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Thursday, October 4, 2012
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
“Silk Fabrics of the Golden Horde:Historical, Cultural and Ideologoical
Aspects"
with
Zvezdana Dode
Senior Researcher, Southern Scientific
Center of Russian Academy of Science,
and
Professor, Stavropol
State University, Russia
Textiles are a very important historical
resource. Textiles are also an important art-historical source for
ornamental patterns of other kinds of decorative arts. Very costly and
beautiful imported silks were a source of inspiration for local artists who
copied the foreign textile images onto items of their own art tradition. The
style and contents of the ornament on Mongol-period textiles is very close,
or even identical, to decor found on artifacts made from other materials. Of
special interest here is the close similarity between pictures from medieval
Zirikhgeran (now Kubachi in Dagestan, North Caucasus) and textiles from
archaeological contexts in the North Caucasus and neighboring areas. In
general, it is impossible to determine where a particular silk garment found
in a specific grave came from, or how its owner acquired it. He or she may
have bought it, received it as tribute or gift, or acquired it as booty. In
one case, however, we are in a position to tell with almost complete
certainty that it is the case of a richly embroidered silk garment from a
medieval nomad burial in the Caspian steppe in Kalmykia. It was looted
during one of the raids on a Christian church somewhere in Eastern Europe.
In this paper, Dr. Dode will present her
identification of the Mongol garment found at Guva-2, and make a few
observations on the origin of the Christian embroidery on it. Apparently,
the seamstresses attempted to destroy sacred symbols foreign to them, which
in turn demonstrates the magical connotation the Mongols found in this
embroidery. Cutting up the embroidery may have been meant as an act of
profaning alien sacred symbols or, in other words, it was an act of ritual
violence. Thus, neutralizing the sacred textile before it was reused may
have been important for the individual spiritual security of the new owner.
In a wider context the discovery provides us with an example and
understanding of the reasons for the destruction of Orthodox sacred symbols
that the Mongols felt threatened by.
Zvezdana Dode is Professor of Archaeology and
Art History at Stavropol State University, and senior researcher at the
Southern Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. She received
her PhD. at The Oriental Institute, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, and
from 2007-08 was an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York. She is author of over 70 articles on textiles and
costumes of the northern Caucasus, as well as Kubachi Reliefs: A Fresh
look at Ancient Stones (2010), The Rich Golden Horde Graves in the
Interfluves of Don and Sal Rivers (2006), and The Medieval Costume of
the Peoples of the Northern Caucasus (2001), all in Russian.
UCLA Cotsen Institute Seminar Room
A222 Fowler (lower level)
Pay-by-space parking is available in Parking
Structure 5-level 6, and Parking Structure 4. Please visit
www.transportation.ucla.edu for parking rates and locations.
Co-sponsored by the
Cotsen Institute of Archaeology
and the UCLA Asia
Institute/Program on Central Asia
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