Byzantine buckle of the “Syracuse” type from Heroiske village as a marker of ethno-cultural contacts

The paper presents the buckle of early Byzantine time from Heroiske village of Skadovsk District, Kherson Region, in the lower reaches of the Dnipro. The find was discovered in 1972 and at the same time was transferred to the Kherson Local History Museum. In November 2022, during the robbery by the Russian occupiers of the Kherson Local History Museum, a number of items (including the buckle from Heroiske village) were taken in an unknown direction. Their further fate is unknown. This buckle belongs to the circle of very famous products of the “Syracuse” type (D 12 according to M. Schulze-Dorrlamm). A range of analogies, the main views of researchers regarding the origin and chronology of these products are considered. Similar buckles date back to the last quarter of the 6th–7th centuries. The buckle from Heroiske village comes from an unverified collection. However, it can be assumed that it is related to nomads. At least from the middle of the 6th century, to various groups of nomads, all kinds of cast buckles of the early Byzantine circle fall, albeit in small quantities. As for buckles of the “Syracuse” type, they were widely used by the population of Byzantium and nearby regions, which felt a significant influence of the empire. Outside of the Danube, the Crimea or the Transcaucasia, these finds do not come from closed complexes. However, at the same time, in the Dnipro Left Bank, there are known and more or less verified finds of buckles that are derived from “Syracuse” type fasteners. These are buckles from Mala Pereshchepyna (D 14 according to M. Schulze-Dorrlamm) and Pisky (D 13 according to M. Schulze-Dorrlamm). Such jewellery could reach the nomads in different ways as trophies, a ransom for captives or together with captives, gifts to leaders, payment to barbarians for military service, or as marriage gifts. However, they definitely testify to contacts of nomads with the Byzantine Empire.