Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós
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The Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós is a valuable collection of twenty-three 10th century gold vessels, found in Nagyszentmiklós, Transylvania in 1791. The town is now located in Romania and called Sânnicolau Mare.
[edit] Archaeological Background
- The sack of Tiflis by the Khazars, presumably in the spring of AD 629, .... [During the period of occupation] the Kagan sent out inspectors to supervise the manufacture of gold, silver, iron and copper products. ... [Thus] in the course of their incessant Caucasian campaigns during the seventh century, the Khazars made contact with a culture which had grown out of the Persian Sassanide tradition. Accordingly, the products of this culture spread to the people of the steppes not only by trade, but by means of plunder and even by taxation.... All the tracks that we have assiduously followed in the hope of discovering the origins of Magyar art in the tenth century have led us back to Khazar territory[1]
The above is a remark of the Hungarian scholar refering to the spectacular archaeological finds known as the "Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós". The treasure, consisting of twenty-three gold vessels, dating from the tenth century, was found in 1791 in the vicinity of the town of Nagyszentmiklós (now Sânnicolau Mare, Romania). Bartha[3] points out that the figure of the "victorious Prince" dragging a prisoner along by his hair (see figure on your left), and the mythological scene at the back of the golden jar, as well as the design of other ornamental objects, show close affinities with the finds in Novi Pazar in Bulgaria and in Khazar Sarkel. As both Magyars and Bulgars were under Khazar suzerainty for protracted periods, and the warrior, together with the rest of the treasure, gives us at least some idea of the arts practised within the Khazar Empire (the Persian and Byzantine influence is predominant, as one would expect).
One school of Hungarian archaeologists maintains that the tenth century gold and silversmiths working in Hungary were actually Khazars[5]. Magyars migrated to Hungary in 896, led by a dissident Khazar tribe, known as the Kabars, who settled with them in their new home. The Kabar-Khazars were known as skilled gold and silversmiths; the (originally more primitive) Magyars only acquired these skills in their new country. Thus the theory of the Khazar origin of at least some of the archaeological finds in Hungary is not implausible - as will become clearer in the light of the Magyar-Khazar nexus discussed elsewhere[6].
Khazar art, like that of the Bulgars and Magyars, is believed to modelled on Persian-Sassanide art patterns. The Soviet archaeologist Bader[7] emphasized the role of the Khazars in the spreading of Persian-style silver-ware towards the north. Some of these finds may have been re-exported by the Khazars, true to their role as middlemen; others were imitations made in Khazar workshops - the ruins of which have been traced near the ancient Khazar fortress of Sarkel. The Swedish archaeologist T. J. Arne mentions ornamental plates, clasps and buckles found as far as Sweden, of Sassanide and Byzantine inspiration, manufactured in Khazaria or territories under their influence[8]. Thus Khazars could have been intermediaries in the spreading of Persian-Sassanide art in Eastern Europe.
[edit] References
- ^ Dunlop, D. M., "The Khazars" in The World History of the Jewish People, see Roth, ed.
- ^ Kells Portraits and Eastern Ornament by Harold Picton in The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 73, No. 426 (Sep., 1938), pp. 121-123.
- ^ Bartha, A., A IX-X Századi Magyar Társadalom (Hungarian Society in the 9th-10th Centuries) (Budapest, 1968).
- ^ Kells Portraits and Eastern Ornament by Harold Picton in The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 73, No. 426 (Sep., 1938), pp. 121-123.
- ^ Dunlop, D. M., "Khazars" in Enc. Judaica, 1971-2 printing.
- ^ The Thirteenth Tribe by Arthur Koestler
- ^ Bader, O. H., Studies of the Kama Archaeological Expedition (in Russian, Kharkhov, 1953)
- ^ Arne, T. J., "La Su de et l'Orient", Archives d'Études Orientales, 8º. v.8, Upsala, 1914.
