The finds in the villages of Ashnak (Armenia) and Bori (Western Georgia) are the most significant of all the materials from a later period; for example, inlaid gold jewellery from the first to the third century and silver objects — local and imported (including a dish with the picture of a horse before the altar). Among the chance finds from the Caucasus are remarkable articles dating from the last centuries B.C. and the first centuries A.D.: a silver dish of Roman origin depicting a Nereid, a unique goblet of ruby glass in a silver mounting, a doublewalled glass bowl, and a silver rhyton shaped as a bull’s head. The excavation of the burial grounds at Kamunta, Kumbulta and Chmi (North Caucasus) yielded rich archaeological materials. The relatively well-preserved textiles are of great interest; these were either locally made or came from Iran or the Byzantine Empire. Excellent textiles of local work or imported from Sogdiana, Byzantium or Iran were found in the burial ground in the gorge of Moshchevaya Balka in the Kuban area; the examples include a kaftan of the late eighth or early ninth century, made of Iranian silk and decorated with pictures of the Senmurv — a fantastic creature, half bird, half beast. Bronze vessels form a special group; there are dishes, jugs, aquamanilia, and incense burners from the mountain villages of Daghestan, mainly from Kubachi.
The collection of materials which illustrate the mature medieval cultures in present-day Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan is, infortunately, incomplete. Particularly notable among objects of Georgian provenance are a medallion of St George executed in the technique of cloisonné enamel, fragments of silver icon frames from the eleventh to sixteenth centuries, including two plaques by the eleventh-century master craftsman Ivaneh Monisadzeh, and details of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century carved architectural decorations, a recent gift to the Hermitage from the Georgian SSR Museum of Arts. Among relics of Armenian origin there are fragments of fresco paintings from the Bakhtageki church at Ani (thirteenth century); a bell, found near Poti, and some tenth- to thirteenth-century ceramics and fragments of stucco decorations from the ninth or tenth and twelfth or thirteenth centuries, yielded by the excavations at Ani, Anberd and Dvin, and recently donated to the Hermitage by the History Museum of Armenia. The culture and arts of the peoples living in the territory of Azerbaijan are illustrated by tiles of Iranian work from Pir Hussein Revanan’s tomb at Khanakah (west of Baku), ceramics from the ninth to thirteenth centuries, and bas-reliefs and bronze cauldrons from medieval Daghestan (again mainly from the Kubachi village).
A. Bank, V. Lukonin
55
Statue of Pharaoh Amenemhet III
Black granite. Egypt. 1900—1800 B.C.
56
Decoration for a tunic with a representation of the Goddess Gaea
Fabric. Coptic Egypt. 4th century
57
Relief with archers
Alabaster. Assyria. 8th century
58
Eagle-shaped water-carrier
Bronze. Persia. 11th century
59
Neck ornament
Gold. Eastern Persia. 4th century B.C.
60
Diptych representing circus scenes
Ivory. Byzantium. 5th century
61
Icon of St Gregory the Thaumaturgist
Byzantium. 12th century
62
Airtam frieze
Marl limestone. Central Asia. 2nd century
63
Patterned fabric
Persia. 16th century
64
Painted faience bowl
Persia. 12th century
65
Bronze figure of a winged deity
Urartu. 7th century
66
Sassanian silver dish with a representation of King Shapur II hunting
Persia. 4th century
67
Glass lamp
Syria. 14th century
68
Painted faience jug
Turkey, Iznik. 16th century
69
Silver phalar (decoration of a horse harness)
Graeco-Bactria (?). 3rd century B.C.
70
A Youth and a Girl on Horseback. Fresco
Central Asia, Pianjikent. 8th century
71
Head of a Buddhist monk
Unbaked clay. Central Asia. Ajin-Tepe Monastery. 8th century
72
Clay figurines: Bodhisattva and monk
China. 7th century
73
Crystal vessel
Egypt. 10th century
74
Porcelain pitcher
China. 14th century
75
Deity of the Moon
Paper, mineral colours. Mongolia, Khara-Khoto. 9th century
76
Ando Hiroshige. 1797—1858. Japan
Landscape
77
Piled rug
Persia, Kashan. Second half of the 19th century
78
Bronze cauldron from the Mosque of Khwaja Ahmad Yasevi
Town of Turkestan. 14th century
79
Silver dish representing a Nereid riding a hippocampus
Rome. 2nd century
80
Lacquered box
Painted by Muhammad Ali. Persia. 18th century
81
Icon of Jama, Master of Hell
Tibet, Lamaian school. 19th century
82
Buddha Amida Meeting the Souls of Righteous Men
Silk, mineral colours. Mongolia, Khara-Khoto 9th century
83
Steel dagger
The Caucasus. 19th century
84
Ladies on the Terrace