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Brian Castriota Institute of Fine Arts New York University Spring 2012 Garnets, Gold and Power in Late Antiquity: Contextualizing the Tournai and Apahida Treasures

The earliest direct antecedents of the kind of garnet cloisonné common in Late

Antiquity and the Migration Period appear in high-status grave assemblages that date to

the late third and early fourth centuries. These graves are concentrated around the

northern and eastern coasts of the Black Sea, and garnet cloisonné finds appear frequently

alongside Roman and Sassanian grave goods. By the fifth century garnet inlaid fittings

had become a common feature of high-status burials along the Danube, and occur in

grave assemblages stretching from Southern Russia to Northern France, a region

inhabited by various Germanic tribes under the control of the Huns until their Empire

collapsed in 453. By the late fifth century, a technically sophisticated and refined phase

of garnet cloisonné emerged, represented by the finds from Apahida in modern day

Romania and the grave of Frankish leader Childeric at Tournai, France. Historical

sources establish a terminus ante quem of 481 CE for the garnet cloisonné finds

discovered at Tournai, and the material from Apahida is considered to be

contemporaneous on the basis of technical and stylistic similarities between these objects

and other associated grave goods. Early twentieth century scholars categorized garnet

cloisonné finds as Germanic and Hunnic primarily on the basis of their geographic

distribution and burial contexts. However, technical analyses on these objects over the

last thirty years necessitate a revision of these assumptions and a reconsideration of

where these objects were made and their meaning and function in Late Antiquity.

Increasingly, the Apahida and Tournai finds have been understood as Imperial

commissions, manufactured in Constantinopolitan workshops or dispersed satellite

workshops connected to them. At Apahida and Tournai these objects are found alongside

late fifth-century gold opus interrasile crossbow fibulae, which are considered Eastern

Mediterranean in origin and are thought to have been worn by high-ranking civil servants

and Roman military allies. While no textual sources describe the distribution of these

fibulae among Barbarian allies, we know that practices of gift-giving and investiture were

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a common part of the construction of militaristic and political alliances between

Barbarian leaders and the Late Roman Empire. Like the gold fibulae, the garnet

cloisonné finds from Apahida and Tournai may also be understood as Imperial gifts

presented to allies of the late Roman Empire.

This paper contextualizes these finds by first examining primary accounts of fifth

century sartorial culture and investiture practices within and beyond the borders of the

Roman Empire. The history of garnet cloisonné production in Late Antiquity is outlined,

and the shared technical and stylistic features of the Apahida and Tournai finds are

identified. This paper then considers the historical circumstances in which they might

have been produced, as well as their role in constructing or maintaining military alliances

and political control. Finally, the symbolic qualities of these objects – and their

implications – are considered by examining how they may have conferred and indexed

the recipient and wearer’s position in both Roman and non-Roman cultural spheres.

Dress, Diplomacy and the Historical Sources

One of the earliest indications of barbarian taste for luxury items is preserved in the

New History of Zosimus, written around 500 CE. In Book V, Zosimus relies heavily if

not exclusively on the accounts of Olympiadorus of Thebes. The account vividly

describes the Visigothic siege on Rome led by Alaric in 410 CE, and the payment

extracted from the citizens of Rome as tribute:

“After long discussions on both sides, it was at length agreed that the city should give five thousand pounds of gold, and thirty thousand of silver, four thousand silk robes, three thousand scarlet fleeces/skins, and three thousand pounds of pepper. As the city possessed no public stock, it was necessary for the senators who had property, to undertake the collection by an assessment.”1

Zosimus’s account details the items of highest material value to the Visigoths in the early

fifth century: gold and silver, which would have partly been in the form of Roman

jewelry and plate, dyed red leather, silk robes or tunics, and pepper, ostensibly from

India. These were all items of luxury, composed of materials from distant lands, which

dazzled both the visual and gustatory senses. We imagine that some of these items, 1 Zosimus, Historia Nova, Book V.41.4.

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particularly gold in the form of jewelry, as well as the skins and tunics, could have been

worn immediately by the Visigoths as a conspicuous appropriation of Roman dress

celebrating the power they were able to exert over the citizens of Rome. We might also

consider the Visigothic taste for silks, dyed leather and pepper as participation in a wider

culture which valued and appreciated exotic and colorful goods that communicated the

wearer’s ability to command such resources.

Priscus’s account of his experience as an envoy to the court of Attila the Hun in

448/449 CE contains the most detailed descriptions of Roman diplomatic gift-giving and

Barbarian tastes for luxury goods in the fifth century. Sent with an envoy by Emperor

Theodosius the Younger to the court of Attila the Hun, Priscus provides us with a

window into Eastern Roman diplomatic practice in the mid-fifth century while the Huns

were at the height of their power. It also gives us a context in which we might consider

late fifth century garnet cloisonné accessories like those from Apahida and Tournai,

which which also belong to roughly the same period.

