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The Treasure of the Golden Horde
This is the first large-scale exhibition devoted to the artistic life
of the Golden Horde. The display includes some 1,000 items made between
the 13th and 15th centuries by craftsmen of the Ulus Juchi or Golden Horde
- the westernmost of the states that formed after the death of Genghis
Khan in the territories of which he was master. A distinctive culture
formed there in which nomadic and sedentary features combined and the
achievements of the many different peoples dwelling in the state - Mongols,
Persians, Polovtsians, Volga Bulgars, Slavs and others - blended. The
greater portion of artefacts known to us at present come from archaeological
excavations carried out in the 19th and 20th centuries on the sites of
Golden Horde settlements and graves.
The chief items in the display are gold and silver articles created both
in nomad camps in the steppes and in the craft centres of the Golden Horde
towns and cities. They provide an account of the main features of the
Juchid legacy of treasure as a single historical complex and present the
toreutics of one of the youngest Mongol states, founded in the early 1240s
by Batu (ruled 1227-1257), grandson of Genghis Khan.
Khan Batu was one of the Juchids, possibly the most brilliant of the Mongol
dynasties. Its founder Juchi (1184-1227) - the eldest son of the founder
of the world-scale empire - was given the territory between the River
Irtysh and the Altai Mountains. Later those lands became part of the Golden
Horde. Attaining leadership in the Mongol world in a brief span of time,
in the 1240s the Juchids already rivalled the related ruling houses in
the east of Central Asia, Iran and China. Under Batu the bounds of the
Juchid territories extended as far as the left bank of the Danube in the
west and the Irtysh in the east. The heartland of the state was the Kipchak
Steppe. Surrounded by regions with a settled population - left-bank Khwarezm
in the south-east, the northern Caucasus, Crimea and Moldo-Wallachia in
the south-west, the lands of the Volga Bulgars and Mordovians in the north-west,
the Kipchak Steppe very rapidly found itself incorporated into the new
political formation that subsequently became known as the Golden Horde,.
The exhibition has been organized by the State Hermitage (St Petersburg)
with the participation of the State History Museum (Moscow) and the Voronezh
Region State Inspectorate for the Preservation of Historical and Cultural
Heritage.
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Map: the Mongol states circa 1310
Larger view
The "Genghis Stone"
1224-25
Larger view
Paitzes
13th century
Larger view
Saddle cover
First half - mid-13th century
Larger view
Drinking vessel worn on the belt
13th century
Larger view
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