The free trade of silk in the markets of the Mongol Empire brought enormous revenues to the imperial court. Thus, Marco Polo, describing the income of the great Khan only from the city of Kinsai (Hangzhou), mentions a large duty on silk: "In short, silk is charged ten percent. A lot of money from him" [1955, p. 163]. High incomes stimulated the Mongol khans to expand silk production and attract foreign craftsmen to the empire's markets, as well as increase the social status of merchants, which contributed to the revival of trade routes through Eurasia, where silk was the main product of exchange [Watt and Wardwell, 1997, p. 15]. In the Mongol empire, silk became a kind of state symbol, as indicated by the main directions of its use - as currency, tribute, gifts to foreign missions, remuneration to persons in the civil service and military officials, for the manufacture of official court clothes, use in Confucian rituals and ceremonies [Ibid., p. 18]. Silk was also a coveted trophy, reward or commodity for the ordinary population of the Mongolian state, as it marked the social status of the owner, his belonging to the subjects of the empire, and provided a certain hygienic comfort [Dode, 2006, pp. 164-167].

The history of the existence of "Mongolian" silks also has an important cultural context. The design of silk fabrics, reflecting aesthetic ideas, at the same time was filled with a deep worldview of the peoples who created works of weaving art in China, Iran and Central Asian countries. Each element of the ornament is symbolic and reflects the value system of the time and culture to which the master belonged. Images of animals or birds, trees or flowers in Chinese art symbolized human qualities. Thus, phoenixes and peacocks express superiority, cranes - majesty, falcons - cruelty, waterfowl and wild geese - calmness, peonies - wealth, willow - softness, pine and cypress-courage, fortitude and honesty [Zhao Feng, 1999, p. 211].

The design of medieval "Mongolian" silks, filled with symbolic creatures and objects, reflects the peculiarity of bestiaries - "giving a certain animal a sacred, ethical and didactic meaning" [Terentyev-Katansky, 2004, p. 14]. Symbolic animals are depicted not only on Chinese fabrics, but also on stone reliefs, in architectural decoration; they are represented in the motifs of embroidery, jewelry and ceramics of the XIII-XIV centuries. The decoration of "Mongolian" brocade silks, therefore, is related to all the art created on the territory of the empire.

This paper examines the artistic identity of ornaments on silk fabrics found in the Golden Horde monuments of the North Caucasus and Don: the archaeological complexes of Dzhukhta, Novo Pavlovsky and Verbovy Log. The definition of an artistic dominant is based on the following criteria:: compliance of the image with a stable iconographic tradition, stylistic norms, accepted symbolism of images associated with a certain mythological system, the presence of ornamental details that do not bear the main load in the image, but are necessary for the creation of a new image.

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a carrier of a cultural tradition has an important semantic meaning. When artistic images are borrowed, their semantic content is usually lost; this leads to distortion or disappearance of such details.

The imperial policy of relocating artisans captured by the Mongols in China or Eastern Iran to the cities of Central Asia led to a mixture of textile design repertoires. Images of Persian art are often found on silk Chinese fabrics, while images from Central Asian and Chinese textile subjects are often found on Iranian fabrics.

The question of the nature of borrowing artistic images for fabric decoration is directly related to the problem of the "priority" of a particular region in creating a plot or motif [Jerasalimskaya, 2003, p.17].

Dragon. The pattern of the lower kaftan fabric found in the Dzhukhta burial ground * includes an image of dragons and geese arranged in horizontal rows and alternately turned to the right and left among a dense vegetable background (Fig. 1).

The dragon is undoubtedly the main one among the four "sacred animals" of China. This is one of the oldest figures of Chinese cosmogony. During the Song Dynasty (960-1279), the doctrine of the "eight similarities" of the dragon was formed: the horn of a deer, the head of a camel, the eyes of a spirit, the neck of a snake, the scales of a carp, the claws of an eagle, the paws of a tiger, and the ears of a cow (Terentyev-Katansky, 2004, p.28). As an imperial insignia, the dragon decorated various items intended for the palace. The Mongols adopted the Chinese image of the dragon, retaining its status as a marker of state power; and images of these creatures on fabrics, belt plaques, and bowls made of precious metals became a common imperial heraldic symbol.

