New finds of early medieval lead rhombic cross pendants from Moravia. Their possible genesis and importance

0584359 - ARÚB 2024 RIV SK eng J - Journal Article
Kouřil, Pavel
New finds of early medieval lead rhombic cross pendants from Moravia. Their possible genesis and importance.
Slovenská archeológia. Roč. 71, Suppl. 3 (2023), s. 143-153. ISSN 1335-0102
Institutional support: RVO:68081758
Keywords : Czech Republic (Moravia) * 9th/10th c. * Great Moravia * Christianisation * rhombic cross pendant
OECD category: Archaeology
Impact factor: 0.1, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Open access
https://www.sav.sk/journals/uploads/0209102210_Kouril.pdf

The article is devoted to new finds of cast early medieval lead rhombic cross pendants decorated with crosshatched ornament from Moravia, which are regarded as Taufgeschenke – christening gifts. It is likely that these artefacts were meant to evoke the schematised body of the Saviour. In the vast majority of cases, they are part of necklaces belonging to sexually intact little girls and young ladies buried in rural cemeteries. Most probably, they were based on older simple rhombus-shaped pendants-amulets, which were eventually incorporated into the newly emerging religion and thus acquired a new quality. Their conspicuous concentration in the vicinity of the Mikulčice central site suggests that this area could have been one of the key Christianisation centres in Great Moravia. After the demise of this power-political unit, they completely disappeared from the group of devotional objects. Chronologically, they are synchronised with the final decades of the 9th c. and the beginning of the 10th c.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0352356