Temporal rings, photos of which are presented in the article - adornments of Slavic women, usually fixed at the temples. They were made of gold, silver, bronze. Slavs wore temporal rings one by one or several pairs at once. Different tribes had different types of jewelry. Rings were attached to the headdress with ribbons or straps.
History
The very first jewelry was found in the burials of the Unětice and Catacomb civilizations. There are samples in the burials of Troy and Minken of the Bronze Age. In the east, jewelry was found in the Karasuk burials. Later finds are attributed to the Chernolesskaya culture. The peak of the diversity of temporal rings falls on the heyday of Slavic culture in the Middle Ages. According to some researchers, the appearance of jewelry was invented under the influence of the Arab and Byzantine civilizations.
Slavic jewelry, including temple rings, began to appear in Scandinavia in the second half of the 10th century. They were used as a means of payment. Among the decorations found in the Croatian burials of the Istria peninsula, most of them were wire products of a smallsize. The ends of the jewelry were wrapped in small loops. They served to connect the elements.
Seven-beam products
Decorations, which became the prototypes of the seven-beam and seven-lobed temporal rings, were common among the Vyatichi and Radimichi. Among them are items from the Zaraisk treasure of the 9th century. Among the found ornaments there are five-beam ones with three balls on the beams and seven-beam ones with one ball. This group includes jewelry from the Poltava treasure of the 9th century. Jewelry with seven rays found in the Novotroitsk settlement is considered close to the Zaraysk temporal rings. It is believed that they copy products from the Danube.
The seven-beam decoration of the ancient settlement of Khotomel dates back to the 8th-9th centuries. Decorations of the same type were found at the settlements of Gornal (Ramenskaya culture), the Borshchevskaya culture, in Kvetuni, in settlements near Smolensk and in Upper Poochie.
Wire temporal rings of the Slavs: photo, types
The size and shape of jewelry determines the category to which this or that product belongs: ring-shaped, bracelet-shaped, medium-sized, figured. Within the first three categories, there is a division into types:
- Closed (soldered ends).
- Knotted (with one or two ends).
- Open primes.
- With incoming ends (cross-shaped, 1.5-2 turns).
- Flipped ends.
- Plat-eared.
- Sleeve.
- Loop-ended.
The smallest ring-shaped temporal rings were sewn on a headdress orwoven into hair. Such decorations were common among all Slavic tribes, so they cannot be considered either a chronological or ethnic sign. One-and-a-half-turn items, however, were predominantly made by southwestern groups.
The temporal rings of the Dregovichi, Glade, Drevlyan, Buzhan were ring-shaped. Their diameter varied from 1 to 4 cm. The most popular were ornaments with open and overlapping ends. Less commonly found are S-ended and bent-ended rings, polychrome, three-bead and single-bead products.
Northern jewelry
The ethnographic features of these Slavs are spiral figurative items of the 9th-12th centuries. Women wore 2-4 pieces on both sides. This type of jewelry originated from spiral products common in the 6th-7th centuries. on the left bank of the Dnieper. Earlier cultures are characterized by ray cast false-grained ornaments of the 8th-13th centuries. They are presented in the form of late copies of expensive products. Rings XI-XIII centuries. sloppy workmanship.
Krivichi
Smolensk-Polotsk tribes made bracelet-like jewelry. The temporal rings of the Krivichi were attached with leather straps to a headdress made of birch bark or dense fabric. Each temple had 2-6 decorations. In the XI-XII centuries, the Smolensk-Polotsk Krivichi wore rings with two tied ends, and a little later - with one. In the upper reaches of the Klyazma and Istra, many rings in the shape of the letter S were found.
Among the Pskov Krivichi, bracelet-like rings were also common, but cruciform and bent-ended. In some cases, women hung bells or trapezoid pendants on chains from them.
Novgorod Slavs
They made shield rings. The earliest items include a ring measuring 9-11 cm with clear rhombic shields. Inside them was a dotted line depicting a cross in a rhombus. The end of the cross is decorated with three circles. The ends of the ring were tied, or a shield was made on one of them. This type of jewelry is called classic rhomboid. Such products were common in the X-XII centuries. A little later, they began to draw a cross in a rhombus with four circles.
Over time, the shields began to be made smooth, and later - oval. Significantly reduced the diameter of the rings. In the XII-XIII centuries. they began to make sleeve-ended products, decorated with a longitudinal rib or bulges. In the XIII-XV centuries, temporal rings made in the form of an inverted question mark became popular.
