A Non-Wandering Soldier's Grave? The Seventh-Century Burial in Davidovac (Southern Serbia)

In the course of rescue excavations in 2011 a grave was found at the Davidovac-Gradište site. The locality is situated in the southernmost part of present-day Serbia, in the South Morava valley, on the route of the Roman Via publica. In the grave, a 30–40 year old male was buried with his belt and a battle axe. The belt consists of pressed bronze sheet strap-ends and a cast bronze buckle. Alongside them there was a purse buckle, also a characteristic early seventh-century Byzantine product. The anthropological analysis indicates that the deceased had military training. Such graves are rarely found throughout the Byzantine Empire. Being very different from the sixth-century Roman burials, they were commonly attributed to migratory mercenaries of the Empire. Having surveyed similar burials of that date from Corinth, Pergamon, present-day Albania and Sardinia, we are in favour of interpreting them in the context of social changes which occurred at a time of crisis in the Empire, and not in ethnic terms