On the fabric from the Jukhta burial ground, the image of a dragon is interpreted in the usual manner for Chinese culture, with all the stylistic details characteristic of the masters of the Jin dynasty and the Mongol period: with the head of a camel, the mane of a lion, deer horns, bull ears, snake body and tail covered with fish scales.

Without analyzing the images of dragons on silks in detail, we note their connection with the characters of Chinese mythology, which in the future can be used not only in attributing fabrics, but also in deciphering the semantics of their artistic expression. Myths sometimes indicate the characteristic details of the appearance of dragons, which are also depicted in their textile images: the snake's body, the presence or absence of wings, horns (the one - horned dragon was called jiao, the two - horned dragon was called qiu, and the hornless dragon was called chi). Thus, the differences in the images of dragons on silk Chinese fabrics may not so much reflect the stylistic features of artistic design, but rather indicate the diversity of the Chinese bestiary.

In the 12th century, the image of the dragon appeared in the Persian cultural space, combining Mediterranean and Chinese features. This character is not a heraldic figure. According to the author of the Persian cosmography known as "Wonders of the World" (early 13th century), the dragon lives in certain seas of the Indian Ocean along with sharks and giant fish with glowing eyes.-

Figure 1. Images of dragons and geese on the silk of the lower kaftan from the Dzhukhta burial ground. Photos of fabric fragments and reconstruction of the ornament.

* A burial mound of the mid-13th-14th centuries near the village of Apanasenkovskoye, Stavropol Territory.

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Zami: "In the same area, there is a dragon called astin. In length, it reaches several farsakhs, has the color of a leopard and two wings. He has six heads around his neck. He also has a mane. If he breathes on an elephant, it will turn black. They say that if you keep the head of this [dragon] in the house, it will indicate [the places of] treasures " [Wonders of the World..., 1993, § 190].

"Fire pearl". Compositionally, in Chinese art, the image of a dragon is associated with a" fire pearl", which was considered a traditional dragon toy. The "fire pearl" - a spherical light source-was closely related to other luminous jewels that concentrated life-giving energy. The Chinese considered the dragon - a symbol of rain - and the "flaming pearl" - a symbol of lightning - as images of the fertilization of the Earth by the Sky (Sychev, 1972, p. 146). It was believed that the "fire pearl" is inaccessible to ordinary mortals.

According to the treatise of the alchemist Tao Hongjing, pearls along with jade protected the body from decomposition. Alchemists used pearls less often than gold and jade, but included them in the extensive register of "recipes for immortality" [Eliade, 1998, p. 48]. Presumably, the pearls depicted on the silks were also endowed with happy magical properties.

Since the image of the dragon was semantically significant for the main customers of silk fabrics-the Mongols, it is present on fabrics made not only by Chinese, but also by Central Asian and East Iranian weavers who copied images of dragons from Chinese originals. Despite the fact that the dragon depicted on the Jukhta silk is trying to "swallow" the vase, the traditional element of the plot-the "flaming pearl" - does not disappear from the ornament, but remains in the composition: it is inscribed between the goose's paws. This emphasizes the importance of the image of the pearl for the content of an ornamental narrative related to the mythological story about the beloved jewel of the Supreme Lord of Huangdi, kidnapped by a girl from the Renmen family, who, after swallowing the pearl, turned into a dragon and became the spirit of the river. On fabrics with dragon figures made in Central Asian and Iranian workshops, the pearl is not shown or its image is greatly distorted, which indicates the borrowing of the form with the loss of content. But on Chinese silks, the image of the" flaming pearl " does not disappear, the semantic significance of this detail remains.

