Bronze flagon from Pontes with an inscription from the 29th Psalm of David

Abstract

. – During the campaign which took place in 1983 at the site of Pontes – Trajan’s Bridge near Kostol, in the layer between a house from the second half of the 9 th century and a house from the 11 th century, a treasury consisting of medieval iron tools placed around, or inserted into, a bronze flagon was discovered in a shallow pit. The whole find was named Treasury B . At first, the flagon itself was dated into the period between the 6 th and the 8 th centuries, however, we have recently dated it into the 6 th –7 th century. The inscription on the neck of the vessel is a paraphrase of the 3 rd verse from the 29 th Psalm of David. This is proof that the flagon was a liturgical vessel. In this text we are trying to show that this flagon was analogous to the specimen from the treasury from Vrap in Albania, whose deposition during the third part of the 7 th century is connected with the activity of Bulgarian Khan Kuber. The Byzantine vessel was a part of treasure plundered from the Avars, and the production of this flagon, just as of that one from Pontes , can be dated into the period between the 6 th century and the first half or the middle of the 7 th century .