Ancient Mongolian Sacred Amulets in Twentieth Century Turkmenia

after Dieter and Reinhold Schletzer, Old Silver Jewellery of the Turkoman

From a  Bull in the China Cultures to a Ram in the Bushes of Turkmenia 

The people of Turkmenia who are of Mongolian descent still respect some of the same sacred images that the Mongolians crafted into jade figures in pre-historic times.  The Turkic speaking people from the Altai mountain region had come down to the plains of Turkmenistan and most of its neighboring countries beginning around 500 A.D.  They were numerous in the region by 900 A.D.

From the time that they came down from the mountains, they continued to maintain their tradition of crafting sacred amulets in wood, weaving them into their garments and tent furnishings and wearing them on their persons in the form of silver jewelry.  By the late 1800s, their metal smiths were crafting fine jewelry in gilded silver decorated with the ancient tribal symbols, especially the ram's head or ox head, depending on the interpreter of the various pieces of jewelry.

If you mentally rotate the above image into a rectangle instead of the diamond shape in which it is  designed to be worn, you will see an abstract image of the horns and eyes of a male mountain sheep, known by herders as a ram.  The Turkmen were hunters of the mountain sheep while still in the Altai mountains, and followers of domesticated sheep bred from the mountain sheep when the tribes descended from their mountain home to the desert oases of Turkmenistan and surrounding areas.

On a different Turkoman ornament, you see more obvious imitation of the ram's horn, but without the eyes:

  

after Schletzer, Old Silver Jewellery of the Turkoman

And here is another, more decorative representation that is commonly used on the Teke tribe gilded jewelry of the early 1900s.   Here the cut-outs from the metal represent the eyes and even the nose and mouth are suggested in the cut-out pattern at the bottom of this motif: 

after Schletzer, Old Silver Jewellery of the Turkoman

Can you find a similar image repeated on this antique silver Turkoman woman's pendant?  

Read more information on this piece HERE.

 I contend that the Far Eastern Chinese culture such as the Liangzhu farming community that existed at the end of the pre-historic and pre-literate Neolithic period naturally chose the ox as the totem and for a mountain  people such as the Turkmen had been,  the same image would represent a mountain sheep ram's head.  It is the image of the curved horns that the Turkmen have carried into the decoration of their clothing, their tent and now house furnishings, their outdoor furnaces, their garments and their personal jewelry or the ritual ornaments worn by the shaman of their tribe.

These photos of items from my jade collection will show some of the common characteristics of this totem shared over time and distance by the long-lived Mongol cultures.  Here is a jade reproduction in more representational art than was used in ancient times when making the extremely hard jade stone into life-like images was a much more difficult art than it is with the coming of the industrial age when the image below was made in  red jade that was used by the ancient culture now named Liangzhu.

Read more about this piece HERE.

Below is the photo of a jade ox head crafted in antiquity in green jade and based on the late Neolithic Hongshan settlers along the Yellow River in what is now called Inner Mongolia: 

Read more about this piece HERE.

The hole for hanging the jade pendant that represents the horns and eyes of the ox actually is hand drilled in the shape of an ox's nostrils and is called the Hongshan ox nose style of hole in the jade ornaments of that time.  

I have one or two more blog entries for the comparison between the ancient Mongol cultures of the East and the Turkoman tribes of Central and West Asia.  Then I will return for a while to discuss the ornamentation of the more southern styles of jewelry in Western Asia.  

Thank you for visiting my blog.  You are always welcome to see the Turkoman and Eastern jade jewelry at my Artfire shop, my Turkoman and Yemeni jewelry at my Etsy shop,  and my Turkoman textiles at my second Etsy shop. 

The Merchant's Sizzle Words: Kazakh and Bokhara

When I went shopping during the two years I lived in Kabul, Afghanistan, I always heard two words spoken by the merchants in a tone of awe: Kazakh and Bokhara.  The Kazakh style silver jewelry was greatly admired, and the Bokhara carpets and tapestries were prized.  The Teke tribe's gilded jewelry was in a different category and was not such a commonly displayed item while I was in Afghanistan.

