Workshop for manufacturing single-sided combs in XI-XII centuries on the territory of the Zavelichie district of the city of Pskov
https://doi.org/10.21285/2415-8739-2023-1-49-63
Abstract
The article publishes the materials of the Klimentovsky-6 excavation in 2017 in Pskov. During the archaeological research on the left bank of the Velikaya River a collection of 240 finds was assembled. A significant part of the finds from bone raw materials - 31 units are items which mark the presence of the manufacture of objects from bone - blanks of products and production waste from dense horn and animal bones. An analysis of the product blanks made it possible to establish that they are of the same type and are represented by the details of single-sided type-setting combs. The dating of the discovered production complex is the turn of the 11th-12th centuries, which changes the researchers' stable ideas about the use of such things before the 11th century. To date, 27 one-sided typesetting combs and their cases are known from the territory of medieval Pskov, but the bone carving workshop that made them was discovered for the first time. Working with excavation materials, it was possible to partially reconstruct the layout of this section of Pskov and link the work and life of the master bone carver with specific archaeological objects. It is important to note not only the dating of the identified production set, which goes beyond the established notions, but also its highly specialized focus, as well as the fact that the manufactured category of products is traditionally associated with the elite strata of the population. The production of such things is not a household processing of bone or horn, but a highly artistic work. Neatly and symmetrically made, often richly ornamented, such things were made especially for sale. The manufacture of single-sided type-setting combs is a complex and time-consuming process, most researchers of the bone-carving business of Northern Europe agree on the narrow specialization of such craftsmen.
About the Author
A. V. Fisenko
State Budgetary Institution of Culture of the Pskov Region “Archaeological Center of the Pskov Region”
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Alexey V. Fisenko, Researcher at the Department for Organization and Coordination of Work on the Preservation of the Archaeological Heritage; Applicant for the degree of candidate of historical sciences
1/1, Herzen St., Pskov 180006;
19, Dmitry Ulyanov St., Moscow 117292
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