Vase. The interpretation of the vase image can also be considered in the context of the semantics of Chinese mythology. A vase is one of eight objects (ba-bao) that form a system of protective good wishes in Buddhist symbolism. The vase, along with images of other items of eight jewels - an endless knot, two goldfish, a lotus flower - was a favorite element of Chinese medieval art. Filled to the brim with the drink of immortality, it is a symbol of happiness, wisdom, and good intentions. As a symbol of volume, which occupied a prominent place in Chinese philosophy, the vase can also be interpreted as a measure of world harmony, completeness of being, and a bucket of the Polar Constellation (Malyavin, 1995, p. 147). The Big Dipper (Beidu) and the spirits inhabiting it were in charge of the fate of a person, his life and death. On the Jukhta silk, the vase is depicted not empty, but with three flowers, in the nine petals of which you can see the symbol of the nine stars-the sons of the deity Dou-mu, interpreted in late Chinese mythology as the Mother of the Ladle and lived on the stars of the Big Dipper. It is also interesting that one of the spirits of the polar constellation was the lord of the rains, the symbol of which was the dragon.

The dragon was perceived by the Chinese as a symbol of beauty. The Chinese poet of the Han era Cao Zhi (192-232) wrote in his ode "The Fairy of the Lo River" about his heroine: "Like a startled swan soars, it is similar in grace to a flying dragon" [1973, p.142]. Seeing the dragon as an aesthetically beautiful creature, the Chinese gave it, like the phoenix, the ability to bring happiness.

Goose. As for the images of birds on this silk, they should be considered, obviously, in the context of the compositions "wild geese flying in the clouds" or "swan hunt", to which the Jukhta images are much closer in the manner of performance. Goose in China is associated with the Sky and the yang principle, and is considered as a talisman that helps love in marriage.

The goose on the Jukhta brocade is depicted with open wings and a long curved neck, on its head is a "crown" in the form of a blooming flower. The plumage, paws, eyes, and anatomical structure of the body are very realistic, which corresponds in the manner of execution to the image of a swan on brocade with the plot "swan hunt" from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is made in the technological and decorative traditions of the Jin Dynasty [Watt and Wardwell, 1997, p. 112-113, N28].

The themes of weaving patterns began to form in time immemorial. The weavers probably did not seek to convey the narrative narrative of myths. They tended to limit themselves to quotations, grouping a woven plot around one or more main characters who were not connected in verbal sources. Dragon and swan samples

* Cf. 'Ajaa'ib al-mahluqat: tinin - "the dragon that lives in water".

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The paintings on the Jukhta brocade are obviously combined into a single plot on the basis of their aesthetic qualities, which are raised by the Chinese to the category of beautiful.

The Juhta fabric with dragon images clearly demonstrates the decorative tendency of Yuan dynasty silks-to cover virtually the entire surface with decor, making Yuan silks look complex and richly ornamented, unlike fabrics of the previous time-the Jin era - with gold decor enclosed in simple circles, triangles or drop-shaped figures located on a smooth background. Thus, the stylistic features of the design of Juhta silk with dragon and goose figures, and most importantly, the thoroughness with which all the details of the ornament related to the semantics of Chinese mythology are made, allow us to consider it as a product of Chinese weaving workshops of the Yuan Dynasty era.

As a typological parallel to the picturesque silks with images of dragons and geese, the decoration of the inner chambers of the capital's palace of Kublai, the founder of the Yuan dynasty, can act. An earth model of the heavenly palace was erected in the palace complex in Khanbalik. In mythological terms, the gold of the inner chambers embodies cosmic completeness and completeness. The fullness and harmony of the universe is also indicated by the ornamental structure of the fantastic bestiary.

The Phoenixes. Silks with the image of phoenixes were found in the Dzhukhta burial ground. The phoenix design is presented on two different fabrics. On the upper robe from the male burial, phoenixes are woven with gold threads on a red background among lotus flowers. The images of phoenixes are arranged in parallel rows in a staggered order, and in one row they are deployed to the right, in the other-to the left (Fig. 2).

