Pages: 209-223

The paper introduces a complex of silver harness ornaments from the collection of the Museum of History of Zaporozhian Cossacks of the Khortytsia National Reservation. The complex includes two leaf-shaped harness drops, four fittings and 7 belt tips, most likely, originated from the destroyed barrow burial in vicinity of Balky village, Zaporizhia region.
Analogies to objects are ornaments of the Pecheneg harness of the 10th—11th centuries. The combination of the details shape and the style of their decoration is characteristic for the Mirne chronological horizon, reflecting the transitional period of changes in Pecheneg jewelry styles after the defeat of the Khazar Khaganate (965—969) and the influx into the Northern Black Sea region of new groups of Pechenegs, that previously inhabited the Left Bank of the Volga region in the vicinity of the Oguz tribes.
Copies of gilded harness ornaments made of silver of a lower standard without gilding indicate a long period of use of the Balky harness, with the loss of a part of the ornaments and then their subsequent restoration by a local jeweler who couldn’t reproduce gilding technology. This rare circumstance illustrates the use by the Pechenegs of both the services of stationary jewelry workshops and handicraft artisans.

Keywords: Northern Black Sea region, medieval nomads, Pechenegs, harness, jewelry production

Information about authors:

Oleksii Komar (Kiev, Ukraine). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute of Archaeology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Geroev Stalingrada Ave., 12, Kiev, 04210, Ukraine
E-mail: [email protected]
Tetiana Shelemetieva (Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine). The National Reserve “Khortytsia”. Starogo Redutu St., 9, Zaporizhzhya, 69017, Ukraine
E-mail: zapovidnik@ukr. net