LOT 1085

Khazar Silver-Gilt Sword Belt Hanger

7TH-8TH CENTURY A.D.

1 in. (6.03 grams, 27 mm).

Formed as leaves or a flower bud with volutes emerging from a rectangular frame at the upper end, also with volutes, integral loop above; two mounting lugs to the reverse.

Acquired in the 1980s-1990s.
Ex an important central London gallery, London W1.

See Ivanov, A.A., 'Finds of belt sets from burial mounds of the Khazar time of the Lower Don and the Volga-Don interfluve (in Russian)' in Cultures of the steppes of Eurasia in the second half of the 1st millennium AD. (from the history of the costume), T. 2. Samara, 2001, pp.118-131.

In the development of the Seversky Donets basin, together with the Alans and other bearers of the cremation rite, archaeology confirms the presence of tribes who practiced inhumation funeral rite with the eastern orientation of the dead (Netailovsky ground burial). Elements of belt sets, typical for this period, were found in these graves. Elements of the belt set similar to those found in the burials of the Netailovsky burial ground mainly come from the so-called ‘under-barrow burials with ditches’ of the 7th - first half of the 8th centuries, identified with the Khazars proper. Floral decoration of the belt elements, like this one, can be regarded as evidence of intensive contacts between the Khazars and Byzantium.