The image of the phoenix is included in Chinese visual art, in the period of the struggling kingdoms (448 - 221 BC), together with the images of the dragon, unicorn and turtle, representing peace and prosperity, controlling the heavens, symbolizing the sun and warmth [Brown, 2000, p.24]. In the hierarchy of the "sacred animals" of China, the phoenix (feng huang) follows the dragon. A twelfth-century Chinese source written by the Southern Sung author Zhou Qufei says of phoenixes: "The multi-colored [plumage] is perfect, more beautiful than that of peacocks by many times. [They are] exactly as they are portrayed in our time, but the heads are particularly large. All the other birds, when they meet them, will certainly line up around and stand. The crest on the top of their head, as a rule, has many "streams"" [2001, p. 270].

The phoenix in the Chinese tradition is a symbol of both the feminine and the masculine. He appears as a companion of Sivanmu, the Western queen-Mother, and an inhabitant of the Land of noble Men, thus symbolizing power and virtue; his connection with light and fire denotes the manifestation of the active power of yang (Terentyev-Katansky, 2004, p. 49). As a yin symbol, the phoenix obviously has a very ancient tradition. A phoenix-worshipping woman is depicted on silk from the Changsha tomb in Hunan, dating back to the period of the contending kingdoms (475-221 BC) [La Seta..., 1994, p. 163, fig. 1]. A number of Taoist legends tell us that women gave birth to outstanding sons after the appearance of the phoenix in their dreams. During the Song Dynasty, the phoenix appears as a male symbol and marks a high military rank. Special dressing gowns - xuan Ian-with embroidery on them

2. Images of phoenixes on the silk of the upper robe from the Dzhukhta burial ground. Photo of the fabric and reconstruction of the ornament.

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3. Silk fragment with images of phoenixes in the side wedge of the lower kaftan from the Dzhukhta burial ground. Reconstruction.

phoenixes surrounded by clouds were intended for provincial military leaders [Style from the Steps..., 2004, p. 21, p. II, cat. N2].

The design of the Jukhta brocade is artistically similar to the fabric from the Cleveland Museum of Art [Watt and Wardwell, 1997, cat. 47, p. 162-163], in which phoenixes are woven in gold on a pink background among fantastic Makara animals, lotuses and peonies. On both fabrics, the birds show a typical scallop starting at the base of the beak in the form of a plant shoot, curling neck plumage, open wings and gently curving toothed tail feathers. The Cleveland phoenix has four long tail feathers, while the Jukhta phoenix has three long tail feathers. The phoenix on the Cleveland brocade has a rounded body and a short zigzag tail, which is absent in the image of a bird on the Dzhukhta fabric. Despite the fact that in general, the content of the drawings of fabrics differs (on the Cleveland brocade there are Makara and peonies, and on the Jukhta brocade there are only phoenixes surrounded by lotuses), birds and plant ornaments are depicted in a very similar manner that characterizes one Chinese school. Compositionally and stylistically, the Chinese lampas from the Hangzhou Museum are most similar to Jukhta silk with phoenixes [China National Silk Museum, 2005, p. 31] and silk with phoenixes and peonies from Zhangxiang (Zhao Feng, 1999, p. 226, fig. 07.07 b). This similarity allows us to consider the Caucasian find as a product of Yuan weaving workshops, reflecting the typical manner of depicting phoenixes in the art of the Song and Yuan dynasties: in flight with open wings and hidden paws, with long toothed gently curving tail feathers. Phoenixes are shown, as a rule, with a crest that rises from the base of the beak upwards in the form of a floral motif, and with a twisted neck plumage. This manner of depicting the phoenix in Chinese art has become popular since the Tang Dynasty (618-907) [Brown, 2000, p.26].

