Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós or Treasure of Sânnicolau Mare is an important hoard

Hoard

In archaeology, a hoard is a collection of valuable objects or artifacts, sometimes purposely buried in the ground. This would usually be with the intention of later recovery by the hoarder; hoarders sometimes died before retrieving the hoard, and these surviving hoards may be uncovered by...

of twenty-three early medieval

Early Middle Ages

The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...

gold vessels, in total weighing 9.945 kg, found in 1799 near the town then known as Nagy Szent Miklós or Groß-Sankt-Niklaus (Romanian: Sânnicolau Mare

Sânnicolau Mare

Sânnicolau Mare is a town in Timiş County, Romania and the westernmost of the country. Located in the Banat region, along the borders with Serbia and Hungary, it has a population of just under 13,000...

) in northern Banat

Banat

The Banat is a geographical and historical region in Central Europe currently divided between three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania , the western part in northeastern Serbia , and a small...

(then part of the Torontal County within the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary

Kingdom of Hungary (1538–1867)

The Kingdom of Hungary between 1538 and 1867 was part of the lands of the Habsburg Monarchy, while outside the Holy Roman Empire.After Battle of Mohács, the country was ruled by two crowned kings . They divided the kingdom in 1538...

in the Habsburg Empire

Habsburg Monarchy

The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...

, today in Timiş County

Timis County

Timiș , , Banat Bulgarian: ) is a county of western Romania, in the historical region Banat, with the county seat at Timișoara. It is the largest county in Romania in terms of land area....

in western Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

, near the border with Hungary). After the excavation, the treasure was transferred to Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, the capital of the empire, where it has been ever since, and is on display at the Kunsthistorisches Museum

Kunsthistorisches Museum

The Kunsthistorisches Museum is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on Ringstraße, it is crowned with an octagonal dome...

. A wide range of views continue to be held as to the dating and the origins of the styles of the pieces, and the context in which they were made, which may well vary between the pieces. Unusually, the inscriptions on some pieces have if anything increased the complexity of the arguments rather than reduced them. Recently, Romania have issued requests to the Austrian government for its repatriation

Art repatriation

Art repatriation is the return of art or cultural objects, usually referring to ancient or looted art, to their country of origin or former owners . The disputed cultural property items are physical artifacts of a group or society that were taken from another group usually in an act of looting,...

Description

The treasure, consisting of twenty-three gold vessels and variously dated from the 6th to the 10th century, was found in 1799 in the vicinity of Sânnicolau Mare. The figure of the "victorious Prince" dragging a prisoner along by his hair (see figure on the right), and the mythological scene at the back of the golden jar, as well as the design of other ornamental objects, show close affinities with finds at Novi Pazar

Novi Pazar

Novi Pazar is a city and municipality located in southwest Serbia, in the Raška District. According to the official census in 2011, number of inhabitants of municipality is 92,776, while the city itself has a population of 60,638...

, Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

and at Sarkel

Sarkel

Sarkel was a large limestone-and-brick fortress built by the Khazars with Byzantine assistance in the 830s. It was named white-house because of the white limestone bricks they have used to build Sarkel...

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. Stylistically, Central Asia

Central Asia

Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...

n, Persian-Sassanid

Persian-Sassanid art patterns

- Patterns :Characteristic patterns of the Persian-Sassanide art exhibits similarity to the art of the Bulgars, Khazars, Sak-Scythian, and have recurred at different locations in Central Asia...

and Byzantine

Byzantine art

Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....

influences are predominant.

Inscriptions

On one of the vessels in the hoard there is an inscription written in the Greek alphabet

Greek alphabet

The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...

which reads:

BOYHΛA.ZOAΠAN.TECH.ΔYΓΕTOIΓH.BOYTAOYΛ.ZΩAΠAN.TAΓPOΓH.HTZIΓH.TAICH

(Transliteration: bouēla zoapan tesē dygetoigē boutaoul zōapan tagrogē ētzigē taisē)

The language of the inscription is probably a Turkic language. While there is no consensus as to the meaning of the inscription, there is general agreement that Butaul and Buyla are Turkic names or titles, and that they are associated with the title of župan
Zupan
Żupan was a long garment, always lined, worn by almost all males of the noble social class in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, typical male attire from the beginning of the 16th to half of the 18th century, still surviving as a part of the Polishnational dress.- Derivation :The name żupan has...

