The Shekshovo medieval burial-ground in the Suzdal Field region: 160 years after excavations by A. S. Uvarov

Burial-grounds consisting of burial-mounds in the centre of the Suzdal Landsare known to scholars mainly thanks to excavations undertaken in the mid-19 th century.Finding burial complexes of the 10 th-12 th centuries left untouched by the field work ofA.S. Uvarov in this most important region of medieval Rus is a relevant but extremelydifficult task today: in the modern landscape the traces of burial-mounds have been wornaway. This article brings together the results of the latest field investigations near the vil-lage of Shekshovo, where one of the largest burial-grounds in the Suzdal Field region issituated and where 244 burial-mounds with both cremations and inhumations were dis-covered thanks to excavations carried out in 1852. In the course of field work undertakenin 2011-2012 the site of the burial-ground was established and the remains of three burial-mounds (with cremations and inhumations) were investigated, although they had beencompletely levelled by ploughing. An interesting range of costume details and jewelleryitems dating from the 10 th-12 th was found in the destroyed burials: these included straptrimmings and belt-ends, jingling pendants of various kinds, glass and stone beads andalso Kufic and West-European coins, which had been turned into pendants. A unique findwas a small battle-axe with silver incrustation, bearing a depiction of cross and tamga-likesigns in the shape of a two-pronged staff and a trident. The tamga in the shape of a tridentwith a triangle on the middle prong is similar to the princely signs arranged on the coinsof Vladimir and Yaroslav and are identified as their personal signs. The find of a smallceremonial axe testifies to the presence of the principality''s administrators in the centresof medieval Russian settlement, which were taking shape at the beginning of the 11 th cen-tury in the North-East of Rus, namely in territories which until recently were thought tohave been administrated by the local nobility and to little affected by being incorporatedinto a principality.