A note on the research on the ewer with enamel plaques of St. Maurice d'Agaune

Abstract

There are very few objects equally well-known in the early medieval archaeology and art history of Western Europe, Byzantium, Sassanian Iran, early Islam and the Avars, and one of them is the ewer from the monastery of St. Maurice d’Agaune. It has not been doubted for long now that the ewer itself is a ninth-century Carolingian goldwork. What are debated and uncertain, however, are the dating (6 to 12 century) and origin of the decorative enamel plaques. Views differ significantly especially regarding the latter (Iran, Byzantium, the Abbasid Caliphate, Avars, the Carolingian Empire, medieval Venice), in 1946 M. Aga-Oglu counted 13 (!) versions,1 not including the theory of Avar origin, which was put forward only after the publication of the Turkish scholar’s article.2 Although I will not be able to provide here an answer either, I hope to contribute to research by eliminating two candidates from the list of the most probable places of origin. The article by A. Alfoldi was well received both by scholars involved in the research on the origin of cloisonne and by Hungarian archaeologists. The latter is easy to explain: for them the notion of Avar connections was simply attractive.3 With regard to international research, the reason of the positive reaction could have been that they hoped to receive guidance regarding the cultural affiliation of an object and representational type unknown to them, but apparently of oriental origin. Since none of the possibilities taken into account till then had been convincing based on the available data, it was understandable that the idea of origin from a new region, a new culture, was engaging. We have to note, however, that none of the scholars who accepted A. Alfoldi’s views were well-trained in – or even superficially informed about – the archaeology of the Avars and the early medieval Carpathian Basin. As a consequence, they could not realize the insurmountable distance between the enamel plaques of St. Maurice d’Agaune and the Avar material, and the unrealism of the reconstruction as a sceptre. In the interpretation of international research, A. Alfoldi proposed that the enamel plaques of the jar had come from the treasury of the Avar Khaganate, more precisely from a hypothetical Avar royal sceptre. In fact, he did not suggest that the plaques themselves were Avar products, only that the sceptre they decorated had been in Avar possession. According to Alfoldi, the plaques were manufactured ‘zweifellos in einem der grosen Kunstzentren des fruhislamischen Nahen Ostens’.