The Kazakh design is usually a repetition of pyramidal shapes built up by tiny dots of silver applied to an otherwise smooth surface, most often forming a circular or oval frame around a central gemstone setting.  The technique of forming patterns with tiny dots of silver is called granulation (making grains).  Occasionally the piece would be lightly gold-washed, but not gilded in the same manner that the Teke tribe gilded their silver jewelry.

A simple pendant that I purchased in Afghanistan illustrates the design.

Afghan Antique Silver Filigree Granulation Pendant Coral Carnelian

The Bokhara jewelry is very different from the Kazakh.  Uzbekistan jewelry makers do not follow rigid patterns as their rug makers usually do, nor do they always design the same motifs and gemstones for their more gaudy ornaments.  Here is an example from my own collection:

Bokhara Uzbekistan Pendant Traditional Turkmen Art of Central Asia

The Uzbek Turkoman artisan did, however, produce more subtly decorated pieces of jewelry.  I have another piece from Uzbekistan in my collection that is a delicate enameled floral design on the hollow half-globe of silver.  

I have to admit that some of the subtlety of the piece is removed by the tinkling bells added to the pendant.  They do announce the wearer's approach.  

Bukhara silver enamel cloisonne pendant with dangling bells

International visitors are welcome at my web site to browse, to gather information or to purchase items.  The higher value items are offered on a lay-away (a reserved item paid for in installments) plan.  Come for a visit!

Kazakh Tradition in Afghanistan

Antique Silver Turkoman Mountain Symbol Hair Ornament as Pendant

The Turkoman people comprise close to ten percent of the population of Afghanistan.  The Uzbeki and the Kazakh have developed their own silver and textile styles of fabricating the ancient symbols into modern fabrics and metals.  The Turkoman tribes such as the Teke, the Yomud and the Ersari who also reside in the Northern reaches of Afghanistan have their own ways of working in silver or fabrics.

The photo shows a piece of silver worked in the usual Turkoman way of having the front reflected on the back.  It is in the form of a tumar or pyramid shape, the symbolism of which is explained below.  The hollow silver pendants that hang from this piece that originally served as a veil or hair ornament also have a back piece that repeats the design on the front.  They form a rhombus, which is essentially the tumar reflected top to bottom instead of back to back.  These shapes have been established for over a thousand years among the people who came down from the Altai mountains onto the plains and steppes of Kazakhstan and Afghanistan.  This piece was created within that long tradition.  It dates from the early 1900s.  

The piece pictured above is one of a pair of Turkoman tenecir, ornaments worn on a head covering or in the hair, attached just above the ear at the temple. When worn as it is displayed on this page, the Turkoman tenecir becomes an elegant, obviously antique, handmade pendant symbolizing the mountain from which the tribe originated. Being beautifully worked in granulation on each side makes this a reversible piece of jewelry. On one side the silver is set with coral beads; on the opposite it is set with two shades of red glass beads or shards. The silver work is all original, but the metal neck chain has been added in recent times. Measurement: Length of chain is 22 inches. Ht, inc. attached symbols is 5 inches; width of pendant is 2.25 inches at base.

To purchase this item, see details HERE.

Turkoman Attire Worn by Author of Blog

Turkoman Teke Tribal Woman's Attire in Merv, Turkmenistan

Click link to see more such jewelry.  

First the tall gilded silver and carnelian jeweled head covering is usually worn as a support for the veil, hidden except for the high front part.   This shawl or veil is made of finely woven silk, embroidered with traditional tribal symbols.  The spinning of the silkworm's web and the weaving, sewing and embroidery are all done by hand.  

The plain and gilded silver jewelry are made by the male silversmiths of the tribe.  You can see this giant cuff bracelet at the studio that houses my collection.

These Teke tribal silver cuff bracelets with layered gold and table cut agate cabochons. Matched pair of bracelets dated to 1850-1900 by Dieter and Reinhold Schlecter in Old Silver Jewellery of the Turkoman. Heavily decorated in tribal symbols and with the superior craftsmanship of the Teke silversmith. Because of their age, each of the bracelets shows marks of repair, revealed in attached photos.

