About two Central Asian pendants from the collections of Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences: experience of ethnological and technological expertise

An expert historical, ethnological and technological analysis of two Central Asian jewelry pendants from the collections of Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (the Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (MAE RAS) (2014 exposition) allows us to consider them as variations of the traditional chulpa-type jewelry of the Volga-Ural Tatars. They are pendants for braids made of plaques and silver coins collected in various compositions. The genesis of the chulpa structurally and functionally connected with the traditions of the Finno-Ugric population of the Volga Bulgaria. Chulpas were also widely used for decorating other types of braid jewelry – cloth types of Tatar braids, formed in line with other, Turkic-nomadic traditions of Eurasia. A filigree pendant made of blade-shaped plaques from the MAE RAS funds is a vivid example of the ethno-cultural and artistic traditions of the Volga-Ural Tatars. This is confirmed by the plaque manufacturing technology which fully corresponds to the craft traditions of the Kazan-Tatar jewelry school. Another pendant with tulip-shaped plate plaques at the base was obviously made by the Tatar artisans as well, taking into account a number of local Central Asian (Kazakh) jewelry traditions. The translation of ethno-specific Tatar jewelry into the traditional culture of the Turkic-Muslim peoples of Eurasia, including Central Asian ones, was carried out thanks to the functioning of the “secondary” Kazan-Tatar centres of jewelry production in the east of the Volga-Ural region. This was especially facilitated by the production and trading activities of the well-known in Russia Rybnaya-Sloboda handicraft industry. The analysis based on typological, cartographic and illustrative materials of the Historical and ethnographic atlas of the Tatar people (volume “Folk costume”).