In Priscus, gift-giving can be understood in part as a mode of commerce between

the Roman envoy and the Huns. Gifts are presented as bribes, as an expression of

apology or gratitude, as well as a currency to be redistributed among the Huns and other

subjugated Germanic tribes. While Roman expectations of reciprocity are not explicit, it

is nevertheless implied, and the Huns are well aware. The gifts are rarely described in

any detail, further underscoring the rote nature of Imperial gift-giving, but a few times the

reader is provided with some specifics. After insulting the Hunnic diplomats, Maximinus

wins over Edeco and Orestes with “gifts of silk garments and pearls.”2 On more than one

occasion it is clear that the gifts and gold are explicitly sent “from the Emperor” in a

failed attempt to persuade Onegesius to betray Attila and side with the Romans.3 The

Barbarians had realized that the threat of war could produce far more in the form of

tribute than any spoils they could acquire by an act of war, and so it seems the Huns too

recognized that playing politics could be more lucrative than any concrete actions. It is

unlikely that Onegesius would have ever seriously entertained the notion of switching

sides, but he understood the material wealth that could be acquired and used to project his 2 Priscus, Exc. De Leg. Rom. 3, in Blockley, R. C. The Fragmentary Classicising Historians of the Later Roman Empire: Eunapius, Olympiodorus, Priscus, and Malchus. Liverpool, Great Britain: F. Cairns, 1981, pp. 247. 3 Priscus, in Blockley, pp. 275.

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own status and power by playing along.4

Attila’s daughter-in-law, the wife of Bleda, is also thanked by the Roman envoy

for her hospitality during a storm with “three silver bowls, red skins, Indian pepper, dates

and other dried fruits which the barbarians value because they are not native to their own

country.”5 As in Zosimus’s account, we find evidence of both red-dyed leather and

pepper – explicitly mentioned as coming from India – as luxury items. Priscus’s

explanation of why dried fruit would be grouped together with the other luxury items

suggests that the silver bowls, red leather, and Indian pepper would have been understood

as prestige goods by both Romans and Barbarians.

Apart from gift-giving, Priscus’s description of Attila is perhaps the most revealing

anecdote regarding Barbarian fashions and tastes.

“Attila’s servant entered first bearing a plate full of meat, and after him those who were serving us placed bread and cooked foods on the tables. While for the other barbarians and for us there were lavishly prepared dishes served on silver platters, for Attila there was only meat on a wooden plate. He showed himself temperate in other ways also. For golden and silver goblets were handed to the men at the feast, whereas his cup was of wood. His clothing was plain and differed not at all from that of the rest, except that it was clean. Neither the sword that hung from his side nor the fastenings of his barbarian boots nor his horse’s bridle was adorned, like those of the other Scythians, with gold or precious stones or anything else of value.”6

Priscus’s description of the “other Scythians” immediately recalls the dress accessories

associated with mid- to late-fifth century grave assemblages found up and down the

Danube, such as the garnet cloisonné boot fasteners from Blucina (figs. 50 - 56) as well

as many of the horse fittings and other accessories from Apahdia and Tournai. Although

Priscus purposefully draws a stark contrast between Attila’s conspicuously austere dress

and those of the other Scythians, we might also imagine the sartorial contrast that would

have occurred between Attila and the other Roman dignitaries. We know from

Ammianus Marcellinus that the Late Roman army participated in the same sort of

4 For a discussion of honorific robing in Barbarian contexts, see Gordon, Stewart. “A World of Investiture.” Ed. Stewart Gordon. Robes and Honor: The Medieval World of Investiture. New York: Palgrave, 2001, pp. 1-19. 5 Priscus, in Blockley, pp. 263. 6 Priscus, in Blockley, pp. 285.

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barbarizing, ostentatious dress in the mid-fourth century. During Constantius’ imperial

entrance into Rome, Marcellinus describes Constantius seated on “a golden car in the

resplendent blaze of shimmering precious stones, whose mingled glitter seemed to form a

sort of shifting light. And behind the manifold others that preceded him, many other

dragons surrounded him, woven out of purple thread, bound to the gold and jeweled tops

of the spears.”7 Marcellinus also describes Julian’s horse, Babylonius falling to the

ground, “scattered about its ornaments, which were adorned with gold and precious

stones.”8

As Canepa points out, hostile Roman sources claim that bejeweled red and purple

footwear made from expensive dyed silk and leather was one of Diocletian’s many

additions to the Imperial costume.9 We can also look to the scabbards depicted on the

porphyry statues the Four Tetrarchs now in Venice (figs. 57 - 58.) as well as the sword

depicted on the Stilicho diptych (figs. 59 - 60) for evidence of Roman tastes for

bejeweled military accessories. By the end of the sixth century red bejeweled shoes

became cross-cultural insignias of Roman and Sassanian power and kingship. It is more

than likely that at the time of Priscus such boots already carried similar connotations of

authority and signified inclusion within an aristocratic class that may have outweighed

specific cultural connotations. Priscus description of Attila’s dress and behavior should

therefore be understood not as a comment on the differences between Roman and

Barbarian sartorial culture, but rather as a testament to Attila interest in elevating his

status to that of a god-like figure through austere dress and behavior.

