Phanagoria ( Ancient Greek : Φαναγόρεια , romanized : Phanagóreia ; Russian : Фанагория , romanized : Fanagoriya ) was the largest ancient Greek city on the Taman peninsula , spread over two plateaus along the eastern shore of the Cimmerian Bosporus .
77-582: The city was a large emporium for all the traffic between the coast of the Maeotian marshes and the countries on the southern side of the Caucasus . It was the eastern capital of the Bosporan Kingdom , with Panticapaeum being the western capital. Strabo described it as a noteworthy city which was renowned for its trade. It was briefly a Catholic Metropolitan Archdiocese while a medieval Genoese colony under
154-556: A local sanctuary of Aphrodite as the largest in the Pontic region. Archaeological exploration of the site started in 1822, when "soldiers dug into a large barrow, making rich discoveries of gold and silver objects, many unique, which they divided up between themselves". Apart from the ancient city itself, archaeologists have been interested in a vast necropolis , which spreads on three sides around Phanagoria. There are thousands of burials, many with cypress or marble sarcophagi — an indication of
231-563: A millennium after being constructed around the beginning of the first century BCE." The remains of the Second Temple-era synagogue included "several menorahs , altars , and marble stele fragments," making it one of the earliest, if not the earliest synagogue ever uncovered outside of Israel . Over the past year, archaeologists have concluded that the synagogue was part of a Jewish quarter located in an area intersected by major streets and surrounded by residential homes and structures such as
308-550: A minor group of Eastern European scholars. The name Rusʹ remains not only in names such as Russia and Belarus , but it is also preserved in many place names in the Novgorod and Pskov districts , and it is the origin of the Greek Rōs . Rus ' is generally considered to be a borrowing from Finnic Ruotsi ("Sweden"). There are two theories behind the origin of Rus ' / Ruotsi , which are not mutually exclusive. It
385-504: A name that long after the Viking Age acquired a much broader meaning and became Garðaríki , a denomination for the entire state. The area between the lakes was the original Rus ' , and it was from here that its name was transferred to the territories inhabited by the Slavs on the middle Dnieper , which eventually became the "land of Rus" ( Ruskaja zemlja ). The Primary Chronicle portrays
462-582: A people in early medieval Eastern Europe. The scholarly consensus holds that they were originally Norsemen , mainly originating from present-day Sweden , who settled and ruled along the river-routes between the Baltic and the Black Seas from around the 8th to 11th centuries AD. The two original centres of the Rus' were Ladoga ( Aldeigja ), founded in the mid-8th century, and Rurikovo Gorodische ( Holmr ), founded in
539-447: A rectangular passageway, the entrance to the burial chamber (3.70 × 3.75 × 4.70 m). These two areas are covered by an arch showing remains of painted decoration. The wall frescos imitate encrusted marble. On either side of the entrance to the tomb long stone boxes contain four horse burials along with rich grave gifts; saddlery and harnesses of gold and gilded bronze." Vladimir Blavatsky resumed excavations of Phanagoria in 1936. Among
616-713: A short period of time, some areas of Eastern Europe became as much part of the Norse world as were Danish and Norwegian territories in the West. The culture of the Rus ' contained Norse elements used as a manifestation of their Scandinavian background. These elements, which were current in 10th-century Scandinavia, appear at various places in the form of collections of many types of metal ornaments, mainly female but male also, such as weapons, decorated parts of horse bridles, and diverse objects embellished in contemporaneous Norse art styles. The Swedish king Anund Jakob wanted to assist Yaroslav
693-604: A vineyard, a garden, and a water network. Other discoveries include tombstones bearing symbols like menorahs and shofars , and an amphora featuring a Hebrew inscription. Phanagoria Island in Antarctica is named after Phanagoria. Emporia (ancient Greece) An emporium refers to a trading post , factory , or market of classical antiquity , derived from the Ancient Greek : ἐμπόριον , romanized : (empórion) , which becomes Latin : emporium . The plural
