Gold Temporal Rings with a Small Duck from the Perm Cis-Urals

Abstract

The author examines a typical Bulgarian precious adornment – gold temple rings with a fi ligree duck fi gurine. He considers their area, manufacturing technology, issues of origin, dating and semantics. Such pendants are thought to be an ethno-social marker of the Volga Bulgaria nobility. Findings of such rings outside Bulgaria, including imported items, are known only in the Perm Cis-Urals, which is thought to be their local manufacturing center. This suggests that representatives of the Bulgarian nobility lived there and possibly married the elite of the Cis-Uralic Finno-Ugrians, who were in the process of their feudalization.

Keywords

• archaeology
• society
• Volga Bulgaria
• Perm Cis-Urals
• adornments
• temporal rings
• small duck figurine
• feudal nobility
• ethnic and social connections