A fragment from another piece of silk with the image of phoenixes was inserted into the side wedge of the lower caftan with dragons (Fig. 3). Unfortunately, this fragment is very small and badly damaged, so it was not possible to restore its rapport, but the image of a bird surrounded by plant ornaments was reconstructed quite fully. The phoenix is depicted flying with its wings raised up and its neck bent down. Its head is turned towards the tail. Unfortunately, the image of the tail is not fully preserved, only the zigzag plumage can be traced. But you can clearly see the bird's paw, the crest on its head, and the curling neck feathers. In the manner of transmission, this bird differs from the phoenix on the fabric of the caftan. The closest analogue of the captured image can serve as an image on white silk, stored in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This cloth with images of phoenixes, monsters and flowers woven with golden threads was discovered in Iran, but made by Central Asian weavers. According to researchers, textiles with a similar design were widely sold in the West (Watt and Wardwell, 1997, cat. 3-9, p. 150). Phoenixes on silk from Jukhta and on fabric from the Metropolitan Museum of Art retain characteristic Chinese features - a scallop in the form of a floral motif and swirling feathers on the neck. But the manner of depicting birds is different: the wings are raised up, the neck is curved, the long tail feathers are less decorative, and the paws are clearly visible. However, these features are not related to the Central Asian art tradition. Moreover, they are characteristic of the early images of phoenixes, which are represented in the Shanhai Jing, an ancient Chinese book about fantastic animals (see [Terentyev-Katansky, 2004, p. 46]). In the 16th-century Chinese illustrated encyclopedia San tsai tu Hui, an ancient image of the phoenix is described: "snake's throat; fish's tail; crane's forehead; Mandarin duck's goatee; dragon patterns; turtle's back; swallow's goitre; cock's beak. It comes from the East from the land of Noble men. If he is seen, then great calm will reign in the Middle Kingdom. The sign on the head reads: virtue; the sign on the wings reads: decency; the sign on the back reads: justice; the sign on the chest reads: humanity; the sign on the stomach reads: isa-

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4. Images of hares on the silk collar of the lower kaftan from the Dzhukhta burial ground. Photos of fabric fragments and reconstruction of the ornament.

5. A fragment of silk with figures of hares and birds finishing a woman's robe from the Verbovy Log burial ground. Photo of the fabric and drawing of the ornament on the preserved fragment.

Tina. His voice is like silence." by: [Ibid., p. 47]). Central Asian and Iranian weavers adopted this early Chinese interpretation of the phoenix image almost unchanged (see: [Watt. Wardwell, 1997, kat. 39, p. 150; kat. 47, p. 162 - 163]).

Standing phoenixes are a feature of the Liao Dynasty style (see [The General History..., 2005, p. 137-138, fig. 153a, 1536, 154, 155]).

Hares. For the collar of the kaftan found in the burial ground of Dzhukhta, brocade with the image of hares on the background of plant ornaments was used. Animal figures are arranged in parallel rows in a staggered order. In the rapport, hares are shown in opposite corners of the square in a mirror image. The animal lies with its head turned back in the midst of a large and varied foliage (Fig. 4).

The hare is also a character in the design of the fabric from the Verbovo Log* (Fig. 5). The silk still has an image of the torso, (partially) forelegs, head, and ears of the animal. These details make it possible to compare his image and the figure of a hare on Jukhta silk, which is similar in style of execution. On the brocade from the Jukhta burial ground, the animal lies with its head turned back; on the silk from the Verbovo Log, it looks straight ahead, which is the main difference in the image transmission.

The hare is a fairly common character of silk design from the Mongol period, which was used by Chinese, East Iranian, and Central Asian craftsmen. We see it among the flowers on purple silk woven in Northern China in the XIII - mid-XIV century [Watt and Wardwell, 1997, cat. 34, p. 124-125], in the composition of animal rut on Iranian brocade of the second quarter-mid-XIII century [Ibid., cat. 45, p. 159], among other animals, birds and flowers on Central Asian embroidery of the late XI-early XIII centuries [Ibid., cat. 50, p. 172]. On silk fabrics from Jukhta and Verbovo Log, hares are depicted with a raised and bent paw, as well as on ink and paint paintings on silk scrolls made by Chinese artists of the Song era.

