (the end of the 4th — first part of the 5th centuries) The rite of placing glass and clay cups into the hands of dead people was stated only at the Shyshaky cemetery and is not common for other sites of Cherniakhiv culture. It is also interesting that such cups were found only in the burials of women (112, 39, 60). Maybe such a rite is connected with representation of local people about the dead women taking part in ritual feasts. The presence of this glass cup of provincial-Roman production in the burial No. 112 proves that there were military and trading relations between provinces of Roman Empire and barbarians. It also should be mentioned here that local people stayed on the same territory and they didn’t have significant decline after the arrival of the Huns. It is possible that the presence of items of provincial-Roman production (glass cups) indicates that local people took part in campaigns of the Huns to the provinces of the Roman Empire.