A KABARDIAN CIRCASSIAN LEATHER BELT WITH RUSSIAN SILVER COINS AND A SILVER AND NIELLO BUCKLE
Kabardia, Northern Caucasus, Russian Empire, ca. 1880 - 1920

The morocco brown leather belt embellished with three overlapping rows of silver coins for a total of eighty-one (81), including eighty Pre-1917 Russian 20 Kopeks silver coins from the Russian Empire featuring the crowned double-headed imperial eagle on one side, struck in Petrograd (Saint Petersburg), dating from approximately 1852 until late 1860s, and a single Qajar 100 Dinar from the time of Muzaffar ad-Din Shah (1896 - 1907), dated 1319 SHA (1902 AD), with the Qajar royal emblem of the Lion and the Sun (Shir-o-Khorshid) and the Qajar crown, each coin either sawn into the leather or secured with rivets, the silver belt buckle encrusted with three large red agate gems, cut into circular and oval shapes, set in the high-collet bezel with dog teeth claws, and further incised and decorated with niello floral sprays, encased within a frame of arrow-shaped studs , stamped on the inside with the Russian silversmith's 'MA' mark of Matrena Andreyeva (Матрена Андреева, Moscow 1894 - 1908).

28cm diameter and 9.3cm high

794gr.

Belts with coins were not uncommon in Central Asian and Caucasian territories coinciding with modern-day Azerbaijan, Georgia, Dagestan, and ex-Circassian territories, today part of the Russian Federation. But what makes this example a remarkable specimen is the very elaborate silver and niello belt buckle set with three red agate gems as well as the several rows of silver coins on the leather strip. The combination of these two elements is representative of the wealth and social status of its wearer, most likely a well-off Circassian woman. In fact, Caucasian belts with coins were usually gifted to women as well-wishing presents, symbols of a good, long, and prosperous life. They served an essential practical function too: the silver coins - or in other examples silver charms and amulets - often accompanying these belts acted as currency for monetary transactions, granting women with a form of economic independence and personal wealth.

An analogous example to the present lot is published in Galina Komleva, Jewellery: Museum of the Ethnography of the Peoples of the USSR, 1988, p. 73. This belt, dating to the late 19th - early 20th century, was attributed to the Avars tribe, also known as Maharuls, a Northeastern Caucasian ethnic group, the largest of several ethnic minorities living in the Russian Republic of Dagestan. That said, similar belts with Russian coins and nielloed buckles have also been attributed to the Kabardians (Къэбэрдей адыгэхэр / Кабарди́нцы), one of the twelve major Circassian (Çerkes) tribes. Historically, these people lived in the Great Kabarda Principality in Northern Caucasus, partly corresponding to modern-day Kabardino-Balkaria. This region was established as an independent political community in the 15th century (ca. 1453) and it only lost its independence in the early 19th century, when it came under Russian control after the Russo-Circassian War (1763 - 1864). Despite their diaspora, the Kabardians managed to preserve many of their traditional art forms and cultural practices, especially their dancing and singing, which they brought along with them in the countries where they settled, mostly in Turkey, Jordan, Israel, Syria, Egypt and Eastern Europe.