. There is another inscription in Greek language

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

and several other very short inscriptions in a runiform script and also likely to be in a Turkic language, but these are very brief and also have not been deciphered.

Connections

Avars

Scholars have connected the treasure with the Avar khaganate

Eurasian Avars

The Eurasian Avars or Ancient Avars were a highly organized nomadic confederacy of mixed origins. They were ruled by a khagan, who was surrounded by a tight-knit entourage of nomad warriors, an organization characteristic of Turko-Mongol groups...

. The newest researches show direct connections to Avar origin.

Slavs

According to interpretation of the inscription on one of the vessels, this inscription was written by a people whose local leaders had Turkic

Turkic languages

The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...

names and bore Slavic

Slavic languages

The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...

titles (i.e. the title of župan

Zupan

Żupan was a long garment, always lined, worn by almost all males of the noble social class in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, typical male attire from the beginning of the 16th to half of the 18th century, still surviving as a part of the Polishnational dress.- Derivation :The name żupan has...

Magyar and Bulgar

As noted above, close affinities have been recognized between the Nagyszentmiklós material and that found at Novi Pazar and in Khazar. Archaeologists in both Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

and Bulgaria

Bulgaria

consider these affinities to support theories of ancient migration between regions. Both were allied with Khazars for a period. The treasure gives some idea of the arts practised within the First Bulgarian Empire

First Bulgarian Empire

The First Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state founded in the north-eastern Balkans in c. 680 by the Bulgars, uniting with seven South Slavic tribes...

, Hungarian and Khazar states. According to professor Nykola Mavrodinov (based on Vilhelm Thomsen

Vilhelm Thomsen

Vilhelm Ludwig Peter Thomsen was a Danish linguist. In 1893, he deciphered the Turkish Orkhon inscriptions in advance of his rival, Wilhelm Radloff...

), the script on vessel number 21 is in Bulgar, written with Greek

Greek alphabet

letters, surrounding a cross, and reads, “Boyla Zoapan made this vessel. Butaul Zoapan intended it for drinking.”

Khazar

One school of Hungarian archaeologists maintains that the tenth-century gold and silversmiths working in Hungary

Hungary

were Khazar

Khazars

The Khazars were semi-nomadic Turkic people who established one of the largest polities of medieval Eurasia, with the capital of Atil and territory comprising much of modern-day European Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the northern Caucasus , parts of...

. When Magyars migrated to Pannonia in 896, some Khazar tribes, known as the Khavars, came with them to their new homes. The Khavars were skilled gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

and silversmiths.

Persian

Khazar art is believed to be modelled on Persian-Sassanide art patterns. The Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

archaeologist O. H. Bader emphasized the role of the Khazars in the spread of Persian-style silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

-ware towards the north. Some of these works may have been re-exported by the Khazars, true to their role as middlemen; others were imitations made in Khazar workshops - the ruins of which have been traced to near the ancient Khazar fortress of Sarkel. The Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

archaeologist T. J. Arne mentions ornamental plates, clasps and buckles found as far as Sweden, of Sassanide and Byzantine inspiration, manufactured in Khazaria or territories under their influence. Thus, the Khazars, Magyars and Bulgars could have been intermediaries in the spreading of Persian-Sassanide art in Eastern Europe.

Central Asian

Several elements of the Treasure of Nagyszentmiklos have Central Asian counterparts. One is the scene of the divine Garuda

Garuda

The Garuda is a large mythical bird or bird-like creature that appears in both Hindu and Buddhist mythology.From an Indian perspective, Garuda is the Hindu name for the constellation Aquila and...

bird's lifting up a human body. This motif can be found all over Central Asia, India and Siberia. The motif of an animal drinking from the cup also occurs throughout Eurasia from China, through Siberia, to Hungary. The image of the nautilus shell in the set may relate to India, where the animal is native to the Indian Ocean. This relation goes back to the Hephthalites, the white Huns who ruled during the fourth and fifth centuries in Gujarat, Rajastan.

Outer references

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