770-557: Is emporia in both languages, although in Greek the plural undergoes a semantic shift to mean 'merchandise'. Emporium is a term that has also been used to describe the centres of heightened trade during the Early Middle Ages . Emporia varied greatly in their level of activity. Some seem to have functioned much like the permanent European trading colonies in China, India and Japan in
847-572: Is Sveoni ). Fearing that they were spies, he detained them, before letting them proceed after receiving reassurances from Byzantium. Subsequently, in the 10th and 11th centuries, Latin sources routinely confused the Rus ' with the tribe of Rugians . Olga of Kiev , for instance, was designated as queen of the Rugians ( reginae Rugorum ) in the Lotharingian Chronicle compiled by the anonymous continuator of Regino of Prüm . At least after
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#1732855921793924-473: Is considered the most likely one. Moreover, the form róþs- , from which Ruotsi and Rusʹ originate, is not derived directly from ON róðr , but from its earlier Proto-Norse form roðz ( rothz ). Other theories such as derivation from Rusa , a name for the Volga , are rejected or ignored by mainstream scholarship. Having settled Ladoga in the 750s, Scandinavian colonists played an important role in
1001-451: Is either derived more directly from OEN rōþer ( OWN róðr ), which referred to rowing, the fleet levy , etc., or it is derived from this term through Rōþin , an older name for the Swedish coastal region Roslagen . The Finnish and Russian forms of the name have a final -s revealing an original compound where the first element was rōþ(r)s - (preceding a voiceless consonant, þ
1078-650: Is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come to rule and reign over us". Thus they selected three brothers, with their kinsfolk, who took with them all the Russes and migrated. The oldest, Rurik, located himself in Novgorod; the second, Sineus , at Beloozero ; and the third, Truvor , in Izborsk . On account of these Varangians, the district of Novgorod became known as the land of Rus ' . From among Rurik 's entourage it also introduces two Swedish merchants Askold and Dir (in
1155-543: Is possible that it is a folk etymological interpretation of Scythia magna . However, if this is the case, it can still be influenced by the tradition that Kievan Rus ' was of Swedish origin, which recalls Magna Graecia as a name for the Greek colonies in Italy. When the Norse sagas were put to text in the 13th century, the Norse colonisation of Eastern Europe, however, was a distant past, and little of historical value can be extracted. The oldest traditions were recorded in
1232-549: Is presented as the traditional Swedish sphere of interest. The sagas preserve Old Norse names of several important Rus ' settlements, including Hólmgarðr ( Novgorod ), and Kønugarðr ( Kiev ); Fjodor Uspenskij argues that the use of the element garðr in these names, as well as in the names Garðar and Miklagarðr (Constantinople), shows the influence of Old East Slavic gorodǔ (city), as garðr usually means farmstead in Old Norse. He further argues that
1309-567: Is pronounced like th in English thing ). The prefix form rōþs- is found not only in Ruotsi and Rusʹ , but also in Old Norse róþsmenn and róþskarlar , both meaning "rowers", and in the modern Swedish name for the people of Roslagen – rospiggar which derives from ON * rōþsbyggiar ("inhabitants of Rōþin"). The name Roslagen itself is formed with this element and the plural definite form of
1386-561: Is that the name Aeifor in reference to the fourth cataract is also attested on the Pilgårds runestone from the 10th c. on Gotland . However, some researches indicate that at least several of the Rus ' names can be Slavic and, as for the Dnieper cataract Aeifar / Aeifor , its name doesn't have an acceptable and convincing Scandinavian etymology. At the time, the Byzantines also recorded
1463-506: Is the Primary Chronicle , compiled and adapted from a wide range of sources in Kiev at the start of the 13th century. It has therefore been influential in modern history-writing, but it was also compiled much later than the time it describes, and historians agree it primarily reflects the political and religious politics of the time of Mstislav I of Kiev . However, the chronicle does include