Garnet Cloisonné and its Antecedents

The earliest direct antecedents of the Apahida and Tournai treasures are found in

grave assemblages dating to the late third and early fourth centuries around the North and

Eastern coasts of the Black Sea along the Crimean peninsula, and in Iberia, modern day

Georgia. These objects are characterized by their use of flat, garnet plates, cut on their

7 Ammianus Marcellinus, XVI.10, 6-7, trans. John C. Rolfe, Loeb Classical Library, Vol. 1, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956, pp. 245. 8 Ammianus Marcellinus, XXIII.3, 6 in Rolfe, pp. 323. 9 Canepa, Matthew P. The Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and Ritual of Kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran. Berkeley: University of California, 2009, pp. 201.

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edges into rectilinear shapes and set into bronze, gilt silver and gold bezels. They are

usually backed by gold or silver foils with a waffle-like texture to reflect the light on top

of a bedding material, and are held in place by burnishing the top edges of the metal cell

walls over the edges of the garnet plates. Gem closionné was employed by the Egyptians,

so this was not any sort of novel development, but the particular use of garnet-and-gold

cloisonné – occasionally accented by green glass, bone or pearls – does not begin until

this period.

The geographic distribution of this material is overwhelmingly weighted to regions

and cultures that practiced inhumation and buried their dead with grave furnishings. This

of course leads to a preferential distribution of garnet cloisonné artifacts to third and early

fourth century Alano-Sarmatian, and Hunnic and Germanic graves in the later fourth,

fifth, and sixth centuries. This Pontic material was tradionally dated to the period after

370 CE when the Huns crossed the Volga because, more often than not, the objects were

found in association with explicitly Hunnic or Central Asian burial contexts that included

bows and other nomadic weapons. The geographic distribution of fifth century garnet

cloisonné finds, limited to the Carpathian Basin and along the Danube, was generally

thought to be linked with the movement of the Huns during this period. Riegl, however,

identified a Late Antique kunstwollen in the style of “garnets inlaid in gold,” and

lamented the nationalistic biases of German scholars who characterized the material as

Germanic.10 More recently it has become clear how this distribution pattern of these

objects speaks less to the dissemination of garnet cloisonné style by the Huns to

Germanic tribes, and more to the problems raised by assigning ethnically defined or

culturally-loaded nomenclature to the garnet cloisonné style.

Accessories decorated with garnet cloisonné appear in Iberian tombs dated to just

after 260 at a point when the region became incorporated into the Sassanian Empire. In a

tomb near Phasis, on the eastern shore of Black Sea in Georgia, a number of garnet

cloisonné accessories have been found with a terminus post quem of 275 – 276 CE on the

10 Riegl, Alois. Late Roman Art Industry. Trans. Rolf Winkes. Roma: G. Bretschneider, 1985. Print. Originally published Die spätrömische Kunstindustrie nach den Funden in Österreich-Ungarn (Vienna, 1901), pp. 192.

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basis of a coin of Tacitus found in the assemblage (fig. 61).11 A grave assemblage from

the Aragvispiri Necropolis near Tbilsi, Georgia also contained garnet cloisonné alongside

Roman and Sasanian silver plates, including one that depicts Shapur I who ruled from

240-270 CE (fig. 62).12

In the early fourth century Armenia and Iberia were partitioned west and east

between the Roman Empire and Sassanian Persia respectively.13 Adams argues that the

fashion for garnet cloisonné accessories in Iberia and Lazica reflected those kingdoms’

economic and political ties to Western Asia where it seems garnet cloisonné was

practiced well into the fifth century, but is preserved in only limited quantities.14 Pliny

describes ancient garnet sources in India, Carthage and Alabanda in Asia Minor (Historia

Naturalis, Book XXXVII), and while in many cases local sources for garnets may have

been exploited, Adams and Roth argue strongly in favor of a Kushan source for garnets.15

Understood as an exotic commodity like Indian spices and silks, carried from the East

along the various trade routes, we can begin to imagine how garnet-inlaid jewelry would

have functioned alongside other luxury items as an index of power in regions where the

Sassanian and Roman Empires both exerted enormous political influence.

Archaeoethnographic work by Ustinova revealed that at Tanais, in the second to

third centuries, half the names of the occupants were Greek and about a third of the total

population were of Iranian origin.16 By the third century Greek and Roman names

decrease, and Iranian names increase. Ustinova emphasizes that the culture of the late

Bosphorus should be understood “not as a symbiosis of Greeks and Iranians, but as a

synthesis of Greek and Iranian strands.”17 Archaeological finds from the area around the

Crimean peninsula, suggest that garnet cloisonné accessories were popular among male,

