Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

One of the more interesting rituals that functioned in Old Rus’ for centuries is the custom of cross kissing (крестноe целованиe), accompanying legal processes, such as taking oaths, public obligations, writing legal deeds, or concluding peace treaties. The earliest records of this ritual are evidenced clearly by the earliest chronicles and references in documents from that era. Due to the chronological structure and character of this work, which is clearly defined in the title of the article, the author’s attention is focused on the initial period of its functioning, until the end of the 13th century, in relation to contacts between Old Rus’ (Ruthenia) and Livonia. From Livonia, the parties participating in this ritual were Catholic bishops, Teutonic Knights, councillors from Livonian towns (Riga, Viljandi, Tartu and others), and even ordinary merchants. From Old Rus’, they were also participants in governments, merchants and warriors. From the historical sources, it can be stated here that the ceremony of kissing the cross was used quite commonly in legal acts between Old Rus’ and Livonia.

The article is devoted to examine the importance of horse image in the poetic texts of various genre Lithuanian folk songs from different local ethnic regions. We find different meanings of the biological horse here, such as riding-horse, working horse, mare and jade here as the representatives in the special social context here. The general conclusion is made about horse as very important symbolic object with wide and deep its meanings in the poetic texts of Lithuanian folk songs.

Abundance of horse graves and very expressive horse-offering rituals are well known in the Central region of Lithuania. But principally the new material has been obtained after the investigations of burial ground in Marvelė. Horse graves are usually found separate from human graves, composing special parts of “horse graveyards” in the cemeteries. Arrangement of these parts with horse graves are related to local micro-landscape. The natural and cultural elements with memory signs embody the environmental cosmology and are involved into the mythology. The horse burial places suggest the ceremonies of public displays. The horse becomes a contributor which helps to cross the border between mythological spaces.

The paper presents the problem of archaeological, archaeozoological and anthropological interpretations of horse burials from the Roman Period cemeteries from the Bogaczewo Culture (Masurian Lakeland) territory. It is presented on the basis of the multidisciplinary research of the cemetery in Paprotki Kolonia located in the heart of Bogaczewo Culture territory.

Bronze weapons hint not only at the intensity and effectiveness of warfare in particular societies, but, even more, they may reveal the identity of warriors as a separate group within society. Over most of Europe weaponry is one of the important categories of material culture, although in some regions, like the Eastern Baltic, bronze weapons are a real rarity. There is no doubt that people fought wars here, but instead of bronze weapons they effectively used stone, bone or wooden weapons. Because of the scarcity of bronze weapons, defensive settlements, such as those known from Central and Southeast Europe, and warrior graves, warfare cannot be seen as an organizational principle of social ties per se. There is no reason to assume the existence of retinues or warrior aristocracies as fundamental social units in the Eastern Baltic. However, warfare or war ideology without the existence of the warrior as a social layer is simply inconceivable.