In 1715 Count M.P.Gagarin brought 10 objects from Tobolsk province in Siberia to Peter I, who immediately appreciated the importance of the finds of works by ancient goldsmiths. He issued edicts to the governors of Russian provinces that they purchase all ancient and curious objects at the Treasury’s expense and send them to his new capital, St. Petersburg. Those first 10 objects are today still the finest part of the collection. A second group of articles from Siberia was delivered in 1716 and these pieces constitute the majority in the present collection, over 250 items in all.
Pair of Belt Buckles Dragons by the Tree of Life
Sakae Culture
4th-5th century BC
Gold, sard, prase, black stone
L 19.8 (19.2) cm, w 10.4 (10.2) cm
The composition, framed with a rectangular arrangement of inlaid leaves, consists of two fantastic creatures standing on each side of a tree of life. The creatures' bodies are twisted around and the ends of their noses are inlaid with sard. Such compositions with beasts standing on each side of the tree of life reflect an Assyrian-Babylonian scheme.
Sarmatian and Huns Period- Sarmatian art is best represented by artifacts from the burial mound at Khoklach, discovered by chance in 1864 near Novocherkassk. Gold articles found there – torques (grivnas), perfume flasks, diadems and plaques -- were executed in the Sarmatian animal style: these objects are notable for their stylization and the use of ornamentation formed of the heads and bodies of animals, as well as colored inlay of turquoise or different shades of blue smalt paste to represent the eyes, ears, paws or hooves, ribs and muscles.
Of the jewelry from graves around the Northern Black Sea coast, most interest is to be found in polychrome articles of the time of the great migration of peoples.
Various adornments for clothing have been found. Most have colored inlays of semiprecious stones, mainly in shades of red, such as almandine, garnet and sard, and less frequently amber and glass, against a gold ground. These articles show a combination of new forms unknown to jewelers of the Northern Black Sea littoral, who tended to use the jewelry techniques traditional around the Bosporus during the previous era, and they vary in style and technique. The most typical examples are diadems and kolts (temple pendants).
 Torque Terminal Late 4th-5th century Gold, garnet, mother-of-pearl L 8.9 cm Stavropol area |
Bosporus - Numerous items from Bosporan necropolises, from the time of the great migration of peoples across the European continent, constitute a unique collection. It incorporates arms and armor, harness, decorations for clothes, gold jewelry, glass vessels both imported and the work of local craftsmen, and bronzes by Byzantine bronzesmiths.
A large part of the collection consists of gold jewelry executed in the polychrome style that was predominant in the period, and these pieces can be divided into two groups: the first group has a combination of gold ground with inlays of semiprecious stones in red and orange shades, the settings made from a narrow gold strip soldered onto the surface to form a border; the second is characterized by the absence of gold ground or filigree decoration, while inlays of soldered bars make up clusters of geometrical patterns. This latter method of inlay is based on the cloisonné technique: the sockets were filled with resin and thin pieces of semiprecious stones or glass were then positioned at the level of the upper edge of the sockets, the vivid color of the stone set off by covering the resin with gold foil. Items from the first group were mainly decorations for clothing, such as buckles, earrings and fibulae. Whereas this group continues the traditions of ancient jewelry production and can be regarded as the work of Bosporan craftsmen, the second group represents the introduction of new methods to the region.
Ornamental Plaque
Kerch, the Crimea
Late 4th-early 5th centuries AD
Gold, silver, garnets
H 6.7 cm, w 7.0 cm, wt 56 g
This plaque, consisting of two silver and one upper gold plate, depicts two goats, their heads facing in opposite directions. They are linked by means of silver sprigs. The front is decorated with garnet inlay in the cloisonné technique.
Barbarians - (Art of the Germanic tribes and the Vikings)
The term "barbarian" is a convenient, if rather unfashionable, catch-all word to call those people in classical and early medieval Europe who weren't Greek or Roman. The word originates with the ancient Greeks, who scorned those uncouth foreigners who barked like dogs - to them, everything the Germanic people said sounded like "barbarbarbar." (Some people still think so.)
However, there is a draw-back to calling this culture barbaric. To do so is to dismiss their substantial contribution to Western civilization. It also encourages one to over-look their artistic accomplishments: some of the finest craftsmanship in the history of Europe was produced by these people. Since they were, indeed, migratory people, they didn't build cities full of monumental art and architecture. Their art was portable: jewelry and vessels of fine metal-work characterized by intricate interlaced animal motifs and superbly crafted enamel decorations. The Vikings also excelled in the carving of wood, using the same sort of interlace motifs to decorate their ships and buildings. In all their peregrinations, the Vikings and Germanic tribes imparted a rich legacy of artistic creation and craftsmanship to the cultures they met.
From Katherine Odell
The Academician's Headpost
Oseberg Ship burial
(9th Century)
wood
Universities Oldsaksammling, Oslo
Vessel (situla)
Brest-Trishin burial ground, near the town of Brest, Byelorussia
Clay
2nd-3rd centuries AD
Wielbark-Cecele Culture
This is a vessel of biconical form with an X-shaped handle. The black color of the surface was obtained by baking the vessel in the kiln without oxygen and subsequently polishing it with a piece of flint or bone. The situla was made without the use of potter's wheel. Such vessels are typical of the culture of the early Germans (the first centuries AD) and similar vessels have been found in Southern Germany, in the Elba basin and in the Polish area of the Baltic coastlands. They are described as belonging to the Wielbark-Cecele culture formed by 1st century objects found on the Polish area of the Baltic Sea littoral.
