On the Muroma Female Costume Based on Materials from Burial 57 of Podbolotyevsky Burial Ground

The paper considers the materials discovered in female burial 57 investigated during excavations at the Podbolotievsky burial ground in 2012 (works conducted by the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences). This burial dated second half of the 8th – early 9th centuries contains 159 items made of non-ferrous and precious metal, and is characterized by the general wealth of grave goods as compared with all burials studied in the early 21th century. Four similar burials in terms of the composition of the clothing and the wealth of the grave goods were investigated by V.A. Gorodtsov in 1910 and are considered to be classical Murom burials. A comparative and typological analysis of clothing from burial 57 allowed to determine the structure of the traditional Murom costume, the high-status character of which became a standard for the formation of the costume aensemble of period in question. An analysis of the chemical composition of metal from this burial allowed to determine that the primary type of alloys used for the manufacture of Murom clothing parts in the second half of the 8th – early 9th centuries was an CuPbSbZn alloy characterized by a lower content of zinc (up to 5%) and tin (up to 10%). The presence two silver items in the burial, considering the general wealth of the grave goods, testifies to the high social status of the buried. During an investigation of metal from this burial, the researchers discovered adornments of single-stage manufacture and a classical form of items crafted from a complex alloy by means of pressure treatment, which allows to raise the question of the nature of clothing from such such burials whether such clothing is “composite” and collected over a period of time, or they rather have a ritual nature.