About Craft Production on the Bulgar Settlements of the XI – Beginning of the XIII Century

The article deals with issues related to the study of crafts on the unfortified settlements of Volga Bulgaria. In the first study on this topic Ye.P. Kazakov suggested that on the settlements located in the Lower Kama areas in the second half of the 10th – the first half of the 11th century there were various crafts, including blacksmith’s work and jeweller’s art. He points out that glass beads were made on the Semyonovka settlement, and copper cauldrons, kumgans, and ladles were made on Starokuibyshevskoe V settlement. However, the location of the metallurgical furnaces, glasswork and metal cookware production were not revealed. The author claims that there are the archaeological evidences of iron smelting on the Ostolopovo and Laishevo settlements – metallurgical slags, blooms, remains of furnaces. On the latter there are traces of copper smelting, as well as the processing of disused copper cookware. The jewelery workshop functioned at the Ostolopovo settlement. The author believes that rural blacksmiths often bought semi-finished products on the market and made some small artifacts from them, for example, plates and buckles. Their main products were nails and brackets. Thus, the development of craft production on settlements was associated with a number of factors: the structure of the population, the location of the settlement, its status and time of existence. Large unfortified settlements, such as, for example, the Laishevo settlement, provided nearby settlements with blacksmithing products. Domestic pottery production existed on most settlements, in contrast to the production of items from bone and horn, which are few in the sites.