pendant

In the northwestern Russian town of Staraya Russa, archaeologists have discovered a serpentine pendant dated to the eleventh century that depicts a Christian warrior as well as a woman with snakes instead of hair. Novgorod State University describes the amulet as made of copper and it is considered to be among the earliest findings from medieval Novgorod. Its imagery shows how Christian belief, older protective traditions and Byzantine connections overlapped in early Rus. A pendant of two worlds The find came from the Pyatnitsky excavation, an urban settlement that developed in the eleventh century, according to the original NovSU announcement. The front shows a warrior with spear and shield, tentatively identified as Saint Theodore Stratelates; the reverse shows a woman