Kamar man’s belt.
Fine Arts Institute, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

 

 

Women’s jewellery

 

The women of the south of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan adorned their foreheads with little disks of stamped silver, strung in several rows. In these regions it was also custom to wear little silver spherical bells suspended from cords, and strips of cloth covered with silver plates were used for the adornment of hair. In Bukhara, metal brooches were in vogue, with the tip shaped like a flat medallion or stylised bird.

 

In Khwarezm, the headress of young girls was crowned with a kind of silver faceted skullcap, adorned with coloured stones or glass. Splendid polychrome pectorals were worn exclusively by rich women. Another more common ornament was a big medallion fastened with several rows of small chains. It was more austere in style.

 

Necklaces of coral beads combined with plaques or coins were very much in vogue in the mountainous regions of Tajikistan and in the south of Uzbekistan. The goldsmiths took great care of the manufacturing of brooches closing the upper part of women’s clothes.

 

The openwork silver medallion-shaped fastenings, embellished on the sides with pendants and reminding us of the solar disk, were very popular in the south of Tajikistan.

 

In Central Asia, amulets were very much in vogue. One or two of them were usually worn on the chest, or around the forearms. They had different names and shapes, but the manufacturing technique was the same. Generally they would be presented as small silver boxes, in which women would enclose extracts of the Koran.

 

The sacred nature of this ornament lost its influence at the end of the 19th century and became a simple piece of jewellery finely worked. The remarkable delicacy of necklaces embellished with plates and leaf-shaped pendants, the high mastery of ornamental gilt and the embedded cornaline, class this ornament amongst the most admirable pieces of work of the decorative arts of the peoples of Central Asia.

 

Earrings adorned with milling, embellished with filigreed or stamped openwork designs, inlaying and pearl pendants, turquoise or corals, are distinguished by their great diversity. Each town, each region, possessed its favourite models of earrings. In terms of bracelets, there were two types which are still popular, even today: open, or a closed circle. Generally they were made of silver, and more rarely of gold, brass, copper, bronze, or pearls. The metal bracelets were embellished with stamped designs, niello, or engraved, set with turquoises or coloured glass. Sometimes the exterior surface of the bracelets was adorned with significance at a particular period.

 

 

The Craft industry

 

At different times in Central Asia, besides metal, stone, and terracotta ware, a number of objects were fashioned from other materials: glass, ivory, leather, wood. The skill shown by craftsmen also manifested itself in felt-working, carpet weaving, cloth printing, and embroidery.

 

 

Glass

 

Some specimens of unique glass objects dating from the early Middle Ages have come down to us, but glass making would flourish during the 9th-13th centuries. It was in those days that glassware, chemical implements, perfume flasks, etc. became widespread. Figurative designs were rare and always produced by engraving or the glass-blowing mould technique. The glass objects in the shape of figurines and the medallions with engraved ornaments in relief from the palaces of Afrasiab and Termez are of great originality. They are adorned with plant designs, horses and riders, birds, fishes, various animals, hunting scenes, and wildcats; sometimes they are covered with epigraphic ornamentation.

 

Ivory work

 

In Central Asia, ivory work already existed in ancient times. Along side usual utensils made of bone, in antiquity there were true masterpieces of ivory: plaques engraved with religious and profane subjects, chess pieces of Dalverzine Tepa, as well as a great number of admirable rhytons discovered in the palace of the Parthian monarch at Staraya-Nissa. These objects reveal great diversity of local artistic traditions, Siberian-Altaic, Hindu-Buddhist, Persian, and Hellenistic. Many of them have maintained a considerate purity of style, but sometimes various artistic movements mingle, creating new kinds of heterogeneous works. In the Middle Ages (5th-16th centuries) practical objects predominated considerably (earpicks, plates, etc.), although some pieces of work of real artistic value reached us. For instance the pieces of a chess-set from Samarkand in the 11th and 12th centuries.

 

Between the 17th and the 19th centuries, ivory was used for the decoration of pommels, sheaths, rifle butts. National musical instruments, made of precious wood, were inlaid with small ivory plaques.