11 Ščukin, Mark, and Igor Bažan. "L'origine Du Style Cloisoneé De L'époque Des Grandes Migrations." La Noblesse Romaine Et Les Chefs Barbares Du IIIe Au VII Siecle. By Francoise Vallet and Michel Kazanski. Rouen (France): Association Francaise D'archeologie Merovingienne, 1995, pp. 65. 12 Ibid. 13 Adams, (Debra) Noël. "Late Antique, Migration Period and Early Byzantine Garnet Cloisonné Ornaments: Origins, Styles and Workshop Production." Dis. University College London, 1991, pp. 93. 14 Adams, pp. 94; 288. See also the two cloisonné medalions from Taxila at the Victoria and Albert Museum and Cleveland Museum of Art (Cat. No 173; Pl. 21.2,3). 15 See Roth, Helmut. Kunst Der Völkerwanderungszeit. Frankfurt am Main: Propyläen Verlag, 1979, pp. 318-323. 16 Ustinova, Yulia. "The Bosporan Kingdom in Late Antiquity: Ethnic and Religious Transformations." Ethnicity and Culture in Late Antiquity. By Stephen Mitchell and Geoffrey Greatrex. London: Duckworth and the Classical of Wales, 2000. 154. 17 Ustinova, pp. 155.

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warrior elites early as the late-third century, prior to the arrival of the Huns (figs. 63 -

64).18 These prestige objects seem to speak to a taste defined less by specific cultural or

tribal affiliations but rather represented and communicated inclusion within an

aristocratic sartorial culture operating within both Greco-Roman and Sasanian cultural

spheres.

By the early fifth century, after the Huns had moved into Central Europe, garnet

cloisonné accessories become a common feature of Germanic burials from Southern

Russia, to Northern France. The Wolfsheim Treasure – discovered in 1870 – speaks to

the difficulty of dating and ascribing ethnic identity to these kinds of burials (figs. 65 -

66). The assemblage includes a plaque inscribed with the name Ardashir in Pahlavi script

– a Sassanian ruler from the third century – as well as a gold solidus of Valens and buckle

with stepped garnet plates, a fifth century development. The meaning behind this

juxtaposition of Sassanian, Roman, and Germanic material is elusive. Does this speak to

a direct Germanic/Hunnic connection to Imperial Sassanian costume, or rather Roman

import and investiture? Are the two mutually exclusive or might they be suggestive of

sartorial practices that existed within an autonomous, aristocratic military culture?

The Finds From Apahida and Tournai

Though geographically separated by over a thousand miles, the garnet cloisonné

finds from the Apahida and Tournai burials both speak to the technical sophistication and

refinement of the garnet cloisonné style in the late fifth century. Because of their stylistic

and typological similarities, the finds from Tournai and Apahida are considered as part of

a singular class of high-status, military dress accessories. The Apahida and Tournai

garnet-inlaid material fall within two overlapping garnet cloisonné style categories

characterized by Adams as “notched plate style” and “carpet style”.19 The Notched Plate

style refers specifically to cloisonné in which flat, garnet plates of various shapes have

been notched with bow-driven grinding wheels along one or more edges at regular

18 Ščukin, Mark et al., pp. 63 – 64. The finds from the Armazishevi tombs, at the mouth of the river Don are also dated to the mid-late 3rd century based on numismatic evidence, as is the tomb at Nedvigovka, near Tanais, based on similarities between grave furnishings. Unfortunately this tomb has no absolute date, but Ščukin and other scholars argue that the finds from this Alano-Sarmation tomb are comparable to similar pre-Hunnic burials. 19 Adams, pp. 47.

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intervals to create a scalloped edge along each garnet plate. Separated by an undulating

cell wall, the notched plates interlock to create a dazzling, “stepped” effect. The Carpet

Style is defined by the covering of all visible surfaces of objects with complex,

interconnecting designs. Rectilinear plate shapes are replaced by S- an Ω-shaped plates.

Other common features include trefoil-shaped, quatrefoil-shaped, hexagonal, and drilled

circular plates, narrow rectangular and carved bar cabochons, and pin-head cabochons.20

In both styles, cell walls are soldered to the side walls, and may or may not come into

contact with or be soldered to the backing plate. In keeping with earlier phases of garnet

cloisonné, plates are secured in a gypsum or calcite bedding paste, and are backed by a

sheet of patterned gold foil. For the sake of brevity, these technical characteristics will

hereafter be referred to as the Apahida-Tournai style. Other mid- to late-fifth century

finds like those from Blucina in southwest Germany, and Pouan on the Seine in Northern

France also fall within this category; as such, the naming is arbitrary, but the plate shapes,

types and ornamental motifs created by the cloisonné are not.

The first Apahida grave was discovered in 1889 near Cluj, Romania, and though

partially despoiled, it retained enough material to identify the occupant as nobleman

named Omharus through the presence of two gold name rings in Latin and Greek (figs. 8

- 9). Other dress items included a large garnet cloisonné belt buckle (fig. 1, 81), an opus

interrasile crossbow fibula (fig. 11), and a gold arm ring with flared terminals (fig. 5). A

second grave was discovered in 1968, 500 meters from the first and, though also partially

despoiled, preserved an unprecedented amount of garnet cloisonné dress accessories,

which – like the items from Apahida I – are executed in a technically sophisticated style

of cloisonné (figs. 12 - 39). The buckles, horse fittings, and purse lid all make use of

interlocking notched garnet plates separated by undulating cell walls, interlocking S-

shape and Ω-shape plates, ribbed bar cabochons plates, as well as pinpoint cabochons

used as a framing device on the buckles and purse lids. A third buckle found nearby in

1979 (figs. 77 - 78) is very similar to the previous two and may or may not belong to the

same assemblages as the previous two graves. Regardless, the stylistic commonalities

among the constituent parts – as compared with other Late Antique garnet cloisonné

accessories – establishes the basis of the argument that the objects constitute a singular

20 Adams, pp. 48.

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ensemble and potentially a singular moment and place of manufacture.

