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The Treasure of the Golden Horde
Phylactery
First half of the 14th century
Golden Horde
Hammered, soldered and stamped gold with granulation
and filigree work, pearls
The decoration of this phylactery - a small container for
religious texts - is marked by its fine and elaborate technique. The ornamentation
of the sides of the article varies in both manner of execution and motifs.
The design of the obverse is made up mostly of granulation: around the
edges there is a fringe made up of rows on large and small metal grains;
in the corners open-work many-petalled rosettes executed from wire are
surrounded by a belt of granulation, while attached in the centre there
is a clutch of pearl beads. The other side is decorated with filigree
and features a rosette in the centre of an ornamental composition.
This phylactery comes from the Simferopol hoard (named after the place
where it was found). This hoard is one of the magnificent relics of Golden
Horde jewellery kept in the State History Museum. It comprises 328 gold
and silver artefacts: vessels, paitzes, coins, headwear decorations, beads,
earrings, pectorals, cases for prayer texts and charms, buttons and bracelets.
Many of them are decorated with coloured stones, filigree, engraving,
niello work and so on. The numismatic content and also a paitze bearing
the name of Keldibek, khan of the Golden Horde in 1361-62 makes it possible
to date the burial of the hoard to the second half of the 14th century.
This find is testimony to the variety of contacts maintained by the mature
Golden Horde state - from China and northern India to Iran, Asia Minor
and the Yemen in the south of the Arabian shore of the Red Sea, and also
with the states of the Muslim and Christian Levant and the trading republics
of northern Italy - Venice and Genoa.
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