1540-621: Is the Kälvesten runestone from the 9th century in Östergötland , but it does not specify where the expedition had gone. It was Harald Bluetooth 's construction of the Jelling stones in the late 10th century that started the runestone fashion that resulted in the raising of thousands of runestones in Sweden during the 11th century; at that time the Swedes arrived as mercenaries and traders rather than settlers. In
1617-404: Is today Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Greece, and Italy. Most of these rune stones can be seen today, and are a significant piece of historical evidence. The Varangian runestones tell of many notable Varangian expeditions, and even recount the fates of individual warriors and travelers. In Russian historiography, two cities are used to describe the beginnings of the country: Kiev and Novgorod. In
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#17328559217931694-583: The Legendary sagas and there Garðaríki appears as a Norse kingdom where the rulers have Norse names, but where also dwelt the Dwarves Dvalin and Durin . There is, however, more reliable information from the 11th and the 12th centuries, but at that time most of the Scandinavian population had already assimilated, and the term Rus ' referred to a largely Slavic-speaking population. Still, Eastern Europe
1771-782: The Primary Chronicle as having exacted tribute from the Slavic and Finnic tribes in 859. It was the time of rapid expansion of the Vikings' presence in Northern Europe; England began to pay Danegeld in 865, and the Curonians faced an invasion by the Swedes around the same time. The Varangians are mentioned in the Primary Chronicle , which suggests that the term Rus ' was used to denote Scandinavians until it became firmly associated with
1848-514: The Rhos ( Greek : Ῥώς ), as a different people from the Slavs. At least no source says they are part of the Slavic race. Characteristically, Pseudo-Simeon and Theophanes Continuatus refer to the Rhos as dromitai (Δρομῖται), a word related to the Greek word meaning a run , suggesting the mobility of their movement by waterways . In his treatise De Administrando Imperio , Constantine VII describes
1925-519: The 6th century . The coins are thought to have been hidden before an attack by the Huns or the Turks, who burned and destroyed large parts of the city. Most probably an early Christian basilica stood on the site where the coins were found. In 2023, archaeologists announced "the discovery of one of the world’s oldest synagogues and, according to analysis of fragments found at the site, it likely stood for over half
2002-842: The Arabian Peninsula from Petra to Midian ; Naucratis , the only Greek colony in Egypt; Olbia , which exported cereals, fish and slaves; and Sais , where Solon went to acquire the knowledge of Egypt . In the Hellenic and Ptolemaic realm, emporia included the various Greek , Phoenician , Egyptian and other city-states and trading posts in the circum-Mediterranean area. Among these commercial hubs were cities like Avaris and Syene in Lower Egypt , Thebes in Upper Egypt , and Opone , Aromata , Avalites and other Red Sea ports. For
2079-543: The Hittites , it encompassed Kanesh and Kadesh . For Phoenicia, it included Cádiz , Carthage , Leptis Magna , and Cyrene , among others (although Cyrene had been founded by Greeks). This article about the Ancient Greek language is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about Phoenicia , its colonies and people is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Rus%27 people The Rus ' , also known as Russes , were
2156-604: The Rhos as the neighbours of Pechenegs who buy from the latter cows, horses, and sheep "because none of these animals may be found in Rhosia "; his description represents the Rus ' as a warlike northern tribe. Constantine also enumerates the names of the Dnieper cataracts in both rhosisti ('ῥωσιστί', the language of the Rus ' ) and sklavisti ('σκλαβιστί', the language of the Slavs). The Rus ' names are usually etymologised as Old Norse . An argument used to support this view