The grave assemblage found at Tournai is associated with Childeric, leader of the

Salian Franks, on the basis of a signet ring inscribed with the name CHILDIRICI REGIS

and a portrait of Childeric himself (fig. 47). The assemblage also included a gold

crossbow fibula with opus interrasile decoration, a gold arm ring, and a number of garnet

cloisonné dress accessories including buckles, sword fittings and bridle ornaments. The

burial was discovered in 1653, and in 1831 the treasure of Childeric was among 80 kilos

of treasure stolen from the Biblioteque National in Paris and melted down. A few pieces,

including the sword fittings, were retrieved from where they had been hidden in the

Seine, however the lost items are now only preserved in the detailed engravings made by

Chiflet in 1655, and in the case of the fibula and signet ring, the replicas and impressions

that were made of them.

Like the Apahida buckles and purse lid, the garnet cloisonné fittings from

Childeric’s spatha guards and seax scabbard are decorated with repeated, interlocking,

notched garnet plates, rows of S- and Ω-shape plates, as well as pin-head cabochons (figs.

40 - 43). According to Chiflet’s illustrations, Chidleric was also buried with a number of

buckles, each with variations on the kind of garnet cloisonné kidney-bean motif found at

Apahida. The largest buckle – possibly a cingulum – contains a kidney-bean shaped

tongue-plaque, encircled by pinpoint cabochons, and decorated around its sides by bar

cabochons, not at all dissimilar to the tongue plaques of the Apahida I and Apahida III

buckles (figs. 67 - 68); Kiss argues that a similar buckle tongue found in Instanbul (fig.

69) suggests that this style of decoration and buckle construction was derived from or

reflected in Late Antique Constantinopolitan buckle fashions.21 The double-eagle-head

fittings – possibly seax pommels and or sword chapes – are also decorated by

interlocking S-shaped plates and framed by pinpoint cabochons, and in the case of the

Apahida fitting, ribbed bar cabachons (figs. 28, 71 - 72).22 A row of Ω-shape plates runs

the length of the nose on one end of Childeric’s zoomorphic spatha pommel (fig. 41).

21 Kiss, Attila. "Die "barbarischen" Könige Des 4-7. Jahrhunderts Un Karpatenbecken, Als Verbündeten Des Römischen Bzw. Byzantinischen Reiches." La Noblesse Romaine Et Les Chefs Barbares Du IIIe Au VII Siecle. By Francoise Vallet and Michel Kazanski. Rouen (France): Association Francaise D'archeologie Merovingienne, 1995, pp. 183. 22 The double eagle head fittings are argued by Arrhenius to be seax pommels but they may also have been sword chapes. See Arrhenius, pp. 108; Kazanski, pp. 18.

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Notched plates and ribbed bar cabochons are also found on the scabbard fittings from a

spatha discovered in a tomb in Pouan, France in 1849 (fig. 74).

Childeric’s grave is dated to ca. 481 CE on the basis of Gregory of Tours statement

that Childeric’s son Clovis died in 511 CE after reigning for thirty years (Decem Libri

Historiarum, II.31). Our knowledge of Childeric as a historical figure is drawn

predominantly from Gregory of Tours and Fredegar, who wrote in the sixth and eighth

centuries respectively. The Franks formed a large contingent of Aetius’s army during the

Battle of the Catalaunian Fields against the Huns in 451 CE. Guy Halsall has suggested

that Aetius may have left Childeric in charge of the Roman troops following the defeat of

the Huns.23 At the Battle of Orleans against the Visigoths in 463, Childeric also served

under the general Aegidius – a Gallo-Roman appointed magister militum by Aetius in

450 CE. Childeric consequently took the title king of the Franks (Gregory of Tours, Hist.,

II.18), confirmed by the signet ring.

Jordanes’s account is often used to establish the Gepidic identity of the deceased

and a date for the Apahida graves.24 We know from Jordanes that following the death of

Atilla, the Gepidic leader Ardaric led a successful revolt against the Huns at the Battle of

Nedao in 454, and assumed military and political control over the Carpathian Basin:

“The Geipdae by their own might won for themselves the territory of the

Huns and ruled as victors over the extent of all of Dacia, demanding of the Roman Empire nothing more than peace and an annual gift as a pledge of their friendly alliance. This the Emperor freely granted at the time, and to this day that race receives its customary gifts from the Roman Emperor.”25

The Gepid-led revolt effectively ended Hunnic dominance over the subject Germanic

tribes of Central and Eastern Europe, and the Gepids appear to have become close allies

of the Eastern Roman Empire throughout the remainder of the fifth century.

