Provenance
In May of 1886, a boy, Iakov Osiev, found a hoard of five vessels near his village of Shakharova (Шахарова) on the right bank of the Ingina River in the Krasnoufimskii County (Красноуфимский Уезд) of the Perm Governorate (Пермская Губерния) of the Russian Empire. About a month later, a Krasnoufimskii County police officer acquired the vessels from the boy’s father, Sofon Pimenov Osiev, and brought them to the Governor (Gubernator) of the Perm Governorate. The Governor sent the five vessels, along with a bucket from the Shirokovo hoard, to the Imperial Archaeological Commission and requested a monetary reward: the Commission sent back 350 rubles (Trever and Lukonin 1987, 123). In 1891, the vessels were sent to the Imperial Hermitage Museum. All the vessels remain in the renamed State Hermitage Museum. This bowl has the number S-15.
In the 20th century, a separate adjacent settlement developed, which was known as Nizhniaia Shakharova (Нижняя Шахарова) or Nizhniaia Shakarokva (Нижняя Шахарова). The hoard was found in a place called ‘Plotinka’, about 200 meters from Nizhniaia Shakharova and is thus often attributed to it, rather than Shakharova throughout the 20th century (Leshchenko in Darkevich 1976, 15). Today the area is known collectively as Shakharovo (Шахарово), which is located in the Suksunskii District (Суксунский Район), Perm Province/Krai (Пермский Край), Russian Federation.
Inscription & Other Marking Notes
One line of cursive Khorezmian wraps around the upper outer shoulder of the bowl. Vladimir A. Livshits translated it: “Pakh(?)nak, son of Shir, (for?) them done” (Livshits 2003, 160-161).
Technical Notes
silver with gilding / 13.6 cm diameter x 5.5 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. 25,1-2 № 17]
Marshak, B. I. Istoriia vostochnoi torevtiki III-XIII vv. i problemy kul’turnoi preemstvennosti. Saint Petersburg: Akademiia Issledovaniia Kul’tury, 2017. [ris. 171]
Orbeli, I. A., and K. V. Trever. Sasanidskii metall khudozhestvennye predmenty iz zolota, serebra, i bronzy. Moscow-Leningrad: Akademiia, 1935. [T. 9]
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. XX № 46]
Additional Bibliography
Bijl, Arnoud, and Birgit Boelens, eds. Expedition Silk Road: Journey to the West: Treasures from the Hermitage. Amsterdam: Amsterdam Hermitage, 2014.
Livshits, Vladimir A. “Three Silver Bowls from the Isakovka Burial-Ground No. 1 with Khwarezmian and Parthian Inscriptions.” Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 9, no. 1–2 (2003): 147–72.
Otchet Imperatorskoi Arkheologicheskoi Komissii za 1882-1888. Saint Petersburg: Tipografiia Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk, 1891.
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), № 190.
Page Images
(1-2) Arnoud Bijl and Birgit Boelens, eds., Expedition Silk Road: Journey to the West: Treasures from the Hermitage (Amsterdam: Amsterdam Hermitage, 2014), № 190.
(3) Ia. I. Smirnov, 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), № 46.