* A burial mound of the late 13th - second half of the 14th century, located 30 km to the east of the city. Volgodonsk in the interfluve of the Don and Sala rivers in the Dubovsky district of the Rostov region.

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6. Images of peonies on silk from the Novopavlovsky burial ground. Photo of the fabric and reconstruction of the ornament.

7. Images of peonies on silk from the Verbovy Log burial ground. Photo of the fabric and reconstruction of the ornament.

(960-1127), for example, on the vertical silk scroll of the artist Cui Bo " Magpies and Hare "(Istoriya..., 1998, p. 176). On Chinese fabrics with printed ornaments, figures of hares are painted in gold on thin silk gauze [The General History..., 2005, p. 378, fig. 6 - 4-30, 6-4-31] or taffeta (private collection of Arthur Leeper). The images of hares on these pads are most similar to the drawings on silks from Jukhta and Verbov Log, which is the reason to consider the design of these fabrics within the framework of the Chinese tradition.

In China, the White Hare is a mythological animal. He lives on the Moon and crushes lingzhi mushroom in a mortar to make a potion of immortality. The Ming period embroidery depicts a hare in front of its lunar home with a pestle in its paws and a mortar containing a magic elixir (Scott, 1993, p. 39). Similar compositions were widely used during the Yuan Dynasty to decorate men's and women's robes. They were placed, as a rule, on the right sleeve - on a disk symbolizing the Moon; on the left sleeve they depicted the solar disk.

However, the hares depicted on silks from Jukhta and Verbovo Log should not be seen as mythological characters, but rather as a motif related to the theme of hunting activities. In terms of content, the design on both fabrics can be compared with images on hunting-themed silk [Watt and Wardwell, 1997, p. 112-113, cat. 28; p. 114 - 115, cat. 29]. Hares were participants in hunting games among the Khitan, Jurchen and Mongols. Hare hunting is recorded not only in the Liaoshi ,but also in Song Dynasty documents, which state that envoys of the Sung court to the northern states often returned with stories about hunting, including hunting hares [Ibid, p. 109]. Moreover, the sources of the Liao (907-1125) and Jin (1115-1234) dynasties explicitly indicate the existence of special clothes made of special fabrics decorated with hunting motifs, which were worn by dignitaries who took part in hunting [Ibid].

Pions. Fabrics with floral ornaments from the Novopavlovsky burial ground* and the Verbovy Log burial ground can be used to compare artistic traditions. The main element of the ornament is a peony flower. In Chinese art, it is the flower of love, life, and fruiting. The peony motif is widespread in the subjects of not only decorative, but also dramatic art [Samosyuk, 2000, p. 231]. The peony on the fabric from the Novopavlovsky burial ground (Fig. 6) is similar to the flowers woven on

* A necropolis of the 13th-14th centuries with rich burials in a sand pit near Novopavlovsk, Stavropol Territory.

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early Chinese fabrics of the X-XII century, which were found in Iran and the prov. Hunan in China [Watt. Wardwell, 1997, p. 48-49], as well as peonies on blue silk framed by a Japanese painting of the late 12th-13th centuries, exhibited in the British Museum*. Chinese silks with the image of this flower are also known among the palace interiors of later times: the collection of ancient and medieval fabrics of the Kyoto Museum contains a "teapot screen" made of silk with the image of peonies, woven in the workshops of Ming China, which belonged to the Japanese emperor [Katamura, 1986, N 16]. In all these samples, flowers and leaves are rendered realistically, in a similar manner, despite the different times of fabric production, which indicates a single visual tradition in their design, which finds direct parallels in Chinese decorative art.