The presence of Latin and Greek signet rings and the gold fibulae in the graves of 23 Halsall, Guy. "Childeric's Grave, Clovis' Succession, and the Origins of the Merovingian Kingdom." Society and Culture in Late Antique Gaul: Revisiting the Sources. By Ralph W. Mathisen and Danuta Shanzer. Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 2001, pp. 181. 24 See Werner, Joachim. “Namensring und Siegelring aus dem Gepidischen Grabfund von Apahida (Siebenbürgen).” Kölner Jahrbuch für Vor- und Frühgeschichte 9 (1967 - 1968): pp. 120-123; Bóna, István. "From Dacia to Transylvania: The Period of the Great Migrations (271-895)." History of Transylvania. By Gábor Barta and Béla Kopeczi. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1994. 25 Jordanes, Getica, L.262 in Mierow, Christopher. The Gothic History of Jordanes: In English Version. Cambridge: Speculum Historiale, 1966.

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Childeric and Omharus suggest that these men maintained some degree of Roman-

authorized administrative and/or military control over the populations in the areas in

which they operated, something well attested to by the historical sources.26 The gold

crossbow fibulae in the graves of Childeric and Omharus are of a type known from other

assemblages to date to the later part of the fifth century and are attributed to Imperial

workshops.27 As Imperial commissions, they would have been presented to members of

the court or civil servants of high rank. Swift argues that they were used to “index the

relationship between Roman authorities on the one hand, and military and civilian

officials on the other.”28 In light of more recent studies on the garnet cloisonné

accessories from Tournai and Apahida, it seems prudent to consider the totality of these

assemblages in a similar context.

Birgit Arrenhius’s technical analyses of the bedding paste compositions of the

garnet cloisonné from Apahida and Tournai revealed that they both used a cement paste

composed primarily of gypsum and calcite. Aside from their stylistic similarities,

Arrhenius argued that these items could only have been produced in well-equipped, urban

workshops, hypothesizing a central workshop in Constantinople, and as well as other

satellite workshops.29 Recent technical analysis by Oanta-Marghitu et. al on the third

Apahida belt buckle discovered in 1989 lends further support to Arrhenius’s hypothesis

(figs. 77 - 78).30 They determined that the proportions of the buckle fit with remarkable

precision into the Roman measurement system (fig. 79). The cloisonné decoration of the

belt plate is built around a quatrefoil cell with a length of 12.3 mm, corresponding to a

half uncia.31 Similarly the width of the plate was found to measure 37 mm or 2 digiti. The

round prominences corresponding to the ribbed bar cabochons, are evenly distributed at

18° intervals from a central axis.32

When compared to other Late Roman belt types it is clear how the so-called kidney 26 MacMullen, Ramsay. "The Emperor's Largesses." Latomus 21 (1962): pp. 162. 27 See the fibula from the Reggio Emilia treasure discussed in Deppert-Lippitz, Barbara. "A Late Antique Crossbow Fibula in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Metropolitan Museum Journal 35 (2000): pp. 56. 28 Swift, Ellen. Style and Function in Roman Decoration: Living with Objects and Interiors. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009, pp. 162. 29 Arrhenius, pp. 100-124. 30 Oanta-Narghitu, Rodica, Gheorghe Niculescu, Doina Seclâman, Roxana Bugoi, and Migdonia Georgescu. "The Gold Belt Buckle from Apahida III (Romania), 5th Century AD." ArcheoSciences 33 (2009): pp. 231. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid.

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bean-shaped motif – as it is often described on garnet cloisonné buckles – is a stylized

version of the pelta or enclosed C-scroll motif, classical in origin, and a common stylistic

feature of Roman belt buckles dating back to the first century (fig. 80). While there is not

sufficient evidence to argue that the buckles from Apahida (figs. 81 - 82), Tournai and

Blucina are Roman military cinguli, a sixth century law preserved in the Codex

Justinianus (Cod. Just. XI.XI.I) suggests that at the very least these buckles would have

carried associations with the power connected to holding Imperial office. The law

forbade the use of jewels on buckles, providing that buckles “valuable only for the gold

of which they are composed, and their workmanship, shall be used on military cloaks.”33

The existence of such a law implies that by the sixth century buckles ornamented with

gems were rampant enough within the Empire. It is impossible to say whether the buckle

tongue from Constantinople indicates that buckles like the Apahida and Tournai finds

were worn within the Empire by East Romans, however these belt buckles would have

certainly carried similar associations and would have competed visually with other

Roman cinguli.

