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 cup has the number S-32.
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.
Technical Notes
silver / 8.3 cm diameter / 5.8 cm height
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. 54,1]
Marshak, B. I. Istoriia vostochnoi torevtiki III-XIII vv. i problemy kul’turnoi preemstvennosti. Saint Petersburg: Akademiia Issledovaniia Kul’tury, 2017. [ris. 91-92]
Marshak (Marschak), B. I. Silberschätze des Orients: Metallkunst des 3.-13. Jahrhunderts und Ihre Kontinuität. Leipzig: E.A. Seemann, 1986. [№ 91-92]
Marshak, B. I. Sogdiiskoe serebro: ocherki po vostochnoi torevtike. Moscow: Nauka, 1971. [T. 40]
Orbeli, I. A., and K. V. Trever. Sasanidskii metall khudozhestvennye predmenty iz zolota, serebra, i bronzy. Moscow-Leningrad: Akademiia, 1935. [T. 57]
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. LXVII № 116]
Additional Bibliography
Bijl, Arnoud, and Birgit Boelens, eds. Expedition Silk Road: Journey to the West: Treasures from the Hermitage. Amsterdam: Amsterdam Hermitage, 2014.
Otchet Imperatorskoi Arkheologicheskoi Komissii za 1893. Saint Petersburg: Tipografiia glavnogo upravleniia udelov, 1895.
Image Credits
Featured Image
Arnoud Bijl and Birgit Boelens, eds., Expedition Silk Road: Journey to the West: Treasures from the Hermitage (Amsterdam: Amsterdam Hermitage, 2014), № 146.
Page Images
(1) Arnoud Bijl and Birgit Boelens, eds., Expedition Silk Road: Journey to the West: Treasures from the Hermitage (Amsterdam: Amsterdam Hermitage, 2014), № 146.
(2) B. I. Marshak, Sogdiiskoe serebro: ocherki po vostochnoi torevtike (Moscow: Nauka, 1971), T. 40.