Alans, Bulgars, Khazars?

The exhibition is based on materials obtained by the archaeological expeditions of the M. F. Sumtsov Kharkiv Historical Museum from 1982 to 2019 at the Verkhnii Saltiv, Staryi Saltiv, Rubizhne, Netailivka, Kytsivka and other Saltiv burial grounds of the region.

The study of the Saltiv archaeological culture began 120 years ago, when the teacher Vasyl Babenko discovered a catacomb burial ground near the village of Verkhnii Saltiv in the Vovchansk district of Kharkiv governorate (today’s Vovchansk district of the Kharkiv region). The find was made while preparing for the 12th Archaeological Congress in Kharkiv in 1902, at which papers were presented on the discovered catacomb burial ground and the settlement near Verkhnii Saltiv.

The event became the starting point for singling out a whole group of early medieval sites as a separate archaeological culture, named the Saltiv (Saltovo-Mayaki) archaeological culture (second half of the 8th – first half of the 10th century). Thanks to their brightness and richness, the discovered antiquities of the Saltiv culture were linked to one of the most powerful states of southern Eastern Europe in the last quarter of the 1st millennium AD — the Khazar Khaganate.

The exhibition Alans, Bulgars, Khazars? presents the most striking objects that characterise the material and spiritual culture of several groups of the medieval population who took part in creating the Saltiv culture and left behind burial sites of different kinds: earthen vaults (catacombs); burials in ordinary earthen pits with the deceased oriented to the east or the west; and cremation burials.

The display cases show weapons, horse equipment, household items, and kitchen and table ware. Special attention is paid to the system of ethnic, gender, age and property stratification of Saltiv women, reflected in the sets of ornaments and metal elements of costume and in the sets of personal amulets. Artefacts that testify to the wide trade links of the Saltiv culture population of our region with Byzantium and the countries of the Middle East — coins, beads and ware — are also shown.