SMALL FORMS TOREUTICS OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES PERIOD FROM THE MINUSINSK MUSEUM COLLECTION
Abstract
The article presents the results of a study of a group of 29 small-form iron toreutics objects found in the funds of the Minusinsk Martyanov Museum. The items include: 22 belt tips with geometric compositions of triangles, three belt distributors with geometric ornaments, one movable buckle and three overlays with geometric and floral ornaments.
Most of the items are covered with light-colored metal. It was found that it was silver obtained from native silver, sulfosols and other ores. An assumption has been made about the origin of a part of the metal from the territory of Tuva.
Based on the experimental tracological analysis, the manufacturing technology of the products was reconstructed. The conclusion is made about the use of two silver fastening techniques. The first one was used for the ornamentation of belt tips and was an intermediate option between the inlay of large areas and the “notch” application. The second technique is found on other subjects. It was a “notch” on iron, that common among the Siberian peoples, described by ethnographers and travelers.
The belt tips are dated to the period of the 14th–15th — 17th–18th centuries, the rest of the products had broader dates from the middle of the 2nd millennium AD up to the ethnographic modernity.
The products vividly demonstrate the process of transformation during the Late Middle Ages of the tradition of making small-shaped iron torques, common in the Askiz culture of the 10th–14th centuries.
The change in tradition is associated with the introduction of a new technique for fixing metal with thermal effects in Southern Siberia.
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