2233-471: The Rusʹ Khaganate ). Arabic-language sources for the Rus ' people are relatively numerous, with over 30 relevant passages in roughly contemporaneous sources. It can be difficult to be sure that when Arabic sources talk about Rus ' they mean the same thing as modern scholars. Sometimes it seems to be a general term for Scandinavians: when Al-Yaqūbi recorded Rūs attacking Seville in 844, he
2310-581: The Scythians and Sindi . Located on an island in the ancient archipelago of Corocondamitis, between the Black Sea and the Palus Maeotis , Phanagoria covered an area of 75 hectares (190 acres) of which one third has been submerged by the sea. In the early 4th century BC the burgeoning Bosporan Kingdom subjugated much of Sindica , including the independent polis of Phanagoria. The town's importance increased with
2387-587: The early modern period or those of the mediaeval Italian maritime republics in the Levant . Others were probably annual events for a few days or weeks like the medieval Champagne fairs or modern trade fairs . Famous emporia include: Elim , where Hatshepsut kept her Red Sea fleet; Elat , where Thebes was supplied with mortuary materials, linen , bitumen , naphtha , frankincense , myrrh and carved stone amulets from Palestine , Canaan , Aram , Lebanon , Ammon , Hazor , Moab , Edom , Punt and
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2464-605: The neuter noun lag , meaning "the teams", in reference to the teams of rowers in the Swedish kings' fleet levy. There are at least two, probably three, instances of the root in Old Norse from two 11th c. runic inscriptions, fittingly located at two extremes of the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks . Two of them are roþ for rōþer / róðr , meaning "fleet levy", on the Håkan stone , and as i ruþi (translated as "dominion") on
2541-553: The 12th century geographical work Leiðarvísir ok Borgaskipan by the Icelandic abbot Nicolaus (d. 1161) and in Ynglinga saga by Snorri Sturluson , which indicates that the Icelanders considered Kievan Rus ' to have been founded by the Swedes. The name "Great Sweden" is introduced as a non-Icelandic name with the phrase "which we call Garðaríki" ( sú er vér köllum Garðaríki ), and it
2618-467: The 7th century, the town had recovered from a century of invasions from the steppe peoples. It served as the capital of Old Great Bulgaria between 632 and 665 under Kubrat . Afterwards Phanagoria became (at least nominally) a Byzantine dependency. A Khazar tudun was nonetheless present in the town and de facto control probably rested in Khazar hands until the defeat of Georgius Tzul in 1016. In 704,
2695-453: The 8th, 9th and 10th centuries runic memorials had consisted of runes on wooden poles that were erected in the ground, something which explains the lack of runic inscriptions from this period both in Scandinavia and in eastern Europe as wood is perishable. This tradition was described by Ibn Fadlan who met Scandinavians on the shores of the Volga . The Fagerlöt runestone gives a hint of
2772-619: The Don. This made them less relevant than the Primary Chronicle to understanding European state formation further west. Imperialist ideologies, in Russia and more widely, discouraged research emphasising an ancient or distinctive history for Inner Eurasian peoples. Arabic sources portray Rus ' people fairly clearly as a raiding and trading diaspora , or as mercenaries, under the Volga Bulghars or
2849-626: The East Slavic tribe of Polans as the most civilised of the East Slavs, and that they were therefore predisposed to host the Rus', but not give their name to the land. From this area, the Rus' moved eastward to the lands inhabited by Finno-Ugric tribes in the Volga-Oka region, as well as south along the Dnieper. The prehistory of the first territory of Rus ' has been sought in the developments around
2926-659: The Khazars, rather than taking a role in state formation. The most extensive Arabic account of the Rus ' is by the Muslim diplomat and traveller Ahmad ibn Fadlan , who visited Volga Bulgaria in 922, and described people under the label Rūs / Rūsiyyah at length, beginning thus: I have seen the Rus as they came on their merchant journeys and encamped by the Itil . I have never seen more perfect physical specimens, tall as date palms , blond and ruddy; they wear neither tunics nor caftans, but
