The 5th Russian-Hungarian Ural Archaeological Expedition officially began on July 4, 2017, with scientific research conducted in collaboration with the Institute of Archaeology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Hungarian Prehistory Theme Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The main goal of this year’s expedition was to explore and investigate the ancestral homeland of Western Siberia and the Siberian roots of Hungarian prehistory.
After a transfer in Moscow, we arrived in Novosibirsk, Siberia, at dawn on July 5, following a more than four-hour flight. Upon landing, we proceeded directly to the headquarters of the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. There, we visited the paleogenetic laboratory of the scientific centre Akagyemgorodok, led by Alexander Pilipenko, with whom we are engaged in Russian-Hungarian scientific cooperation regarding the analysis of bone samples from Khazar graves.
Professor Pilipenko, head of the internationally renowned research centre, gave us a comprehensive tour of the laboratory and explained its operations. He also presented a detailed overview of the research advancements made over the past decade, highlighting findings from regional paleogenetic studies spanning prehistory, the early Middle Ages, and up to the 19th century. Additionally, we discussed the ongoing collaborative research with the Archaeogenetic Laboratory of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, focusing on potential research projects related to the Migration Period in the Carpathian Basin and the origins of the Hungarian people.
The second stage of the expedition involved a visit to the Department of Archaeology at Tyumen State University, including one of its design workshops. This institution’s early medieval research program represents a significant piece in the ongoing archaeological investigation of Hungarian prehistory. The West Siberian region plays an important role in this context, though it has unfortunately been one of the least explored areas until now.
This year, Pázmány Péter Catholic University and Tyumen State University signed a cooperation agreement, marking an exciting step forward. This brings the number of Pázmány’s partner universities in Russia, extending from Moscow to Tyumen, to nine.
We were invited by our colleagues from Tyumen to join their excavation at the Giljevo 2 site. Natalia P. Matvejeva, a distinguished researcher of the Iron Age Sargatskaya culture and a well-known figure in Hungarian prehistory, has recently focused her attention on the history of the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages in this region. Fortunately for us, her work has provided valuable insights into this area of study.
Unfortunately, until recently, much of the artifact material from this period has remained poorly understood. The interconnections and relationships between the Sargatskaya, Bakalskaya, and Kushnarenkovskaya cultures from the 4th to 7th centuries AD are not only crucial for understanding early Hungarian history but also represent a longstanding unresolved issue in archaeological research.
Although the two kurgans excavated at Giljevo 2 this year were confirmed to date back to the Iron Age, we gained valuable insights into the archaeology of southwestern Siberia, spanning from the 4th century BC to the 12th century AD, thanks to the extensive material knowledge and approach of our local colleagues.
Our joint work continued with a Russian-Hungarian roundtable conference, where Alexander Zelenykov delivered an intriguing lecture on the development of the Kushnarenkovo culture. We were thrilled to learn that Zelenykov had been awarded a Presidential Fellowship in Russia for his research on this topic, which is of great significance for Hungarian prehistory. As part of this honour, he will begin a six-month term this autumn as a student in the English-language doctoral program at Pázmány Péter Catholic University.
We concluded our visit to Tyumen with an excursion to several important sites, including Ustyug, Starolbovskoye, Kolovskoye, and Krasnogorskoye.
Finally, together with our colleagues from Tyumen, we developed a comprehensive work plan for joint research on the early medieval sites of the region that are key to Hungarian prehistory, as well as for the bioarchaeological investigation of the relevant finds.
Afterward, laden with fresh literature, we bade farewell to our hosts and continued our journey to the Basque Country. Thanks to our colleagues from Bashkir State University, we were able to take part in the long-awaited planning of the legendary Birsko cemetery, which is home to the earliest Kushnarenkovo finds yet known from the western foothills of the Urals.
The final stop of our trip this year was again in Bashkortostan, where we had the unique opportunity to excavate the Birski cemetery with the assistance of teachers and students from the Archaeology Laboratory of Bashkir State University. The Birski cemetery, in use from the 3rd to the 8th centuries AD, had been excavated for over a decade prior to 1991, primarily under the guidance of the renowned Bashkir archaeologist Nyiyaz Abdulhakovitch Mazzitov.
The significance of the site lies in the approximately 700 graves that have been excavated so far, which provide the chronological foundation for early medieval archaeology in the western foothills of the Urals. From a Hungarian perspective, the cemetery is particularly important because it is where the Kushnarenkovo culture, associated with the ancestors of the Hungarians and originating in the Uralic region, first appeared in the mid-6th century AD, west of the Urals. While this previously accepted cultural-chronological framework is now recognized as more complex, we gained valuable insight into why this prehistoric archaeological model no longer fully applies, both to the east and west of the Urals.
At the Birski cemetery, we were able to excavate several burials from the Pyanobor culture dating to the 2nd-3rd centuries AD.
During our stay in Bashkortostan, we also had the chance to explore the sights of Birski and attend archaeological lectures by Nikita Savelyev, Vladimir Ovsyanyikov, and Sergey Botalov. We would like to extend our thanks to Danyir Gajnullin for organizing our professional program in Bashkortostan.
Our work concluded with a visit to the permanent exhibition at the Bashkir National Museum in Ufa, before we returned to Budapest, enriched with new literature and experiences.
Participants: Attila Türk (archaeologist, expedition leader), Ágnes Füredi and Péter Langó (archaeologists specializing in the Age of Conquest), Veronika Csáky (molecular biologist), Dániel Budai, Tekla Balogh Bodor, Balázs Jancsik, Dániel Langer, Flórián Harangi, Bertalan Zágorhidi Czigány (students from the Institute of Archaeology, University of Szeged), Mátyás Szöllősi (photojournalist)
We extend our thanks to all our national and international supporters! All photos were taken by Mátyás Szöllősi.