According to the style of execution of the drawing, silk from the Verbovo Log clearly differs from the listed silk fabrics, on which the peony was the main motif of the ornament (Fig. 7). In the flower on the silk from the Verbovo Log, you can definitely guess the peony, but it looks artificial, frozen. By the nature of its construction, the ornament is also different from the compositions on Chinese fabrics of this period. The background ornament on the Verbovoye Log find follows a strict geometric rhythm that can be clearly traced both in the horizontal and vertical directions, and differs from the lively background ornaments on Yuan silks. In the decor of the analyzed fabric, the palmetto motif with "open wings" is a characteristic element of the design of earlier Central Asian fabrics [Jerasalimskaia, 1996, Abb. 154,155]. In my opinion, the stylistic features of the Verbovo Log silk ornament indicate the manner of a Central Asian artist who borrowed the peony motif from Chinese art.

Jeyran. Individual details and tectonics of the ornament are important for artistic attribution of the fabric with the image of jeyran (Figure 8). This image was borrowed by China from Sogdiana only in the Jin period (Watt and Wardwell, 1997, p.114). The motif was widely used in the art of the Golden Horde nomads (see: [Kramarovsky, 2001, p. 48, fig. 50, fig. 22; p. 50-51]). M. G. Kramarovsky sees a direct connection of the plot with the deer on the monuments of the Golden Horde art with the Khitan and Zhur-zhen traditions (the image of this animal was often embodied in products made of Liao and Jin jade) [2001, p. 51]. On well-known silks, as well as on the fabric from the Verbovo Log, animals are depicted lying down, with the right foreleg tucked in, and the head turned towards the tail. On a red brocade from the Cleveland Museum, Jeyran is depicted relaxing under a flowering tree, above which the full moon shines, surrounded by clouds [Watt and Wardwell, 1997, p. 107, p. 114-115, cat. 29]. On a fragment of Persian silk from Nuremberg, the jeyran is woven in a characteristic Central Asian manner. However, the moon, which is always associated with the Jin version of the plot, is absent, which indicates the indifference of the Persian weaver to this element of ornament [Ibid., p. 109, 110, fig.44].

The fabric with jairans from Verbovo Log differs in decor style from silks from Cleveland and Nuremberg. The artist breaks down the composition characteristic of the Jin period into elements and freely arranges them all over the background, following the new techniques of silk decoration adopted during the Yuan Dynasty. Blooming branches fill the background, and a gazelle surrounded by two circles is placed in the center of the medallion. But in this case, in my opinion, the jeyran is not in the boundaries of circles, but on the plane of the disk, which can be interpreted as

Figure 8. Images of gazelles on silk from the Verbovy Log burial ground. Photo of the fabric and reconstruction of the ornament.

* Brook Sewell Bequest Fund Japanese Painting ADD 389 (1967.2 - 13.02).

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9. Scheme of reconstruction of the silk fabric ornament with images of parrots and fish from the Verbovy Log burial ground.

like a picture of the moon. The sun does not disappear from the composition, but becomes the background for the image of the animal.

Apparently, a similar method of depicting a jeyran against the background of the lunar disk was used in the 7th century by a Sogdian master who made a silver mirror [Ibid., p. 114, fig. 47]. On this product, the gazelle is shown lying under a flowering tree, in the branches of which there is no traditional image of the sun. But since the moon was a significant decorative motif in this composition, its image should not have been missed. Perhaps, according to the master's plan, the lunar disk, marked with a circle, became the background that unites all the elements of the ornament. As an image of the moon, a mirror disk with a handle made in the form of a standing gazelle could be perceived [Ibid., p. 114].