Stylistic comparisons may also be drawn between the Apahida-Tournai style and

contemporaneous Sassanian material. Similarities between the sword fittings in the

Childeric treasure and sixth century Sasanian seaxes were noted earlier. Nothing

however has been said about the relationship between the notched plate shapes and

Sassanian ornamental motifs. The interlocking Ω -shaped cells that appear on the

Apahida buckles, purse lid, horse fittings, as well as the zoomorphic pommel from

Childeric’s spatha can be compared to the stylized vegetal roundels on Sassanian silver

plates and jugs dating from the fifth to seventh centuries (figs. 83 - 85). These are items

to which an Imperial Roman workshop would have had easy access. Their decorative

motifs could have been easily adapted to the garnet cloisonné style that favors repeated,

interlocking cell shapes. Similar comparisons may be drawn between the pinpoint

cabochons used as framing devices on Childeric scabbard fittings and the Apahida

buckles, and the pearl roundel, a framing device common to sixth century Sassanian

textiles.

Harhoiu argues that the occasional presence of garnet cloisonné ornaments deep in

33 Adams, pp. 326.

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barbarian territory like at Apahida can be explained by diplomatic relations between the

imperial court and the barbarian elite.34 Jordanes’s account of annual gift-giving and

tribute paid to the Gepids allows us to consider the Apahida finds as gifts and tribute paid

to Gepidic chieftains by Marcian (450 - 457 CE) or Leo I (457 - 474 CE) following the

Battle of Nedao. Similarly, Remigus of Reims states that Clovis’ parentes ruled Belgica

Secunda. As such, we might consider the finds at Tournai also as imperial gifts sent with

a diplomatic envoy not unlike that described by Priscus, in an effort confer gratitude upon

Childeric for his services to the Empire and exert or maintain nominal political influence

over northern Gaul. Kazanski hypothesized that the signet ring and fibula were honorific

insignia gifted by Emperor Majorian (457-461 CE), or possibly, as Werner has suggested,

by Aegidius.35 These items could also have been gifted to Childeric after Anthemius

became Emperor in the West (467 - 472 CE); he was supported by Leo I and may have

sought out the support of Childeric and the Franks in his campaign against the

Visigoths.36 Either way these dress accessories symbolized the legitimacy of Childeric’s

rule over Franks and Gallo-Romans alike in Belgica Secunda.

Meaning and Function in Late Antiquity

If we agree that these objects were produced in Roman workshops and are part of

the late fifth-century milieu of gifts presented by Roman Imperial court to Germanic

elites – like the silks, red skins, and pepper described in Priscus – are these objects

reflective of Barbarian aristocratic predilections for Roman luxuries, or Roman overtures

catering to Barbarian aesthetics? Arguably, both views are valid; it would seem that like

the other gifts, these objects belong to a wider Late Antique aesthetic that above all

valued sensory splendor. Procopius considered the four color groupings that brought the

most delight to be white, green, crimson (or purple) and gold.37 As Liz James stated, “the

place of color in the aesthetics of late antiquity and Byzantium is closely allied to that of

light and color. Light and color combine into a stress on brilliance, glitter, reflectance,

34 Harhoiu, R. Die frühe Völkerwanderungszeit in Rumänien. Archaeologia Romanica I. Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedica, 1998, pp. 155. 35 Kazanski, Michel and Patrick Perin. “Le mobilier funéraire de la tombe de Childéric Ier. Etat de la question et perspectives.” Revue Archéologique de Picardie 3/4 (1988): pp. 21. 36 For a dsicussion of the relatonship between Leo I, Anthemius and the Barbarians see MacGeorge, Penny. Late Roman Warlords. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002, pp. 215-261. 37 Adams, pp. 81.

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and polychromaticity.”38 The very materiality of garnet cloisonné – translucent crimson

garnets backed by textured gold foils, framed and clasped by undulating cell walls –

produce this Late Antique aesthetic of light and color upon the surfaces of the objects

they decorate, and by extension, the wearer.

Canepa notes that “the practice of appropriating the other culture’s ornamental

material, like the appropriation of its ritual and ideological material, helped define the

sovereigns relational identities and situate each in a larger kosoms of power.”39 In effect

these objects were used to confer, communicate and legitimate power laterally between

diverse social and political systems. These objects were another aspect of the “global

sartorial language of legitimacy” which operated within and beyond Romano-Sassanian

cultural spheres.40 The origins and original connotations of object types, like Swift has

pointed out with the crossbow fibula, can become “camouflaged” and their meaning and

cultural associations can evolve over time.41 The same may be true with objects

decorated in garnet cloisonné; while they may have carried certain associations in the late

third century, by the late fifth century they signaled membership within an aristocratic,

multi-ethnic military class, which derived its own authority, power and legitimacy from

Rome.

The furnishings from Childeric’s grave and those depicted in his portrait on his

signet ring (fig. 47) combine markers of Roman military power (cuirass, chlamys, and

fibula) with Frankish attributes (long hair and spear).42 At some point in the fifth century

it seems these kinds of high-status garnet cloisonné accessories began to signify a

particular kind of Roman-sanctioned political authority and autonomy. As objects

produced in Roman workshops and likely gifted by Imperial officials, the Apahida and

Tournai objects represented the wearers’ ties to political centers of power. They – like

the signet rings and fibulae – conferred Imperially-sanctioned authority and legitimacy

upon the wearer, a commodity which could have been extracted through services to the

Empire, political/militaristic pressures, or a combination of both. Often, the lines

38 James, Liz. Light and Colour in Byzantine Art. Oxford; New York: Clarendon; Oxford UP, 1996, pp. 224. 39 Canepa, pp. 209. 40 Canepa, pp. 188. 41 Swift, Style and Function in Roman Decoration, pp. 160. 42 Kazanski, pp. 21.

