Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 45 (2) 2017   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2017.45.2.071-077

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Metal Bowls from a Medieval Cemetery at Rusenikha

T.B. Nikitina¹, K.A. Rudenko², and S.Y. Alibekov³

¹V.M. Vasilyev Mari Research Institute of Language, Literature and History, Krasnoarmeyskaya 44, Yoshkar-Ola, 641928, Russia

²Kazan State University of Culture and Arts, Orenburgsky trakt 3, Kazan, 420059, Russia

³Volga State University of Technology, Pl. Lenina 3, Yoshkar-Ola, 424000, Russia

Unusual metal bowls, one intact and three fragmented, from a medieval Mari cemetery at Rusenikha, in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, are described. Coins indicate that the cemetery dates to the 11th century. The results of the chemical analysis of the metal are presented. The bowls are made of “white bronze”, and are decorated with geometric patterns on the inside. Similar items are rather frequent in medieval (9th–11th century) Mari cemeteries (Veselovo, Dubovsky, Nizhnyaya Strelka), and isolated finds are known on the Oka and Middle Volga. Numerous parallels relate to Western Siberia, most notably to the Ob Basin, among works of the 10th–11th century toreutic art of Eastern Iran and western Central Asia. Certain features of the Rusenikha bowls offer a deeper view of the technology, decoration, and features of individual artistic style. It has also become possible to specify the date of those vessels and the places of their manufacture. The routes whereby they were imported to the Middle Volga might have varied, but the principal one, passing across Volga Bulgaria, had been taken by Ibn Fadlan in the early 10th century. This stretch of the Great Silk Road connecting East and West was especially important from the 9th to the mid-11th century, when the Kipchak-Cuman tribes established hegemony in the Eastern European steppes.

Keywords: Middle Ages, Mari, cultural contacts, technology, dating.