3003-589: The Kievan Rus ' and Scandinavia existed and a strong alliance between Vikings and early Kievan rulers is indicated in early texts of Scandinavian and East Slavic history. Several thousand Swedish Vikings died for the defence of Kievan Rus ' against the Pechenegs . In Scandinavian sources, the area is called Austr (the "East"), Garðaríki (the "realm of cities"), or simply Garðar (the "cities"), and Svíþjóð hin mikla ("Great Sweden"). The last name appears in
3080-456: The Latin text, ... qui se, id est gentem suam, Rhos vocari dicebant, ... ; translated by Aleksandr Nazarenko as ... who stated that they, i.e. their nation, were called Rhos, ... ). Once Louis enquired the reason of their arrival (in the Latin text, ... Quorum adventus causam imperator diligentius investigans, ... ), he learnt that they were Swedes ( eos gentis esse Sueonum ; verbatim, their nation
3157-691: The Norwegian king who was a military commander of the Varangian guard, married Elisiv of Kiev . The two first uncontroversially historical Swedish kings Eric the Victorious and Olof Skötkonung both had Slavic wives. Danish kings and royals also frequently had Slavic wives. For example, Harald Bluetooth married Tove of the Obotrites . Vikings also made up the bulk of the bodyguards of early Kievan Rus ' rulers. Evidence for strong bloodline connections between
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3234-530: The Old Norse spoken in Kievan Rus ' , as folksgrimʀ may have been the title that the commander had in the retinue of Yaroslav I the Wise in Novgorod . The suffix - grimmr is a virtually unique word for "leader" which is otherwise only attested in the Swedish medieval poem Stolt Herr Alf , but in the later form grim . It is not attested as a noun in the sense "leader" in West Norse sources. In Old Norse ,
3311-558: The Persian king Cyrus the Great . The city took its name after one of these colonists, Phanagoras. "The unusual nature of the Taman peninsula near Phanagoria, with its ravines, crevices, hills, and low cones of active volcanoes, must have impressed the ancient colonists even more than it impresses us today", historian Yulia Ustinova has observed. In the 5th century BC, the town thrived on the trade with
3388-555: The Rus ' . Arabic sources for the Rus ' had been collected, edited and translated for Western scholars by the mid-20th century. However, relatively little use was made of the Arabic sources in studies of the Rus ' before the 21st century. This is partly because they mostly concern the region between the Black and the Caspian Seas, and from there north along the lower Volga and
3465-445: The Slav's lands. ... When a son is born, the father will go up to the newborn baby, sword in hand; throwing it down, he says, "I shall not leave you with any property: You have only what you can provide with this weapon." When the Varangians first appeared in Constantinople (the Paphlagonian expedition of the Rusʹ in the 820s and the Siege of Constantinople in 860), the Byzantines seem to have perceived these people, whom they called
3542-482: The Ukrainian лляти /ˈlʲːɑtɪ/ "to pour" and the Polish lać /lat͡ɕ/ "to pour") strukum , "rapid current" from the Ukrainian стрибати /strɪˈbatɪ/ "to jump" The first Western European source to mention the Rus ' are the Annals of St. Bertin (Annales Bertiniani). These relate that Emperor Louis the Pious ' court at Ingelheim , in 839, was visited by a delegation from the Byzantine emperor . In this delegation there were men who called themselves Rhos (in
3619-427: The Wise , Grand prince of Kiev, in his campaigns against the Pechenegs. The so-called Ingvar the Far-Travelled , a Swedish Viking who wanted to conquer Georgia, also assisted Yaroslav with 3000 men in the war against the Pechenegs; however, he later continued on to Georgia. Yaroslav the Wise married the Swedish king's daughter, Ingegerd Olofsdotter of Sweden , who became the Russian saint, Anna, while Harald Hardrada ,
3696-409: The basic meaning of the adjective grimmr is "heartless, strict and wicked", and so grimmr is comparable in semantics to Old Norse gramr which meant both "wrath", "king" and "warrior". Other runestones explicitly mentioning warriors serving the ruler of Kievan Rus ' are one of the Skåäng runestones , the Smula runestone and most famously, the Turinge runestone which immortalises
