Indian Antiquary Vol 61

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 119

JUNE, 1932 ]
NOTE ON A FIND OF ANCIENT JEWELLERY IN YASIN
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A fine piece of jewellery is seen in the large gold bead one inch high shown in Pl. JI, fig. 13. It is formed by two cones joined at their base. Each shows above a grain string three small pear-shaped stones within grain-bordered bezels and between them a triangular device also formed of small grains. Three of the small stones are lost; the others look like garnets. The same triangular device appears also as decoration on the three ribs of a gold ornament (PI. II, fig. 11), which has a tube down its centre and probably formed part of a necklace.
The same style of decoration is seen also on the ball which forms the top portion of the elaborate gold mount fixed to a large uncut pale blue, pear-shaped sapphire, which may have been used as a pendant or ear ornament (Pl. II, fig. 16). Two small stones(?) of dark opaque colour are fixed at the ends of the transverse bar which supports the ball. Another uncut stone, partly broken, retains only a part of a similar gold mount on its top; the stone itself is flaked. There are five more uncut gems, all transparent and of irregular shapes, which show perforations meant to hold fittings. Two of them are light blue sapphires, two deep red garnets, and the fifth a crystal. With them may be mentioned a flat bead, worked of an almost black opaque stone(?).
Four globular beads of gold (PI. II, fig. 12) are formed of neat filigree openwork. Its style is not unlike modern silver filigree ornament seen by me in Chinese Turkestan.
Strings of tiny grains play a subordinate part in the decoration of two gold ornaments (PI. II, figs. 3 and 7), the use of which is not quite certain. Both are rosettes of gold worked in repoussé, each with a small projecting tube soldered to the flat sheet forming the back, evidently intended to fix them to some other object. The larger one, measuring 17 inches in diameter, is decorated on the raised surface with a whorl of lotus petals in relief and within this on a higher plane with another whorl, the two whorls divided by a raised, notched band. A third, and slightly smaller, whorl is separately cut from sheetgold and is superimposed on the second. Above this a circle of grains surrounds the crowning bezel. The smaller rosette, about one inch in diameter, shows a single circle of lotus petals and a central bezel. In both cases the jewels are missing.
The lotus ornament with small leaves arranged in palmette shapes appears in the oblong gold plaque (PI. II, fig. 20), two inches long, worked in repoussé. It may perhaps have been fixed to the end of a leather strap. The two narrow gold plaques (Pl. II, figs. 2 and 6), also in repoussé, are exactly alike in size (17 inch long) and in their leaf-shape ornamentation and quadrangular jewel cells. They may well have formed part of a small buckle or strap ends. Pins of silver inside probably served to fix them to leather.
The use of an oblong plaque of silver (Pl. JI, fig. 1) showing floral motifs in relievo is likely to have been similar. The method of fixing the heart-shaped gilt plaque (PI.JI, fig. 8) having in its centre a bezel for a gem now missing is uncertain. Its crude ornament is poorly chased.
There still remain to be mentioned two small cases of thin gold sheet (Pl. II, figs. 4 and 18) both obviously meant to hold amulets like the modern ta'wiz still to be seen in the Northwest of India and probably elsewhere also. The front side of the larger one, two inches square, has for its chief ornament a lotus flower in repoussé, with a circular bezel for a gem now lost, and four more pear-shaped bezels in the corners, also without the gems they were meant to hold. On the back a quatrefoil of heart-shaped leaves is enclosed within a pearl border.. One of the sides is now open but shows holes for small rivets or suspension loops.
The smaller case, measuring approximately 11 by 17 inches, consists of two thin gold plates, the turned-over edges of one fitting over those of the other and both decorated in repoussé. There is in the centre of each side a plain sunk oblong surrounded by a floral scroll which is suggestive of the twining acanthus ornament often seen on wood carvings of the Niya and Lou-lan sites (circa third century A.D.) in Chinese Turkestan and in Gandhara relievos also.
There is also a golden hairpin, 31 inches long, shown in Pl. II, fig. 9. Its top portion is ornamented on one side with a simple geometrical pattern on a stippled ground. Two