Seven-lobed ray ornaments
A sign of the earliest samples is their rough dressing. The oldest types of seven-bladed products date back to the 11th century. T. V. Ravdina notes that these products were distributed (with some exceptions) outside the territory of use of classical seven-blade ornaments. At the same time, the author points to the absence of a gradual morphological transition from the most ancient items of the 11th century to those from Moskvoretsk of the 12th-13th centuries. However, as the finds of the last few years show, this is not entirely true.
For example, several ancient ornaments were found in the Zvenigorod district of the Moscow region. Their fragments are often found on the field near the former settlement of Duna in the Tula region. Archaeologists say that this type of jewelry was widespread at the turn of the 11th-12th centuries. Therefore, despite the lack of a gradual transition, it could be the next level of development of seven-blade products.
This type of jewelry is distinguished by its small size, rounded drop-shaped blades, and the absence of side rings. The latter begin to appear in the first half of the 12th century. along with a hatched ornament that comes onto the blades with sharp tips. The ends themselves become ax-shaped.
Development of seven-bladed ornaments
In the middle of the XII century, there were quite a lot of transitional forms of such rings. For example, items with drop-shaped blades and side rings, with ornaments, ax-shaped blades and a pattern that does not go over them were found. Later decorations had all these signs. In the XII-XIII centuries. the seven-lobed ring becomes larger, the patterns and ornaments become more complex. Several types of such ornaments have been found. The number of blades varied from 3 to 5.
Contradictions of researchers
T. V. Ravdina notes that the area in which the largest number of complex temporal rings was found was not inhabited by the Vyatichi. This is confirmed by information from the annals. Quite a few such adornments have been found in the upper reaches of the Oka. Accordingly, the researchers faced the question: is it possible toconsider these products an attribute of the Vyatichi?
It must be said that the oldest type of seven-blade ornaments is often found on the territory of the Radimichi. Temporal rings of this type, according to Rybakov, came to them through the Volgodonsk route. Such products were common on the land of the Vyatichi and Radimichi for a long time - until the 13th century. From them came the Radimich seven-beam temple decorations of the 10th-11th centuries and the Vyatichi seven-lobed rings of the 12th century. They were used until the Mongol invasion.
At the basis of the product, a ring was used, the lower part of which is decorated with teeth sticking out inside. Long triangular rays come out, which are often decorated with grains. These products, which first came to the Eastern Slavs, were not considered a tribal sign. However, over time, they were well entrenched in the territories inhabited by Vyatichi and Radimichi. In the 9th-11th centuries, it was these rings that became a sign of tribal groups. The seven-beam rings were fastened on a vertical ribbon, which was sewn to the headdress. Such sets of jewelry are called ribbon.
Beaded Jewelry
They also belong to ribbon decorations. Beaded rings were called because small beads were threaded onto the wire. To prevent the elements from moving, they were fixed with a winding of thin wire. Among the bead rings, the following varieties are distinguished:
- Smooth. This group includes rings with beads of the same and different sizes. The first were common in the X-XIII centuries, the second - in the XI-XIV centuries.
- Spoon.
- Smooth with filigree.
- Fine.
- Coarse grains.
- Openwork filigree.
- Grain filigree.
- Combined.
- Knotty.
- Polychrome with beads made of stone, paste, amber, glass.
Colts
In rural areas, with the exception of certain areas, bead rings are rarely found. They were distributed mainly among townspeople. Ribbons with three-bead rings, as a rule, ended with a bunch of two or three such ornaments or a weighted pendant. In the first half of the 12th century, the star-shaped colt acted as the latter. The shackle of the ring was wide. In the second half of the 12th century, instead of a flattened upper beam, a lunar element with a narrow bow appeared.
Over time, the size of the colt decreased. Scanned-grained beam products became masterpieces of ancient Russian jewelry masters. The highest nobility wore lunar hollow pendants. They were made of gold and decorated with enamel drawings on both sides. Such kolts were also made of silver. They were decorated with black. As a rule, mermaids were depicted on one side and turya horns on the other. Similar ornaments were present on other jewelry items described in the work of V. Korshun. Rybakov believes that these images symbolized fertility.
Lunar kolts were worn, as a rule, on a chain, which was attached to the headdress in the temple area. From the second half of the 12th century, hollow enamel kolts began to be made from copper. They were decorated with drawings andgilding. These pendants were cheaper than precious metal jewelry. Accordingly, copper products have become more widespread. Even cheaper were colts made of tin-lead alloys. They were common until the 14th century.
The era of jewelry art of the ancient Slavs ended after the establishment of the Tatar-Mongol yoke. With the invasion of nomads, the technology disappeared, which was restored only after several hundred years.
