Ninth-century Mikulčice: the “market of the Moravians”? The archaeological evidence of trade in Great Moravia (original) (raw)
Related papers
2022
A part of the Great Moravian settlement and cemetery was excavated in 2010–2015 on the sand dune in the peripheral zone of the early medieval central agglomeration of Mikulčice-Valy. The presented publication provides the results of archaeological fieldwork at the Trapíkov site and an interpretation of the data, which expands the knowledge of the socio-economic relationships of the 9th–10th-century society. Based on the results of the interdisciplinary research (archaeology, archaeobotany, archaeozoology, geoarchaeology, radiocarbon dating, isotope analyses and anthropology), the authors present the archaeological model of the relationships between the Great Moravian centres and their economic hinterland and discuss the basic parameters of the rural economy along with the organisational and functional principles of Great Moravia.
Great Moravian Central Places and their Practical Function, Social Significance and Symbolic Meaning
This paper focuses on practical function, social significance and symbolic meaning of early medieval central places from the East-Central Europe, in particular from the area of so-called Great Moravia, which was a important (pre-)state formation on the eastern periphery of the Frankish Empire. It is argued that the vast local agglomerations were not mere military forts, but very complex centres – genuine civitates or urbs of Moravian Slavs as they are mentioned in Royal Frankish Annals. Only rarely can we identify the settlements known from Carolingian written sources with specific places. Although the majority eludes localization, we assume that the place names given in the written sources refer to some of the rich archaeological sites explored by archaeologists over the last 50 years in the Czech Republic. The most important ones are Mikulčice, Staré Město and Pohansko near Břeclav.
Moravian Centres between the Mojmirids and Přemyslids
Moravian and Silesian Strongholds of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries in the Context of Central Europe Pavel Kouřil, Rudolf Procházka et al. , Brno:The Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Archaeology, Brno, p.. 41-72, 2018
The paper deal with the dvelopment of the Moravian fortified centres after the decline of the Great Moravian principality until thje beginninig of the Přemyslid´s rule (10.-11th century). It focuses on the strongholds of the 10th and the beginning of the 11the century, when Moravia was strongly affected by Polish power and cultural influence.
Great Moravian elites from Mikulčice. (POLÁČEK, L. et al.)
2020
The Great Moravian Elites from Mikulčice (GME) is a collective monograph by 35 authors. It provides a comprehensive interdisciplinary account of the social elites in early medieval Mikulčice. The first part of the book describes Great Moravia as a power-political formation on the periphery of the ninth-century Carolingian Empire from a historical point of view. The following two parts bring archaeological evidence that Mikulčice served as both the seat and burial ground of the Moravian princes, with several categories of finds, primarily from graves, revealing signs of power, wealth and worship. The final part presents the results of bioarchaeological research into the skeletal remains from several hundred supposedly elite graves at Mikulčice.
Bohemia during the Great Moravian Period A correlation between historical and archaeological knowledge points to the difficulties in establishing of the “Great Moravian Period” in Bohemian territory because of interval-based dating of archaeological sources. In addition, only the knowledge of the Early Middle Ages in Central Bohemia is possibly sufficient for a reconstruction of the evolution of the local society. Here, towards the close of the period under review – primarily on the basis of the most recent comprehensive evaluation of available sources – certain tendencies can be identified that culminate subsequently in the formation of the Czech state. Archaeology has several specific sources of data at its disposal, on whose basis the important changes that clearly took place in Bohemia during this era can be observed. Best documented are central sites of the first order – i.e. strongholds, showing signs of being home to the highest social elites, whose function is, in exceptional cases, documented through written records – followed by burial areas. In terms of certain characteristics (the presence of elites, evidence of Christianisation, size), towards the conclusion of the period under review some of these strongholds were comparable to Great Moravian centres.
Some observations on the social structure of Great Moravia
The Cyril and Methodius Mission and Europe. 1150 Years since the arrival of the Thessaloniki Brothers in Great Moravia, 40-47, 2015
The present paper concentrates above all on problems associated with the ways we might understand the structure and dynamics of society in Great Moravia on the basis of available sources. The author’s main focus is on the problem of the origin of sources and their thematic focus. He sees some solution above all in the analysis of terminology set in a wider European context, in the interpretation of behavioural patterns, as recorded (or, more precisely, presented!) by literary sources, and in the consideration of archaeological finds from burial grounds and settlements situated out of central localities. The answers to these questions, however, are also equally important for understanding the dynamics of power and power-structures in what is now south and central Moravia and west Slovakia. The author supposes that ducal power was already relatively tightly bound with the Mojmirids, who were surrounded by a small group of “princes”. We do not know the source of their power but we can suppose a certain degree of sacred legitimisation of monarchic power and the power of the ruling dynasty. It may well be that this prominent group within Moravian society took part in a similar “game of offices” to that which we witness in the Frankish Empire, where the office of the Count formed an important bond between local elites and the central power. From weapons and personal ornaments found in rural burial grounds it can further be inferred that rural settlements also had their own elites, “free Moravians”, whose social status probably emerged from a combination of many different sources (personal charisma, inertia of social structures etc.). The sources of their loyalty towards the Prince are not known but we can probably consider it another designation of the foundations of ducal power.