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Sarmatian Ornaments from Kerch in the British Museum, compared with Anglo-Saxon and Merovingian ornaments in the same collection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

O. M. Dalton
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Extract

In 1923 the British Museum purchased the series of barbaric ornaments and jewels in the collection of the late General Bertier Delagarde, a well-known Russian archaeologist. The acquisition was made in order to secure a more worthy representation of the culture from which the industrial art of the early Teutonic tribes, including that of the Anglo-Saxons, derived its most characteristic features. We are now able to see in proximity examples illustrating the first and last stages in a long process of development, and observe the marked identity of style in the work of peoples separated from each other in time by three or four centuries, in space by the whole length of Europe. The two plates demonstrate this identity by an instant appeal to the eye. All that is required in addition is a brief indication of the source from which this far-travelling style was derived.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , July 1924 , pp. 259 - 262
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1924

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References

page 259 note 1 These photographs have been kindly lent by the editor of the Illustrated London News, in which paper they were reproduced in colour on 16th February of the present year.

page 259 note 2 Iranians and Greeks in South Russia, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1912.Google Scholar This important book was reviewed in the Antiquaries Journal, iii, p. 180.

page 260 note 1 In addition to Rostovtzeff's book, we have the well-known work of our Fellow Dr.Minns, E. H. (Scythians and Greeks, Cambridge, 1913).Google Scholar The more important objects among those originally published in the comptes rendus of the Imperial Archaeological Commission, had at an even earlier date been incorporated in the useful French volume Antiquités de la Russie méridionale, by Kondakoff, Tolstoi, and Reinach, , Paris, 1891.Google Scholar

The theory of B. Salin that all the animal forms of early Teutonic art were imported Graeco-Roman types is no longer universally held.

page 260 note 2 Rostovtzeff, p. 49, and plate ix. The limbs of the gold quadruped, the ears of which are ornamented with amber in gold cells, are bevelled, so as to present slant surfaces to the light.

page 261 note 1 ‘L'Europe centrale et l'Europe du Nord adoptèrent d'autant plus volontiers le style ‘mérovingien’ qu'il n'était, pour ainsi dire, qu'un nouveau développement de l'art barbare de la première époque des métaux’ (Reinach, S., Cat. illustré du Musée des Antiquités Nationales au château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, ii, 1921, p. 292Google Scholar).

page 261 note 2 Strzygowski has brought out this point in much of his more recent work, especially in Altai-Iran and The origin of Christian Church Art. His theory is that the principal technical methods used in early Teutonic art were not only introduced by Iranians, but originally invented by them. As far as orfèvrerie cloisonnée is concerned, the claim does not appear sufficiently established. This method is well known to have been practised in Egypt at a very early date, and, in a paper published more than twenty years ago (Archaeologia, lviii, 1903, pp. 237 ff.Google Scholar), the present writer, following the indications of de Linas, adduced further evidence for its use in Assyria, drawing especial attention to the well-known ivories from Nimrûd in the British Museum. In these objects, flat blue stones were inlaid in cells the upper edges of which were gilded, giving the whole the appearance of cloisonnée work in gold. The Nimrûd ivories show Egyptian influence in other respects; and it was suggested that the method may have passed into. Assyria from the Nile, though a very early practice of inlaying in various materials in ancient Mesopotamia itself was also admitted. Now that we have the Kelermes find, we may perhaps connect with Assyria not only the art of the early Persian examples of orfèvrerie cloisonnée found on the Oxus and at Susa, but that of the first examples to appear in continental Europe, on the Kuban, for it is significant that among the discoveries at Kelermes were objects both of Assyrian and early Persian character. It may be freely granted that the nomadic Iranians of the Steppes imparted a new individuality to this kind of jewellery: because it suited their taste, they exploited its possibilities with admirable skill. But it is one thing to develop or transform, another to invent.

page 262 note 1 In the case of plate XXXVII, fig. 4 and plate XXXVIII, fig. 5 resemblance approaches identity.

The provenance of the objects on plate XXXVIII is as follows: Figs.—1, The King's Field, Faversham, Kent; 2, Faversham; 3, King's Field, Faversham; 4, Sittingbourne; 5, Kent; 6, King's Field; 7, Taplow; 8, Droxford, Hants; 9, 10, and 11, King's Field; 12, Abingdon, Berks; 13 to 15, Herpes, Charente, France.