The article presents the results of LiDAR surveys of two sites associated with the Ryazan–Oka culture: the Undrich burial ground and the Terekhovo hillfort, both linked to an early medieval center of power. The survey clarified the layout of the hillfort’s defensive structures and the sequence of their construction. At the Undrich burial ground, it also revealed traces of burial mounds associated with members of the military elite, as well as two ritual areas where sacrifices were apparently performed. The sanctuary had been in use since the turn of the first and second centuries AD, when burials furnished with Roman- and Chinese-type swords were established at the site. From the fourth century onward, the burial ground was used extensively, and a substantial proportion of the graves belonged to members of the elite. The necropolis was apparently founded by one of the ruling clans and subsequently served as the burial place of representatives of the Terekhovo center of power.
The article analyzes I. Tentyuk’s attempt to attribute the Ekimautsy-Alchedar-type ringforts to a Scandinavian tradition. It demonstrates that this attribution is entirely unsubstantiated and cannot withstand critical scrutiny. With several clarifications and additions, the analysis supports the previously proposed and substantiated hypothesis of R. A. Rabinovich and S. S. Ryabtseva concerning the West Slavic origin of the population that built these ringforts. The only plausible explanation for their origin is a ninth-century migration of a West Slavic group from Great Moravia or a neighboring area that was, in any case, clearly within its cultural and political sphere of influence. However, unlike R. A. Rabinovich and S. S. Ryabtseva, the author associates this migration and the Ekimautsy-Alchedar ringforts with the Ulichi.
This article provides the first publication and analysis of medieval Hungarian burials dating from the second half of the ninth to the tenth century, excavated on the left bank of the Lower Dniester between 2023 and 2025. Burial 3/3 at Kremennaya Balka yielded an iron arrowhead, a utility knife, an awl, a combat knife, and bone bow fittings. Grave 1/21 at Tokmazeya contained iron arrowheads, bone bow fittings, a fire steel, and a flint. Burial 6/1 at Slobodzeya yielded an iron arrowhead, a combat knife, and bone bow plates. Each assemblage also contained a model battle axe. These objects may be interpreted as attributes of elite warriors. Given the absence of comparable objects—and of battle axes themselves—from other medieval burials in the region, the model axes may be regarded as a distinctive feature of Hungarian material culture during the period of the “Hungarian Conquest”.
A review of A.E. Zhabreva’s book “Peoples and Costumes: a collection of dolls in traditional costumes from different countries” (Moscow, 2024) examines the publication’s main advantages, its reference capabilities, and its successful printing solution. It is concluded that the album-catalogue successfully combines the collecting, research and analytical activities of the author — a bibliographer, researcher and collector, that the publication can be useful both for museum workers and collectors, for those who deal with dolls and for those who are interested in the traditional costumes of the peoples of the world.
This article offers a comprehensive interpretation of “Ural Hungary” (Magna Hungaria) as a historical and cultural phenomenon that extends beyond conventional geographic localization. The authors argue that it was not a fixed ancestral homeland but a dynamic contact zone between forest-steppe and steppe cultures, where proto-Magyar—or, more specifically, Magyar-Turkic—cultural complexes emerged and evolved. The study therefore proposes a productive methodological framework whereas of Magna Hungaria can be reconstructed only through the analysis of chronological horizons, cultural change, and patterns of mobility.
