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Northern Europe / Central Asia, Viking period, Russia (Kievan Rus), ca. 10th to 11th century CE. An incredible early Christian pendant suspended on a knitted chain, both made from silver. The chain terminates in coiled terminals and is connected to the pendant by a series of coiled and looped pieces of thin silver wire. The pendant, crescent-moon in form, has a cross cast between its two ends. Three raised bosses, stamped circles, and triangles decorate the outward face of the moon shape and the cross. Viewed as a single piece, this speaks to the distinctive cultural milieu of the eastern Viking world and its contact with the Byzantine Empire and Muslim Middle East. Chain is 28.5" L (72.4 cm), while pendant is 1.55" W x 1.9" H (3.9 cm x 4.8 cm); (97.4 g)

The chain is a style of knitwork done with thin silver wire that seems to have originated with the Vikings. The important Viking metalworking shops corresponded to their great trading ports and proto-urban centers - Birka, Helgo, Sigtuna, and Lund in Sweden, Ribe, Haithabu (Hedeby), and Fyrkat in Denmark, and Kaupang and Trondheim in Norway. Silver was the principal currency of the Viking world, which stretched from Russia to northern Canada at the height of their influence. In many places, the Vikings kept silver not as coins, but as jewelry, a wearable currency form that was not subject to the authority of a monarch or mint. One of the most common archaeological finds from the Viking period is a hoard of metal objects, often buried in the earth or deposited in bodies of water, like river beds. The conversion to Christianity - which took place around the end of the tenth century CE in Viking Russia - did not mean a complete disavowal of pagan beliefs, at least for the first generations, and this piece of art beautifully connects the old Viking style to new (to them) Christian iconography.

Provenance: private New York, USA collection

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#124269

Patina on surface and slight deposts on chain.