Vytautas belt is a conventional name for a unique belt set (analogues are unknown in toreutic historiography and collections of the largest museums in the world). Scientists believe that he came to the territory of Belarus as a gift from the Crimean Khan Hadji Giray to the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vitovt [1] .
| Vytautas belt . XIV - beg. XV century | ||
| Belt Вітаўта | ||
| silver | ||
| National Historical Museum of the Republic of Belarus , Minsk | ||
Content
History
"Vytautas belt" dates from the XIV or the beginning of the XV [2] c. It was discovered in the early 1990s during excavations near the village of Lithuania, Molodechno district .
To the thought of V. Ryabtsevich, written sources, in particular the messages of Genet, the fool Vytautas, and Khan Mengli-Girey , allow us to hypothesize that the belt could have been presented to Vytautas Hadji-Girey during a meeting in Minsk in August 1428 [1] . V. Ryabtsevich considered the “troubled times” (1430-1432) in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to be the most reliable dating of hiding the treasure [1] .
Despite the fact that the belt was included in the State list of historians and cultural values of the highest category, for about 11 years it was in private hands. At the end of 2006, by a decision of the Supreme Court, rarity was transferred to the ownership of the Belarusian state and as of 2016 is in storage at the National Museum of History and Culture of Belarus .
In 2013, RUE “ Belarusian Video Center ” created the documentary “Belts of the Grand Duke Vytautas”, in which Professor Adam Maldis claims that in addition to the belt, which is now in the National Museum of History and Culture of Belarus, there is another belt that belonged to Vitovt now located in France [3] .
Description
The unique belt consists of several hollow silver plates (engraving, niello, gilding) - 2 star-shaped (16 “rays”), decorated with floral ornaments, images of birds and “basilisks”, 11 round with floral ornaments; buckle with a tip, ornamented with floral ornaments; 5 connecting rectangular strips. The total weight of the waistband is 805.40 grams , and the silver sample is 960 ° [1] [4] .
Belt plates are supposedly made in the capital of the Crimean Khanate Cafe (now Feodosia ), a buckle with a tip - probably in Italy (possibly in Genoa ) [1] .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 Ryabtsevich V. Treasure from the village of Lithuania in Belarus. Abstracts // Iconography of money in Central and Eastern Europe. - Humenne: Slovak Numismatic Society, 2007. - P. 44.
- ↑ Belt of Prince Vytautas
- ↑ Prem'era of documentary films on the channel “Belarus 3” s 24 p 30 sakavіka
- ↑ The National Museum of History and Culture of Belarus. Belt Вітаўта