3773-421: The chronicle they are called " boyars ", probably because of their noble class). The names Askold ( Old Norse : Haskuldr ) and Dir ( Old Norse : Dyri ) are Swedish; the chronicle says that these two merchants were not from the family of Rurik, but simply belonged to his retinue. Later, the Primary Chronicle claims, they conquered Kiev and created the state of Kievan Rusʹ (which may have been preceded by
3850-415: The citadel, were obliged to surrender to the insurgents. An inscription found during excavations testifies that Queen Dynamis honored Augustus as "the emperor, Caesar , son of a god , the god Augustus, the overseer of every land and sea". The loyalty to Rome allowed Phanagoria to maintain a dominant position in the region until the 4th century, when it was sacked and destroyed by the invading Huns . By
3927-488: The city names can be used to show that the Rus ' were also competent in Old East Slavic. At this time the Rus ' borrowed some 15 Old East Slavic words, such as the word for marketplace, tǔrgǔ , as torg , many of which spread to the other Old Norse-speaking regions as well. The most contemporary sources are the Varangian runestones , but just like the sagas, the vast majority of them arrive relatively late. The earliest runestone that tells of eastwards voyages
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#17328559217934004-468: The dead commander with a poem: The Veda runestone is of note as it indicates that the riches that were acquired in Eastern Europe had led to the new procedure of legally buying clan land , and the Swedish chieftain Jarlabanke used his clan's acquired wealth to erect the monument Jarlabanke Runestones after himself while alive and where he bragged that he owned the whole hundred . The earliest Slavonic-language narrative account of Rus ' history
4081-489: The decline of the old capital, Panticapaeum , situated on the opposite shore of the Crimean strait , or Cimmerian Bosporus . By the first centuries AD, Phanagoria had emerged as the main centre of the kingdom. During the Mithridatic Wars , the town allied with the Roman Republic and withstood a siege by the army of Pharnaces II of Pontus . It was at Phanagoria that the insurrection broke out against Mithridates VI of Pontus , shortly before his death; and his sons, who held
4158-432: The deposed Byzantine emperor Justinian II settled in Phanagoria (then governed by the Khazar tudun Balgatzin ) with his wife Theodora , a sister of the Khazar Khagan Busir Glavan , before returning to Constantinople by way of Bulgaria . In the 10th century, the town seems to have faced an invasion, supposedly by the Rus . After that, Phanagoria could not compete in significance with neighboring Tmutarakan . In
4235-444: The early ethnogenesis of the Rus ' people, and in the formation of the Rus' Khaganate . Ladoga, then known as Aldeigja by the Norsemen, was the earliest and most significant settlement of the Rus', while Gorodische , likely known as Holmr , was founded over a century later. It was from the Ladoga area, which formed the centre of the Rus', that the envoys went to Constantinople in 838. The Varangians are first mentioned in
4312-419: The early-8th century, when Staraja Ladoga was founded as a manufacturing centre and to conduct trade, serving the operations of Scandinavian hunters and dealers in furs obtained in the north-eastern forest zone of Eastern Europe. In the early period (the second part of the 8th and first part of the 9th century), a Norse presence is only visible at Staraya Ladoga, and to a much lesser degree at a few other sites in
4389-508: The evidence of the Persian traveler Ibn Rustah who, it is postulated, visited Novgorod (or Tmutarakan , according to George Vernadsky ) and described how the Rus ' exploited the Slavs. As for the Rus, they live on an island ... that takes three days to walk round and is covered with thick undergrowth and forests; it is most unhealthy. ... They harry the Slavs, using ships to reach them; they carry them off as slaves and…sell them. They have no fields but simply live on what they get from
4466-538: The existence of the some of the lesser important Slavic tribes in the region, and the emperor only knew of Rhosia , which referred to the Rus' who lived in Kiev, closer to Byzantium, and the Rus' who lived in the north, along the Volkhov River. the non-Slavonic names of the Slavonic or both for the non-Slavonic names for the non-Slavonic names súpandi "slurping" (compare the Ukrainian не спи /ne spɪ/ "do not sleep!") hólm-foss "island rapid" æ-for/ey-forr "ever fierce" báru-foss "wave rapid" (compare
