The National Museum of Romanian History (MNIR) opened a micro-exhibition as part of its February Exhibit show to display the Voinesti Treasury and a pair of earrings from Svinita, Mehedinti County.
Photo credit: (c) Cristian Nistor / AGERPRES
Silviu Ota of the MNIR Numismatics and Treasuries Section says the treasury, not so far back thought of having been buried during a Tartar invasion of 1240-1241, has recently been found to date from the late 13th century.
Made up of 31 silver and gilt silver clothing decorations and accessories, both whole and fragmented, the Voinesti Treasury was unearthed in 1926 as one of the most important Byzantine treasuries.
It is made up of two sets of worn items, some of Byzantine tradition and some of Old Russian tradition.
The silver twisted bracelets decorated by the use of granulation and filigree techniques were once common over a very wide area in Romania, Serbia and Macedonia. Only few of them were discovered in Bulgaria, mainly from the 13th-14th centuries.
On display besides the Voinesti Treasury is a pair of earrings discovered by chance in the 1990s at Svinita, Mehedinti County, also made by granulation and filigree. Their pendant is reminiscent of a wider series of discoveries in the Middle Danube Basin.
The Svinita earrings are so far the latest pair of such stylistic structure discovered in Romania.
The micro-exhibition stays open throughout March 15, when the exhibit of the month will be replaced with a Neolithic find, the pediment of an ancient Cucuteni temple discovered at Trusesti.
Silver and goldsmith of Byzantine influence has been revealed in today’s Romania through a series of clothing ornaments and accessories dating back to the 7th century.
After ebbing out, Byzantine ornaments in North Danube staged a forceful comeback in the 11th century, with the returning of Byzantium in Lower Danube. The phenomenon lasted throughout the beginning of the 13th century and the Fall of Constantinople, but the art of crafting ornaments of Byzantine tradition continued throughout the entire Balkans, both in old city centres and in village workshops.
In the 14th century, such ornaments would be traded north of the Danube River but local production also emerged, mainly as a result of the South-Danube area having been conquered by the Ottoman Empire.
Irrespective of how the clothing ornaments and accessories made it here, in the 13th and particularly the 14th century many treasuries started being buried, including those of Voinesti, Oteleni and Svinita that comprise a significant number of items of Byzantine tradition, the work of Balkan or old Russia artisans. AGERPRES
