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.