4543-474: The first part of the 11th century the former was already a Slav metropolis, rich and powerful, a fast growing centre of civilisation adopted from Byzantium. The latter town, Novgorod, was another centre of the same culture but founded in different surroundings, where some old local traditions moulded this commercial city into the capital of a powerful oligarchic trading republic of a kind otherwise unknown in this part of Europe. These towns have tended to overshadow
4620-516: The following origin myth for the arrival of Rus ' in the region of Novgorod : the Rus ' / Varangians 'imposed tribute upon the Chuds , the Slavs , the Merians , the Ves' , and the Krivichians ' (a variety of Slavic and Finnic peoples). The tributaries of the Varangians drove them back beyond the sea and, refusing them further tribute, set out to govern themselves. There was no law among them, but tribe rose against tribe. Discord thus ensued among them, and they began to war one against
4697-404: The late Middle Ages the town of Matrega was built on its ruins; the site was part of a network of Genoese possessions along the northern Black Sea coast. During the 15th century, it was the center of de Ghisolfi dominions. Henceforth there has been no permanent settlement on the site. The Genoese colony was canonically established on 1349.02.21 as Metropolitan Archdiocese of Matriga . It
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#17328559217934774-435: The lost Nibble stone , in the old Swedish heartland in the Mälaren Valley , and the possible third one was identified by Erik Brate in the most widely accepted reading as roþ(r)slanti on the Piraeus Lion originally located in Athens , where a runic inscription was most likely carved by Swedish mercenaries serving in the Varangian Guard . Brate has reconstructed * Rōþsland , as an old name for Roslagen. Between
4851-597: The men wear a garment which covers one side of the body and leaves a hand free. Each man has an axe, a sword, and a knife, and keeps each by him at all times. The swords are broad and grooved, of Frankish sort. Each woman wears on either breast a box of iron, silver, copper, or gold; the value of the box indicates the wealth of the husband. Each box has a ring from which depends a knife. The women wear neck-rings of gold and silver. Their most prized ornaments are green glass beads. They string them as necklaces for their women. Apart from Ibn Fadlan's account, scholars draw heavily on
4928-401: The mid-9th century. The two settlements were situated at opposite ends of the Volkhov River , between Lake Ilmen and Lake Ladoga , and the Norsemen likely called this territory Gardar . From there, the name of the Rus' was transferred to the Middle Dnieper , and the Rus' then moved eastward to where the Finnic tribes lived and southward to where the Slavs lived. The name Garðaríki
5005-421: The name Matrega , it remains a Latin Catholic titular see . Today the site is located at a short distance to the west of Sennoy in Krasnodar Krai , Russia . Another ancient Greek city, Hermonassa , lies 25 kilometres (16 mi) to the west, on the shoreline of modern Taman . Phanagoria was founded ca. 543 BC by the Teian colonists who had to flee Asia Minor in consequence of their conflict with
5082-408: The north. The history of the Rus ' is central to 9th through 10th-century state formation, and thus national origins, in Eastern Europe. They ultimately gave their name to Russia and Belarus , and they are relevant to the national histories of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Because of this importance, there is a set of alternative so-called " Anti-Normanist " views that are largely confined to
5159-413: The northern parts of Eastern Europe. The objects that represent Norse material culture of this period are rare outside Ladoga and mostly known as single finds. This rarity continues throughout the 9th century until the whole situation changes radically during the next century, when historians meet, at many places and in relatively large quantities, the material remains of a thriving Scandinavian culture. For