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between the two were blurred, just as the line separating tribute and gift were noticeably

fuzzy. Their material emphasis on light and color, with ties to a Late Antique aesthetic of

splendor and Romano-Sassanian court fashions, also granted the wearer inclusion within

Imperial court culture. Like the fibula and signet ring, these accessories would also have

been displayed by the recipient as an index of his close relationship with the Emperor.43

At the same time, these objects also granted the wearer the ability to distinguish

himself as a member of a distinct aristocratic, multi-ethnic military class, operating with a

certain degree of sovereignty and autonomy from the Empire. In contrast to the

romanitas explicitly connoted by the fibulae, the garnet cloisonné accessories address an

explication of civilitas that transcended Roman and non-Roman ethnic and cultural

distinctions. Applied primarily to weapons, horse trappings, belt and shoe buckles, and

other kinds of military regalia, garnet cloisonné was used to signal military might and

prestige. These objects would have allowed the wearer to maintain that status while also

moving between both Roman and Barbarian cultural spheres. The Apahida and Tournai

finds should therefore be understood as material agents used by the Roman court and

non-Roman aristocrats to construct, affirm and index the recipient and wearer’s position

in a political world where notions of Roman and non-Roman had become increasingly

blurred.

43 Swift, Style and Function in Roman Decoration, pp. 167.

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Fig. 1- 11. Finds from the grave of Omharus, Apahida I

Figures:

Fig. 12- 21. Finds from Apahida II

Fig. 22 -23. Purse lid from Apahida II

Fig. 24. Saddle ornaments from Apahida II Fig. 28. Fitting from Apahida II

Fig. 28 - 39. Assorted horse fittings from Apahida II

Fig. 40 - 41. Spatha fittings from Childeric burial Fig. 42 - 43. Seax scabbard fittings from Childeric burial

Fig. 44 - 45. Lost finds from Childeric burial, illustrated by Chiflet.

Fig. 48 - 49. Crossbow fibula from Innsbruck, possibly a 17th century replica of Childeric’s fibula.

Fig. 46. Crossbow fibula from Childeric burial, illustrated by Chiflet.

Fig. 47. Portrait ring of Childeric (replica)

Fig. 50 - 52. Left: Buckles, arm rings, fibula from Blucina,. Right: scabbard fittings from Blucina.

Fig. 53 - 54. Top: scabbard fittings from Blucina. Bottom: Shoe buckles and fittings from Blucina.

Fig. 55 Left: Assemblage of Blucina grave goods.

Fig. 56. Reconstruction of Blucina man (Pavel Dvorsk!).

Fig. 57. Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs, Venice. Fig. 58. Detail of the scabbard from the Four Tetrarchs.

Fig. 59. Diptych panel depicting Stilicho. Fig. 60. Detail of Stilicho’s scabbard.

Fig. 62. Finds from Aragvispiri Necropolis (near Tbilsi, Georgia). Mid-late 3rd century CE

Fig. 61. Finds from tomb near Phasis, on eastern shore of Black Sea. After 276 CE.

Fig. 63. Nedvigovka Tomb, near Tanais. Late 3rd - early 4th century

Fig. 64. Top: Central’nyj necropolis, near Tanais. Bottom: Kazaklija tomb, Moldavia. Late 3rd - early 4th century.

Fig. 65. Wolfsheim Treasure, GermanyFirst half of the 5th century (solidus of Valens, 364-378).

Fig. 66. Plaque inscribed with the name “Ardashir” in Pahlavi script.

Fig. 67 Buckle tongues from Apahida II

Fig. 68 Buckle tongues from Tournai

Fig. 69 Buckle tongue from Constantinople

Fig. 70. Comparison of sixth century Sassanian seax wih Childeric and Apahida II fittings (after Arrhenius)

Fig. 71. Apahida II fitting (see also fig. 28).

Fig. 72. Apahida II fitting (see also fig. 28).

Fig. 73. Finds from Pouan burial. Fig. 74. Scabbard fittings from Pouan burial.

Fig. 75 - 76. Top: buckles, necklace, name ring, and arm ring from Pouan burial. Bottom: Buckles from Pouan burial.

Fig. 77 - 78. Apahida III buckle

Fig. 79. Schematic of Apahida III buckle illustrating correspondence to Roman measurement units.

Fig. 80. 1st - 4th century Roman belt buckles

Fig. 81. Buckle from Apahida I (Omharus grave)

Fig. 82. Buckle from Apahida II

Fig. 83. Senmurv plate, 7th century.British Museum

Fig. 85. Senmurv jug,5th-6th century.Hermitage

Fig. 84. Horse fittings, Apahida II.