These are typical of the Turkoman silversmith's techniques. They worked mainly in silver that had been imported from surrounding countries in the form of silver ingots. This the silversmiths melted down and formed their own almost pure heavy silver plates. No rolled sheets used in the master silversmith's hands.

The traditional tribal designs were laid out in a layer of thin gold, not a wash but a very durable amount of gold on the silver.

This process is made much more difficult in the case of large bracelets. The bracelets are hollow. so two sheets had to be put together smoothly. Only the face of the bracelet was gilded. The edge of the bracelet is either signed or decorated with something that looks like calligraphy.

The gemstones used are nearly always carnelian, sometimes turquoise or glass. Edges of Turkoman jewelry usually have ancestor symbols attached in the form of stylized rams' heads or just the horns. The gilded cut-out patterns usually suggest plants or water.

The jewelry worn by a Turkoman female reveals her status in the tribe, whether a wife or an unmarried woman, and something of her standing in the wider community.  This is true of all the clothing worn by the Turkoman woman, from the jeweled collar necklace to huge breastplates that reach from the top of the chest to the waist line, a dressy robe of silk and embroidery, a head covering resembling the one above and rings and bracelets all are meant to show the status of the wearer. 

Turkoman Jewelry Symbols Include Islamic Symbols

As the Mongol conquerors assumed their kingdoms under the great Khan in Central and South Asia in the Late Middle Ages, the Moslem religion was ascendant throughout that region.  The Turkoman people added much of the Moslem spirituality to their own veneration of ancestors and their tribal geographic origins in the symbols of mountains and ancestors: the equilateral triangle mounted on a prayer cylinder with abstract ram's heads decorating the piece.

Up to at least the 1950s, the Turkoman jewelry and their fabric arts were their religious art.  Even their camels and donkeys wore the tribal symbols in silver and sometimes gilded silver jewelry and blankets. The modern-day analog would be the taxi driver who carries the medallion of the name of Allah written in beautiful Arabic calligraphy.  It is doubtful that the medallion could be read, but it is the symbol that all understand as a blessing from Allah.

Our last post was about the Asik, or sometimes written as Asyk, in tripartite form symbolizing the family  but today we can look at a single Asik (my preferred spelling, because it uses the vowel harmony that is typical for the Turkish dialect that I once spoke fairly well).   Here is a photo from a page that tells a fuller story of its symbols:

On the top two gemstones set into the silver you will see crescents and stars, the widely recognized symbol of Islam in its political and religious expression.  The carnelian in the center is an irregular cabochon form.  The gemstone does not show signs of having been replaced, so apparently the original silversmith preferred to use the matching red stone rather than a more golden carnelian that would have been smooth enough to make the intaglio of stars and crescents.  

Of course, the breathtakingly beautiful mosques of Uzbekistan speak above all of the inculturation of the Turkoman to the religion of Islam. 

For more information on Turkoman silver pieces, see my studio at Artfire. 

The URL is http://craftsofthepast.artfire.com

The Dome as a Turkoman Motif

Further details on such items available at CraftsofthePast on Artfire.

The dome shape represents, naturally enough, the world as a reflection or the *other half of the sphere* in its relation to the heavens.  It occurs again and again in the old silver jewelry of the Turkoman people.  Here is a durable and imaginative ring, at least 70 years old.  It was old when I collected it in Turkey in 1970.  That is just one instance of the dome motif in my Turkoman jewelry collection.  Here is another:

Further details on such items are  available at: http://craftsofthepast.artfire.com

The pendant above is gilded in the process described in the immediately previous blog post at this site.  It is also decorated with granulation -- domed dots of silver over the curvature of the gilded dome.  The silver objects on chains hanging from the dome reinforce the idea of earthiness.  They are sometimes understood as inverted mountain motifs.  (Schlechter, Old Silver Jewellery of the Turkoman, 1983).  

In Turkey and Afghanistan, I continued to find instances of the same dome motif in Turkoman jewelry.  In time photos of most of them will find their way into the posts on this blog.