#Exhibit of the Month

The history of silverware goes back over 5,000 years, but only in the 3rd millennium BC, in Mesopotamia and Anatolia, the first pieces of processed silver were made. From there, the art of working with silver spread to Persia and to Europe, where already in Roman and Greek antiquity it reached a high level of skill. Many of the techniques used then, such as casting, embossing and engraving, are still used today.

The National Museum of History of Moldova possesses a rich collection of silver items, which in a special way reflects the everyday life of people of the 18th-20th centuries. The typological range of objects that make up the collection includes both secular and ecclesiastical silverware: fruit vases, bonbonnieres, cutlery, tea and coffee preparation and serving sets, salt-cellars, handbags, snuffboxes and cigarette cases, candelabra, as well as icon cases, chalices, pectoral crosses, candlesticks, and so on.

Products of renowned jewelers, such as Fabergé, Khlebnikov, Sazikov in Russia, Elkington in England, Christofle in France or Norblin and Fraget in Poland stand out for their special quality and luxury. A significant item in the museum's silverware collection is the teapot on a stand with a spirit lamp (bouillotte), made in the Christofle workshop in France.

The Christofle workshop was founded in Paris in 1830 by Charles Christofle. The workshop, which was the court supplier of the Emperor of France Napoleon III, the Emperor of Mexico and the Tsar of Russia, created decorative and household pieces of rare beauty. It was also highly appreciated by the Royal House of Romania, which granted the workshop a supplier patent. In 1842, Charles Christofle bought a patent for electroplating, a technique that involved first coating a metal base with copper and then with nickel and silver. It was this technique that allowed him to mass-produce silver tea sets, which were very popular at the time. Tea, brought to Europe in 1610 by the East India Company, was an expensive commodity that gradually gained popularity. The oldest preserved teapots, dating from the 1670s, were small. As tea gained popularity, larger teapots began to be produced, shaped to match the fashion of the time.

According to Christofle catalogs, the model was produced in 1868 and fascinates with its elegance and refinement. The teapot has a complex design including a pear-shaped container, the surface of which is ornamented with guilloché in the Louis XVI style of the late 1780s. In the upper and lower parts of the body it is decorated with a border with tulips on protrusions, and in the center, it has an escutcheon with an engraved double frame. The teapot is equipped with a folding basket-like handle decorated with triple rings, and a lid with a knob. There are two rivets on the teapot for attaching it to the stand. A spirit lamp with a straight handle and a device for lifting the wick is fixed in the middle of the stand. The item has the Christofle stamp and is made of nickel silver.

The teapot on a stand with a spirit lamp, made in the Christofle workshop, harmoniously combines the value of a unique object and a sample of a large industrial series.

Dimensions: H.: 43 cm; W.: 24 cm.

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Publications

Journal „Tyragetia"

vol. X [XXV], nr. 1

A Late Bronze Age hoard with a riveted vessel from East Kazakhstan

ISSN 1857-0240
E-ISSN 2537-6330

Галина Кущ, Гульнара Джумабекова, Сергей Демиденко, Галия Базарбаева

A Late Bronze Age hoard with a riveted vessel from East Kazakhstan

Tyragetia, serie nouă, vol. X [XXV], nr. 1, Arheologie. Istorie Antică

Keywords: East Kazakhstan, Bronze Age, hoard, metal tools, cauldron.

Abstract: This article presents a hoard of the Bronze Age metal objects found in the East Kazakhstan region. Paralels to the items from the hoard are found among antiquities of the Andronovo culture of the Altai, the Tien Shan area, Jetysu, Xinjiang. The assemblage from Zaisan published here enlarged the group of hoards typical for the Late Bronze Age. The most interesting objects among the ones included in the hoard are the riveted cauldron and the axe with curved butt and grid decoration.

Archaeological studies revealed the wide distribution of axes with curved butts that allow us to consider them as characteristic instruments of the Late Bronze Age period in the areas of East Kazakhstan, the Altai, Jetysu, Central Asia, and the northern part of Central Asia. Researchers came to the conclusion that this type of axes can be dated to the 12th - 9th (poss. 8th) centuries BC.

Metal vessels of the Late Bronze Age (especially, the copper ones) are rarely found in the eastern part of the Euasian steppes. Besides the cauldron described in the article, some metal vessels were discovered in Central Kzakhstan at the cemeteries of Ashchisu and Nurataldy-1 (20th - 19th centuries BC). Also, similar objects are known among the materials of the Izmailov cemetery in East Kazakhstan, and metal items of the Andreevka hoard from south-eastern Kazakhstan dated to the 12th - 9th (poss. 8th) centuries BC.

Meanwhile, the closest parallels to the cauldron from the Zaisan hoard can be seen in the western part of Eurasia. Taking into account V.S. Bochkarev's classification that consists of three main groups of metal cauldrons, the vessel from East Kazakhstan may occupy an intermediate position between the groups IIB and IIIB. This allows us to date the cauldron to the end of the 13th - 12th centuries BC, while the more probable date for the Zaisan hoard as a whole lays within the range of the 12th - 9th centuries BC.

List of illustrations:
Fig. 1. Localization of the hoard in relation to the settlements of Oskemen, Zaisan, Kokjyra, and Daiyr (prepared by D. Duisenbay).
Fig. 2. The Zaisan hoard. 1-2 - Chisels; 3-5 - adzes (photo by S. Starikov).
Fig. 3. The Zaisan hoard. 1 - Axe; 2 - axe fragment; 3 - punch; 4 - socketed hammer (photo by S. Starikov).
Fig. 4. The Zaisan hoard. 1 - Hook; 2 - bronze rings (photo by S. Starikov).
Fig. 5. The Zaisan hoard. Metal vessel (photo by S. Starikov).