METAL BOWLS FROM A MEDIEVAL CEMETERY AT RUSENIKHA

Abstract

Unusual bowls, one intact and three fragmented, from a medieval Mari cemetery at Rusenikha, in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, are described. Based on coins, the cemetery dates to the 11th century. Results of the chemical analysis of the metal are presented. The bowls are made of “white bronze” and are decorated with a geometric pattern on the inside. Similar items are rather frequent in medieval (9th–11th century) Mari cemeteries (Veselovo, Dubovsky, Nizhnyaya Strelka), and isolated finds are known on the Oka and Middle Volga. Numerous parallels relate to Western Siberia, most notably to the Ob Basin, among works of the 10th–11th century toreutic art of Eastern Iran and Southwestern Central Asia. Certain features of the Rusenikha bowls offer a deeper view of the technology, decoration, and features of individual artistic style. It has also become possible to specify the date of those vessels and places of their manufacture. The routes whereby they were imported to the Middle Volga might have varied, but the principal one, passing across Volga Bulgaria, had been taken by Ibn Fadlan in the early 10th century. This stretch of the Great Silk Road connecting East and West was especially important from the 9th to the mid-11th century, when the Kipchak-Cuman tribes established hegemony in the Eastern European steppes.