5236-414: The now extensively Slavicised elite of Kievan Rus ' . At that point, the new term Varangian was increasingly preferred to name the Scandinavians, probably mostly from what is currently Sweden, plying the river routes between the Baltic and the Black and Caspian Seas. Relatively few of the rune stones Varangians left in their native Sweden tell of their journeys abroad, to such places as what
5313-432: The other. They said to themselves, "Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, and judge us according to the Law". They accordingly went overseas to the Varangian Russes: these particular Varangians were known as Russes, just as some are called Swedes , and others Normans , English , and Gotlanders , for they were thus named. The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichians and the Ves' then said to the people of Rus ' , "Our land
5390-443: The recent finds is an inscription indicating that a synagogue existed in Phanagoria as early as 51 AD. Underwater investigation of the site has revealed multiple fragments of architectural structures. In 2009 was discovered the palace of Mithridates VI. In 2021, archaeologists discovered coins in the broken neck of an amphora . They are thought to have been minted in the late 3rd or early 4th century and circulated through
5467-410: The significance of other places that had existed long before Kiev and Novgorod were founded. The two original centres of Rus ' were Staraya Ladoga and Rurikovo Gorodische, two points on the Volkhov, a river running for 200 kilometres (120 mi) between Lake Ilmen in the south to Lake Ladoga in the north. This was the territory that most probably was originally called by the Norsemen Gardar ,
5544-554: The texts of a series of Rus ' –Byzantine Treaties from 911 , 945 , and 971 . The Rus ' –Byzantine Treaties give a valuable insight into the names of the Rus ' . Of the fourteen Rus ' signatories to the Rus ' –Byzantine Treaty in 907, all had Norse names. By the Rusʹ–Byzantine Treaty (945) in 945, some signatories of the Rus ' had Slavic names while the vast majority had Norse names. The Chronicle presents
5621-465: The two compatible theories represented by róðr or Róðinn , modern scholarship leans towards the former because at the time, the region covered by the latter term, Roslagen, remained sparsely populated and lacked the demographic strength necessary to stand out compared to the adjacent Swedish heartland of the Mälaren Valley. Consequently, an origin in word compounds such as róþs-menn and róþs-karlar
5698-492: The well-being of the ancient Phanagorians. Excavations conducted in the 19th century were for the most part amateurish; as many as twelve kurgans would be razed each season. Some of the most intriguing finds were unearthed in the 1860s at the Bolshaya Bliznitsa tumulus, classed by Michael Rostovtzeff as a feminine necropolis with three vaults. One of the royal kurgans near Phanagoria "has a stone stairway leading down to
5775-498: Was almost certainly talking about Vikings based in Frankia. At other times, it might denote people other than or alongside Scandinavians: thus the Mujmal al-Tawarikh calls the Khazars and Rus ' 'brothers'; later, Muhammad al-Idrisi , Al-Qazwini , and Ibn Khaldun all identified the Rus ' as a sub-group of the Turks. These uncertainties have fed into debates about the origins of
5852-495: Was applied to the newly formed state of Kievan Rus' , and the ruling Norsemen along with local Finnic tribes gradually assimilated into the East Slavic population and came to speak a common language . Old Norse remained familiar to the elite until their complete assimilation by the second half of the 11th century, and in rural areas, vestiges of Norse culture persisted as late as the 14th and early 15th centuries, particularly in
5929-512: Was suppressed around 1400 AD. The diocese was nominally restored as a Latin Catholic titular bishopric in 1928 under the name Matriga, which was changed in 1929 already to Matrega . It is vacant, having had the following incumbents, all of the lowest (episcopal) rank : The location of Phanagoria was determined in the 18th century, when marble statue bases with dedications to Aphrodite were discovered there. Hecataeus and Strabo mention
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