Golden Horde1 and the Book the Gold Qf the Chinggisids
JOCHID LUXURY METALWORK: ISSUES OF GENESIS AND DEVELOPMENT
MARK KRAMAROVSKY
In two recent publications (the exhibition catalogue Treasures qf the Golden Horde 1 and the book The Gold qf the Chinggisids: The Cultural Legacy qf the Golden Horde2) I have analyzed the formation and devel opment of the luxury metalwork associated with the branch of the Mongol dynasty, the descendants of Jochi, son of Chinggis (Genghis) Khan, the ulus Jochi, best known as the Golden Horde. Building upon my previous work, in this paper I intend to concentrate on two related topics. The first is the more complicated issue. It concerns the problem of the genesis of Chinggisid luxury metalwork in general and its relationship to the Golden Horde material in particular. The second issue has to do with the characterization of the main vector in the development ofJochid toreutics, or relief-decorated metalwork. This paper will not address the stylistic quality of single objects or groups of objects, nor will it consider the interpretation of the stylistic and iconographic links between the metalwork and roughly contempo rary East and Central Asian textiles. The former has already been discussed by the present author (in the aforementioned publications), while the latter topic has been ably documented by James Watt.3 Watt's highly original proposal that masterpieces of Mongol Empire metalwork made prior to 1270 were the work of Chinese craftsmen4 runs contrary to earlier theories in which certain objects were asso ciated with the workmanship ofjurchens of the Jin State. Central to this revised way of thinking, though apparently unknown to Watt, is the fact that no Chinese belts were actually found with the buried treasure from the Crimea, discovered in the area of the modern
1 Kramarovsky (2000). 2 Kramarovsky (2001). 3 See Watt,]. C. Y. (2002). 4 Ibid., 67 . 44 MARK KRAMAROVSKY city of Simferopol. 5 Misinformation regarding a Chinese 'silver' belt previously thought to have come from the Crimea is the double mistake of the English editor of the recent discussion of the belt and its archaeological context.6 First, the belt is made not of silver but brass. Second, it was found not in the Crimea but in the Volga area at the site Selitrennoe, identified as Saray al-Makhrus- the first capital of the Golden Horde. Third, the belt dates to the fourteenth century and therefore it postdates the tradition of the Chinggisid luxury metalwork of the period before 1270. The artifact in ques tion reflects the contacts between the Golden Horde and China's Yuan dynasty. The question of the important find from the Gashun-Ust region in the North Caucasus is more complicated. Watt believes that the gold belt from Gashun-Ust, which includes the tamgha associated with the house of Batu (r. 1227- 55),Jochi's son and founder of the Golden Horde, either belongs to the period of the Jin dynasty in Northern China and was made by a Chinese master and later became a trophy of the Mongols, or the object was produced by a Chinese artisan from Jin state expressly for a member of Batu-Khan's fam ily (pls. 2a- c).7 In this instance, I can agree with only one of Watt's suppositions, namely, that the belt belonged to the oglan or prince of the blood from the 'Batu House.' The small pendant with the tamgha testifies to this assumption (pl. 2a). Furthermore, the type of the tamgha dates this find to the 1270s. Before looking further at Watt's findings, let us first pose the fol lowing question: why shouldn't the workmanship of the gold belt from Gashun-Ust be linked withJurchens of the Jin state? Perhaps because of the fact that in the Jin Empire the J urchens altogether accounted for no more than 10 percent of the total population? Or because only the Chinese (including artists and craftsmen) could have been taken prisoner and forced to work for the Jin? These are certainly not adequate reasons against a Jurchen attribution, and indeed evidence for aJurchen connection will be cited below. The belt type from Gashun-Ust is not specifically Chinese. Another (non-Chinese) belt that is very close in style was found in the Tash-
5 Kramarovsky (2001), 114-20. 6 See Fedorov-Davydov (1991), 153, cat. no. 34; however, on 51, and evidently not consulted by Watt, the correct information is given. 7 Watt, ]. C. Y. (2002), 67 .