The main source for the reconstruction of the material and the spiritual world of early Slavic cultures, whose appearance on the hystorical scene relates to the final stage of the Great Migration is archaeological evidence. Researchers note almost complete lack of pieces of applied art, both their own and imported, in the early Slavic archaeological materials of the third quarter of the Ist millennium AD. For a long time Martynovsky treasure found in the Middle Dnieper in the early 20th century was unique in this respect. Famous “Martynovka men” and “horses” were interpreted as a fairly realistic images of people and animals — the heroes of the epic and pagan deities (B. A. Rybakov, V. N. Vasilenko, N. Chausidis) or as participants in stadia (G. F. Korzoukhina).
Today the number of known casting flat metal figures of Martynovka type and templates greatly increased. They are distributed over the entire periphery of the Byzantine Empire including the Balkans, the Caucasus and the Middle Danube in the 7th century AD.
By analogy based on the location of anthropomorphic and symmetrical zoomorphic images on fibu­las the composition is reconstructed. It can be related to common in early medieval European arts and crafts plot “The prophet Daniel in the lion’s den”, which in turn goes back to the Eastern Christian models.
Composition “Daniel with lions” was perceived in early Slavic arts and crafts, regardless of its understanding and interpretation. The source for the anthropomorphic image was the image of a beardless barbarian warrior dressed in tunic, which is widely represented in Byzantine mosaics, embroideries and casting. Additionally, evidences of the original Byzantine impulse are decorative elements such as etched palm branches, peacock and the camel head in the design of antropozoomorfic brooches.
It is interesting to note that other types of the Dnieper fibulas have both typological and stylistic prototypes among the synchronous German examples: motives of the bird with a curved beak, a dra­gon’s head, spirals. Especially revealing is the comparison of the typological series of brooches in the Dnieper region and Visigothic Spain: the processes of formation are convergent, forming similar typological series in the most eastern and the most western outskirts of the East German world.

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