324 CHAPTER 6
The gold fittings and the crossguard covered with gold with precious stone
inlay of the Glodosy find is of an extremely high quality. The crossguard is
short and rhombic, its central part is a quadrangular field decorated by stone
inlay and framed by pearl-wire. The interpretation of the Glodosy find is not
unequivocal but it is usually identified as a cremation burial surrounded by
ditches, which is a common characteristic with the Voznesenka complex, and
it is dated to the same period. In Russian and Ukrainian research this find is
linked to Khazar expansion.128 It is important to emphasise that the sword of
Glodosy is very similar to the sword of Malaja Pereshchepina, and has similar
characteristics in the form of its decoration (like the drop-shaped stone inlay129
and the pearl-wire decoration between the spherical frame of the P-shaped
suspension loop) as the burials of the Bócsa—Kunbábony horizon.
Star-shaped (or rhombic) crossguards with onion-shaped ends covered by
gold foil are known from Jasinova.130 Similar crossguards were also found in
the Borisovo cemetery in the Kuban region,131 though similar artefacts are also
known from the Caucasus region.132
1.4.1.4 Chronology
The chronology of these artefacts is the subject of considerable debate.
A.K. Ambroz dated them (Glodosy, Voznesenka, Iasinova) to the begin-
ning of the 8th century in his much discussed study on Eastern European
chronology,133 though later changed his opinion and dated the Glodosy find
to the end of the 7th century.134 A.I. Ajbabin compared Glodosy with that of
Malaja Pereshchepina and linked them to the Khazar expansion,135 and later
dated it to the last quarter of the 7th and beginning of the 8th century.136 Igor
128 Smilenko 1965, T. VI. 2; Komar 2006, 18. The find was interpreted by its ditch as an offering
complex, in spite of the burnt human bones found in it by Ambroz (1982, 217–219). The
author interpreted the human remains as a human sacrifice, which must be regarded as
entirely hypothetical. Ambroz (1981, 13, 18, ris. 6) dated the find to his VIth period (first
half of the 8th century).
129 This decoration is known from a golden vessel of the Kunbábony burial (Heinrich-
Tamáska 2006a, 209, Abb. 9).
130 Bálint 1989, 101, Abb. 46.
131 Bálint 1989, 44; Komar – Sukhobokov 2000. http://archaeology.kiev.ua/journal/020300/
komar_sukhobokov.htm; KOMAR 2006, 89.
132 Sahanev 1914, T. III. 1–2.
133 Ambroz 1971, 116.
134 Ambroz 1981, 13, 18; Ambroz 1986b, 61.
135 Ajbabin 1985, 197–202.
136 Ajbabin 1990; Ajbabin 1999, 97. 171–185.