Provenance
In 1893 Nikolai Vakhrameevich Buzmakov discovered a hoard of silver near the village of Tomyz’ (Томызь) in the Glazovskii County (Глазовский Уезд) of the Viatka Governorate (Вятская Губерния) of the Russian Empire. The findspot was about 7.5 km from the Kama River and about 2 km from the Tomyz’ River, a tributary of the Kama, and between two streams called the Kabakshur and Chepliakshur, both of which flow into the Tomyz’. The hoard includes ten vessels– 4 cups, 3 plates, 2 bowls, and the fragments of a bucket– and six torcs (grivnas). Based on weight, the Archaeological Commission sent 1250 rubles to Buzmakov for all of the hoard items. In early 1894 the Archaeological Commission sent all of the vessels except for the bucket to the Imperial Hermitage Museum; the fragments of the bucket and the torcs first went to the Imperial Russian Archaeological Society and then joined the rest of the hoard in the Hermitage later that year. (Trever and Lukonin 1987, 124; Darkevich 1976, 36) The items are all still housed in the renamed State Hermitage Museum. This plate has the number S-26.
Tomyz’ is part of a group of villages known as the Lytkinskoe Rural Settlement (Лыткинское сельское поселение) with their center at Lytka. Tomyz’ is presently in the Afanas’evskii District (Афанасьевский Район), Kirov Province/Oblast’ (Кировская Область), Russian Federation.
Inscription & Other Marking Notes
On the base, in stippled points are two lines of Middle Persian. The inscription notes the ownership of the vessel by a ‘Dadburzmihr’ but the reading of the patronymics is debated. See Livshits and Lukonin 1964, № 11; Brunner 1977, № 29.
Technical Notes
silver with gilding / 22.2 cm diameter 4.7 cm height / 459.7 g weight
For an in-depth technical analysis, see Trever and Lukonin 1987, Tablitsa XII, s. 144.
Major Eurasian Silver Publications
Darkevich, V. P. Khudozhestvennyi metall Vostoka VIII-XIII vv.: proizvedeniia vostochnoi torevtiki na territorii evropeiskoi chasti SSSR i Zaural’ia. Moscow: Nauka, 1976. [T. 1 № 61]
Marshak, B. I. Istoriia vostochnoi torevtiki III-XIII vv. i problemy kul’turnoi preemstvennosti. Saint Petersburg: Akademiia Issledovaniia Kul’tury, 2017. [ris. 184]
Marshak (Marschak), B. I. Silberschätze des Orients: Metallkunst des 3.-13. Jahrhunderts und Ihre Kontinuität. Leipzig: E.A. Seemann, 1986. [№ 184]
Orbeli, I. A., and K. V. Trever. Sasanidskii metall khudozhestvennye predmenty iz zolota, serebra, i bronzy. Moscow-Leningrad: Akademiia, 1935. [T. 22]
Smirnov, Ia. I. Vostochnoe serebro: atlasʺ drevnei serebrianoi i zolotoi posudy vostochnago proiskhozhdeniia naidennoi preimushchestvenno vʺ prědelakhʺ Rossiiskoi imperii. Saint Petersburg: Publishing House of the Imperial Archaeological Commission, 1909. [T. XXL № 48]
Trever, K. V., and V. G. Lukonin. Sasanidskoe serebro: sobranie Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha: khudozhestvenniia kul’tura Irana III-VIII vekov. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1987. [T. 106 № 36]
Additional Bibliography
Brunner, Christopher J. “Middle Persian Inscriptions on Sasanian Silverware.” Metropolitan Museum Journal 9 (1974): 109–21.
Demange, Françoise, ed. Les Perses sassanides: Fastes d’un empire oublié (224-642). Paris: Musée Cernuschi, 2006.
Livshits, V. A., and V. G. Lukonin. “Srednepersidskie i Sogdiiskie nadpisi na serebrianykh sosudakh.” Vestnik Drevnei Istorii, no. 3 (1964): 155-176.
Otchet Imperatorskoi Arkheologicheskoi Komissii za 1893. Saint Petersburg: Tipografiia glavnogo upravleniia udelov, 1895.
Overlaet, Bruno, ed. Splendeur des Sassanides: l’empire perse entre Rome et la Chine, 224-642. Brussels: Musées royaux d’art et d’histoire, 1993.
Image Credits
Featured Image
K. V. Trever and V. G. Lukonin, Sasanidskoe serebro: sobranie Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha: khudozhestvenniia kul’tura Irana III-VIII vekov (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1987), T. 106.
Page Images
K. V. Trever and V. G. Lukonin, Sasanidskoe serebro: sobranie Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha: khudozhestvenniia kul’tura Irana III-VIII vekov (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1987), T. 106.