Vase with 'Calendar' PictogramsThis biconical vase on a tall round leg has a wide flat rim. Movable rings are attached to the handles. It was produced with a potter's wheel and subsequently polished to achieve the gray color. The mouth is covered with ornament divided into12 zones, which seem to represent an ancient calendar. Fragments found alled into the hearth of an ancient sanctuary were pieced together to built up this vase.
Clay
3rd-4th centuries AD
Chernyakhovskaya Culture
In the 3rd century AD, the migration of peoples around the territory of the Northern Black Sea coast gave rise to the Chernyakhovskaya culture, found in the area from the Don to the Danube.
Perm or Kama Animal Style- This collection consists of artifacts created by the Finno-Ugric peoples who inhabited the north-east of Russia during the Iron Age. It is notable for its metal sculptures from the Kama valley, dated to the 1st millennium BC, and on the basis of the zoomorphic motifs used on these sculptures all the artifacts in the collection are classified as Perm or Kama Animal Style.
These articles were widely used in everyday life. For instance, burial grounds have yielded metal decorations with ‘jingling’ pendants for clothing; often these are zoomorphic pendants, plaques, clasps and belt ends, which served as amulets.
Most important and interesting are the pieces of a ritual nature discovered on cult sites, which include zoo- and anthropomorphic figures (combining elements of a man and an animal simultaneously), such as a figurine of a bear/man and a bronze pendant in the form of a bird-shaped idol with an anthropomorphic mask upon its breast.
Metal plaques with intricate multi-figured two- or three-tiered compositions of animals and anthropomorphs are full of symbols: there is an image of 7 elk/men walking on an anteater, which is linked with the cult of Gemini; used at the final stage of a tribal religious ceremony the gift–plaque symbolizes that the stock’s envoy has received the gifts; the plaque depicts a three-tiered, vertical view of the world, in which birds symbolize the sky, the elk – the earth and the anteater with 7 fishes in its belly is the underground world.
Openwork Plaque
Nyrgynda, Udmurt Republic
6th-8th century AD
Bronze
L 18.2 cm, w 9.9 cm
The plaque has a complex design showing a winged anthropomorph on the back of a long anteater. The anteater has a short wavy tail, short three-toed feet, and seven fish in its belly. Over the anthropomorph appear several elk and bird heads, and at its right and left are two human masks and eleven animal heads.
This plaque probably illustrates the Udmurt myth of the seven worlds of the universe: three above the earth, the earth itself, and three below the earth. The heavens are symbolized by birds, the earth by the anthropomorphic figure and the elks, and the underworld, the world of water, by the anteater and the fish.
Ancient Rus (RUSSIA)- Staraya Ladoga, to the East of St. Petersburg, was once a thriving medieval Russian city, with a fortress, flourishing monasteries and numerous churches once decorated with rich frescoes. The area has produced a vast range of items from the 8th to 10th centuries, which are of value not only from the scholarly point of view - they shed light on various periods in the development of this region - but are also fascinating to all those interested in the early history of the ancient state of Rus. The museum display includes personal adornments, articles of bone and metal, clothes, anthropomorphic figurines, primitive skis and leather footwear.
Some of the objects are of Scandinavian origin or locally produced items made after Scandinavian models. Imported goods include combs of the 8th to10th centuries, draughtsmen and glass necklaces, while the most typical examples of personal ornamentation were fibulae or clasps. Of exceptional interest is a 9th-century wooden rod with a runic inscription intended for exorcism.
A hoard with a set of blacksmith's tools tells us much about the production of metal items in the 8th century, and this group also included a bronze rod terminating in the head of a man with small birds' heads turned towards it. Bone carving, another major medieval craft, is mainly represented by pieces dating from the 10th century. As regards woodcarving, the earliest examples from the Ladoga complex date as far back as the 8th century, nearly two centuries earlier from those from any other source. Tools associated with the work of women - spinning and weaving wool and linen - are also on display, along with examples of silk and woolen textiles and linen, and footwear.
Towns, settlements, burial grounds and hoards provided the museum with its collection of artifacts representing the culture of Ancient Rus from the 10th to 12th centuries, the culture of the common people, princely families and warriors of Slavonic, Baltic, Scandinavian and Finnish tribes. Not only are there ordinary objects produced by urban craftsmen, but also an isolated group of artifacts of bronze, silver and gold, much executed by skillful jewelers.
Jewelry for the nobility has been found in numerous hoards uncovered at Gnezdovo, Shalakhovo, Nevel, Borshevo and other sites, such as the remarkable enameled kolts (temple pendants) which formed part of Russian women's headwear. By this date, goldsmiths were already familiar with a wide range of techniques such as various types of casting, soldering, chasing, pricking and stamping, and they also decorated their works with granulation, filigree, gilding, niello and colored
enamels.
Crescent Pendant (Lunnitsa) and Ring Pendants
10th century
Silver
H 5.9 cm
Village of Gnezdovo, Smolensk Region
The edges of this crescent are decorated with filigree and beading. In the centre, a group of three beads form a triangular design. The ground is decorated with granulations in zigzag, triangle and diamond design while the loop, made of three large beads, is also ornamented with granulations in triangles and diamonds.
The granulation technique was widely used by Russian craftsmen during the 10th century.
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