Ancient lunar amulets - classification and typology of amulets (photo)

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Lunnitsa is one of the most common amulets-amulets that have existed for many eras and were part of a woman's attire. With all the variety of forms and techniques of performance, their general resemblance to the Moon remains unchanged, embodying the lunar cult, fertility and the feminine principle.

Lunar production has its roots in the millennia. The first three-horned lunars are known already in the monuments of the Bronze Age. In the antique period, golden crescent moonworms, decorated with filigree decor, appear. In late Roman times, the crescent shape was widespread among the peoples of Europe and Western Asia. From the territory of Eastern Europe, the early Chernyakhov lunits originate. Enamel crescents are characteristic of the Dnieper territories and belong to the Kiev culture.

From the second half of the 9th century. lunars appear in the culture of the Eastern Slavs and exist until the 13th century. As well as Old Russian pectoral crosses on the territory of Ancient Russia, the lunars are spreading already in the X-XI centuries. and in the XII-XIII centuries. become the most popular among the adornments of the village population, although, as recent studies have shown, it is impossible to consider the lunar as a purely Slavic adornment. The appearance of two-horned lunars is associated with the penetration into the Slavic environment at the end of the 7th - beginning of the 8th century. complex of filigree-grained women's jewelry in connection with the first wave of Byzantine influence. The best examples of lunars are stamped silver, decorated with real grain, which are known from the hoards of the 10th – 11th centuries. In imitation of them from bronze and tin-lead alloys, lunars were cast with a pattern that copied the grain. They were worn mainly as pendants to ornate necklaces along with temporal decorations.

By the XII century. include neck jewelry, which could include more than ten different old Russian amulets of pendants-lunar … In 1914, the first classification of lunits, developed by Vera Vladimirovna Golmsten, was published. Its classification is based on the ratio of the length of the middle horizontal line to the distance between the horns. According to this classification, lunars are divided into wide-horned and narrow-horned ones, and according to the manufacturing technique - into stamped filigree and cast ones. Wide-horned silver lunars of filigree-grain work, known to us from the treasures and individual rich burials of the local feudal nobility, are the products of Russian urban jewelers of the 10th – 11th centuries.

Broad-horned cast lunars began to come into use at the end of the 10th - beginning of the 11th century. (dated according to coins found with them in burials and hoards).

The narrow-legged lunars are characterized by a plant ornament in the form of two branches diverging in different directions, and a geometric pattern of relief lines and pseudo-grain balls. In the XI-XII centuries. wide-horned lunar moons are being replaced by new types - sharp-horned, steep-horned, closed, cross-included, etc., which have direct Byzantine prototypes, which in turn go back to the Roman lunar moons of the 3rd – 4th centuries.

In addition to the types of lunits described above, widespread in Russia, in the monuments of the XI-XII centuries. cast miniature lunars are also presented, among which it is sometimes difficult to separate the narrow-horned from the wide-horned ones.

We will finish the review of amulets of this group with a description of the lunar of a peculiar shape - the so-called closed-cracked (lunar with a cross). Many researchers are inclined to attribute this type of pendants to the phenomenon of dual faith that developed in Ancient Rus in the 10th century. simultaneously with the adoption of Christianity and in some regions continuing to this day.

There is also an opinion that this type of appendage, like all lunars, was originally associated with the Roman Empire, with the peoples of Catholic countries, where they were perceived as a talisman and a Christian symbol of the Virgin Mary.

In both narrow-horned and wide-horned lunars, there is also a fractional division in each type. Lunnitsa are divided into: - slotted - wide-horned ones are usually distinguished by an arched cutout on the lunar field, and narrow-horned ones - with an openwork pattern. - with zoomorphic or other endings.

It should be emphasized that the overwhelming majority of cast broad-horned and narrow-horned lunars known to us comes from burial monuments left by the rural population of Ancient Rus.

Therefore, it is quite natural to assume that these ornaments, like many others, were made mainly by village casters. In any case, cheap cast wide-horned and narrow-horned lunars, which were the products of local village jewelers, prevailed in the women's metal headdress of the ordinary rural population of the north-west and north-east of Russia during the 11th – 12th centuries.