Tekke silver, fire-gilt, set with table-cut carnelians. Late 19th C.
As a child, I was once asked to choose a ring from amongst the massed rows of cheap silver on offer to the beach-going tourist in Bali. I chose a cuff-style piece with a single table-cut carnelian, unsure why I had done so in the midst of my infant personal aesthetic, but certain it was what I wanted. The ring has long passed into the yawning oblivion that trails us all but I have since learned that it was probably Afghani, traded southward from its Tadjik origin during the drug-greased Eighties and ending up on the black sand of that Hindu island. And when, much later, I thought about the kind of portable wealth that would hold the respect of the nomad brothers at the centre of The Blackthorn Orphans, I knew immediately that it would be the fabulous gilt and inlaid silver of the Turkic tribes that had once surrounded them in the remote lands of their birth. Who, having amassed a cache of this glamourous finery, would not devise whatever murmuring rationalizations were required to keep it?
 Karakalpak cuff, cabochon carnelians & turquoise |  Tekke fire gilt pendant pair  Belled Tekke pendant, early 20thC |
This particular species of adornment has always moved me on a fundamental level. I love its brazen challenge to the urbanite and their snobbish notions of having invented taste. This jewellery wrenches the idea of luxury out of the hands of the staid and expands it exponentially, accommodating the necessary vulgarity of status display, of celebrating your personal victories and making them burn in the heart of those around you. Just as weaving ikat is known to the Iban as 'womens' war' because of its inherent conflict with the spirits depicted and the struggle with the techniques themselves, Central Asian silver is a special kind of visual, ritualized violence, something fierce and deliberate. It speaks of proud desire, subverting the modesty and relegation of monotheism. The motifs, though altered by exposure to the more jaded Classical and Chinese idioms, retain the ancient bones visible in the art of everyone from Dogon to Scythian to Celt and Inuit; the appreciation of plenty, the celebration of love and kinship, fortune and fecundity, our compacts with other animals and the elements that birth and consume us. These jewels speak of these things to everyone with eyes to perceive them.
| The staring red carnelians are an unblinking challenge to misfortune. Gold and silver, glamour's eternal mascots, are employed with thrift and careful artifice, the precious gold washed over the sturdy silver; just as women are the foundation of every human culture, gold is the masculine element here, the colour of the machismo expected of every man in this tradition. The Turkoman clans were notorious slave traders and freebooters, busily smelting the coinage collected in their forays and transforming it into the kind of display that branded their neighbors with the double impositions of terror and envy.  Kazakh carnelian and turquoise pendant  Fire gilt, heavily-chased silver Tekke pendant, carnelians, late 19C It seems almost too good to be true, but most of the pieces featured are for sale here. I am indebted to Akça Silver for allowing me to use their images. Please use the links below to learn more. Vintage images of Central Asian women click here. An excellent piece on context and design here- Turkoman Jewelry - anahita gallery and here Zoom central asia :: Jeweller's art of the Karakalpaks |  Kazakh silver cuff with linked rings, silver, carnelian and turquoise It's difficult to reconcile the thought of veiled orthodox Islamic femininity with the extremely unapologetic nature of the objects pictured here. The Turkic khanates (tribal kingdoms) have been officially Muslim for almost a thousand years now and have worn the brunt of Islam's hostility to the Female, but like most things, subjection is subjective. Women adapted to the new orthodoxy and confounded its dreary proscriptions with the adornment that had so long served their ancestors. As skilled weavers, Turkic women were often breadwinners, demanding bride price and the silver befitting their status. The gentler language of love and private allegiance also transcribed in the elegant ritual exchange of these pieces that occurred in the course of martial and blood connection; this significance is described in some of the links below. I encourage you to explore them.  Uzbek coral and turquoise silver pendant, early 20thC |
And an interesting insight into the mania that afflicts the devotee. I understand completely...
The Metropolitan Museum of Art -Turkmen Jewelry: Silver from the Marshall and Marilyn R. Wolf Collection
The Metropolitan Museum of Art -Turkmen Jewelry: Silver from the Marshall and Marilyn R. Wolf Collection
 Tekke silver, openwork pendant with chained finials |  Tekke silver pendant, 19th C |
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