Печенежский набор украшений узды из находки у с. Балки
A Set of the Pecheneg Harness Ornaments from the Find in the Vicinity of Balky Village

Summary/Abstract: The paper introduces a complex of silver harness ornaments from the collection of the Museum of History of Zaporozhian Cossacks of the Khortytsia National Reservation. The complex includes two leaf-shaped harness drops, four fittings and 7 belt tips, most likely, originated from the destroyed barrow burial in the vicinity of Balky village, Zaporizhia region.Analogies to objects are ornaments of the Pecheneg harness of the 10th—11th centuries. The combination of the details shape and the style of their decoration is characteristic for the Mirne chronological horizon, reflecting the transitional period of changes in Pecheneg jewelry styles after the defeat of the Khazar Khaganate (965—969) and the influx of new groups of Pechenegs into the Northern Black Sea region – those who previously inhabited the Left Bank of the Volga region in the vicinity of the Oguz tribes.Copies of gilded harness ornaments made of lower-standard silver without gilding indicate a long period of use of the Balky harness, with the loss of a part of the ornaments and then their subsequent restoration by a local jeweler who couldn’t reproduce the gilding technology. This rare circumstance illustrates the use by the Pechenegs of both the services of stationary jewelry workshops and handicraft artisans.

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