Plate Decorated with Cross and Fluting from Mal’tseva

Provenance

Provenance information coming soon

Inscription & Other Marking Notes

Nine control stamps– monograms and busts– on the base of the vessel, within the foot ring. A set of 5 stamps (standard number) and another 4 stamps were pressed at different times. The latter 4 are worn and would thus appear to be part of the first set pressed (Dodd 1961, 173). The stamps date the vessel to the reign of Heraclius (613-629/30) (Dodd 1961, 173). Also, the floral wreath around the cross on the front of the plate cuts into the cross stamps, showing that the stamps were pressed before the imagery was created (Matsulevich 1929, 296). 

Technical Notes

silver with gilding and niello / 27 cm diameter

Major Eurasian Silver Publications

*Only mentioned in itemized  lists in K. V. Trever and V. G. Lukonin, Sasanidskoe serebro: sobranie Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha: khudozhestvenniia kul’tura Irana III-VIII vekov (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1987), 124; V. P. Darkevich, Khudozhestvennyi metall Vostoka VIII-XIII vv.: proizvedeniia vostochnoi torevtiki na territorii evropeiskoi chasti SSSR i Zaural’ia (Moscow: Nauka, 1976), 36.

Additional Bibliography

Dodd, Erica Cruikshank. Byzantine Silver Stamps. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1961.

Matsulevich (Matzulewitsch), Leonid. Byzantinische Antike: Studien auf Grund der Silbergefässe der Ermitage. Berlin; Leipzig: W. de Gruyter & Co., 1929.

Otchet Imperatorskoi Arkheologicheskoi Komissii 1878 i 1879. Saint Petersburg, 1881.

Image Credits

Featured Image

State Hermitage Museum Website

Page Images

(1) State Hermitage Museum Website

(2) Erica Cruikshank Dodd, Byzantine Silver Stamps (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1961), № 55.