Mayatskoye, also known as Mayatskoe or Mayaki, is a ''gorodishche'' (

hill fort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

) and historical settlement located in the Divnogorye museum-reserve area of

Liskinsky District Liskinsky District (russian: Ли́скинский райо́н) is an administrativeLaw #87-OZ and municipalLaw #85-ZO district (raion), one of the thirty-two in Voronezh Oblast, Russia. It is located in the western central part of the oblast. ...

Voronezh Oblast Voronezh Oblast (russian: Воронежская область, Voronezhskaya oblast) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the city of Voronezh. Its population was 2,308,792 as of the 2021 Census. Geography V ...

, Russia. Along with Verkhnii Saltiv, it gives its name to the

Saltovo-Mayaki culture Saltovo-Mayaki or Saltovo-Majaki is the name given by archaeologists to the early medieval culture of the Pontic steppe region roughly between the Don and the Dnieper Rivers, flourishing roughly between the years of 700 and 950. History Saltovo- ...

, which is the main archaeological culture of the

Khazars The Khazars ; he, כּוּזָרִים, Kūzārīm; la, Gazari, or ; zh, 突厥曷薩 ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire coverin ...

. Mayatskoye is the northernmost site associated with the Khazars, and was probably near the frontier with Slavic tribes. It is also one of the best-preserved and best-studied Khazar sites. The Mayatskoye site consists of a hill fort surrounded by a settlement with an adjacent burial ground. The overall settlement area is 30

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is a ...

s, of which 6,000 square meters have been excavated. Remains of pottery workshops have been identified in this area. The fortress itself covers 1.1 hectare, and about 30% of the area enclosed by its walls has been excavated. The walls themselves have been only been excavated in small portions; most of their circuit remains buried under earthen ramparts. The walls were made of chalk blocks, some of which contain runic inscriptions, and reached about 1.5 to 2 meters in height. As for the cemetery area, it covers 3 hectares, of which 2874 square meters (about 10%) have been excavated. At least 150 individual burial sites have been identified. The settlement existed from the late 8th century onward; its citadel was built in the 9th century. The settlement was especially important during the second half of the 9th century and the early 10th century. Among its inhabitants were Alans. A

Common Turkic Common Turkic, or Shaz Turkic, is a taxon in some classifications of the Turkic languages that includes all of them except the Oghuric languages. Classification Lars Johanson, Lars Johanson's proposal contains the following subgroups: * Oghuz ...

inscription found at the site refers to the "'' As'' country" and "our land of the Six- Savirs", which Gábor Hosszú interprets as a reference to the Khazars ruling over the area between the

Don Don, don or DON and variants may refer to: Places *County Donegal, Ireland, Chapman code DON *Don (river), a river in European Russia *Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name *Don, Benin, a town in Benin *Don, Dang, a vill ...

and

Dnieper } The Dnieper () or Dnipro (); , ; . is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine and B ...

rivers. The inscription identifies the building as "the mansion of Onagh Tegin", its builder as Ud Didü On, and the author of the inscription as Ineg.

History of study

The first archaeological findings at Mayatskoye were in 1890. The first comprehensive archaeological excavations were undertaken by A. Milyutin in 1906 and then N. Makarenko in 1908-09. Plowing in the 1960s disturbed part of the site's eastern part but does not appear to have damaged the pits marking the site of old buildings. Further excavations were undertaken by a joint Soviet, Bulgarian, and Hungarian project in 1975 and then 1977-82. The burial ground was discovered in 1975.

References

External links

* {{commons category-inline, Mayatskoye site of ancient settlement History of Voronezh Oblast Saltovo-Mayaki culture Archaeological sites in Russia Khazar towns Former populated places in Russia Alans Liskinsky District Hill forts Forts in Russia