Central european belt fittings from sarmatian burial at Kartal on the Lower Danube

Abstract

In the 3rd century AD Sarmatian cemetery located on the foreground of the Kartal hillfort (near the village of Orlìvka, Odessa region, Ukraine), which was part of the Lower Moesian limes, a complex of two graves (No. 298 and 298a) surrounded by a circular ditch was discovered. A unique feature of the graves’ equipment is the co-occurrence of artefacts of Central European origin (a rectangular belt buckle with double tongue and a rectangular strap-end from grave 298) and artefacts characteristic of Sarmatian milieu in Eastern Europe (various strap fittings from graves 298 and 298a). The belt, typical of the outfit of warriors in Central European Barbaricum, probably reached the Sarmatian areas as a result of political events from the second half of the 2nd and the beginning of the 3rd century, namely migration of the Goths from the southern zone of the Baltic Sea towards the north of the Pontic zone.