The Persian fabric from the Berlin Museum, although stylistically similar to the Jin motif with jeyran, captures the formal copying of the master drawing, without interest in its content. Verbova Log silk, on the other hand, shows a fine elaboration of the necessary elements in the decor of the composition, which speaks in favor of the Central Asian or Chinese attribution of our fabric. In this regard, you should pay attention to the tectonics of the ornament. The image of an antelope depicted on the lunar disk is inscribed in a round medallion, which was not typical for silks of the Yuan Dynasty, in which the main motifs are located freely among the decorative ornaments of the background and one element of the ornament smoothly merges into another [Daudet, 2005, p. 143]. Thus, this silk should probably be considered the product of Central Asian weaving workshops. An additional interest for historical and cultural attribution of the monument is the content of the silk plot, because in using things with the image of deer, deer and fallow deer surrounded by blooming nature, "the generation of Genghis Khan's sons and grandsons (regardless of belonging to the ancestral lines of the fathers who dispersed to half the world) felt their history, their origins, their involvement in the imperial tradition" [Kramarovsky, 2001, p. 50].

Parrot. Silk with "parrots and fish" from the male burial site in the Verbovy Log burial ground has been preserved in fragments. To reveal the rapport of the fabric, all the fragments of the ornamented brocade were laid out in accordance with the vertical and horizontal directions of the preserved pattern. As a result, the mutual compatibility of the ornament on the existing fragments was established, which made it possible to identify the complete sequence of ornamental motifs (Fig.

Direct analogues of the fabric decor in the textiles of this circle have not yet been found (Fig. 10). However, separate orna-

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10. Images of parrots and fish on silk from the Verbovy Log burial ground. Photos of fabric fragments and reconstruction of the ornament.

mental elements, including animalistic ones, are matched in the art of decorating Islamic silks. A parrot depicted on brocade on a silk chasuble from the Church of Our Lady, preserved in Berlin's Kunstgewerbemuseum [La Seta..., 1994, cat. 109], until recently was the only published image. Researchers associate the existence of this sample with the middle of the 14th century, but define the place of its manufacture in different ways: China [Falke, 1913, S. 54-55, fig. 334; Catalogo Berlino..., 1989, p. 562-563; Sobolev, 1934, p. 183], Persia [Arduni, 1983, p. 218-221, fig. on p. 218] or Central Asia [Catalogo Berlino..., 1989, p. 562-563]. There is also no agreement on its attribution. Thus, according to N. N. Sobolev, black-and-gold brocade with parrots was made in Chinese workshops for a Muslim customer [1934, pp. 182-183]. Philippa Scott refers it to the Persian textiles of the Ilkhanid period, which were developed under strong Chinese influence [Scott, 1993, p. 118]. New materials from Inner Mongolia, published by Zhao Feng, show another piece of parakeet cloth that has been compared to Berlin silk. Both fragments, according to Zhao Feng, are products of Yuan workshops and represent a variety of Chinese silk-nasij [The General History..., 2005, p. 369, fig. 6 - 4-1, 6 - 4-2].

Obviously, the drawings on the three fabrics were made by different artists. Although all birds are designed in a single style, in which common visual canons are viewed, the image of a bird from the Verbovo Log is noticeably different from the image of parrots on Berlin fabric and silk from Inner Mongolia. The brocade stored in Berlin was intended for the Muslim customer and met his tastes and requirements: kufic inscriptions were woven on the wings of birds-on one: "Muhammad", on the other: "Glory to our Sultan, the just and wise sovereign Nasir ad-Din" (a contemporary of the sultan, the Mamluk historian Abu-l-Fida reports that in 1343 the Mongol embassy brought Nasir al-din 700 pieces of brocade with such inscriptions among other gifts) [Sobolev, 1934, pp. 182-183]*. N. N. Sobolev believed that the images of parrots and Muslim inscriptions on brocade from Berlin are rough in shape and do not correspond to the style of Chinese decora [1934, p. 183]. Similarly, it is possible to characterize the artistic performance of birds on fabrics from Inner Mongolia. Obviously, on the silk roads

*The date given by N. N. Sobolev is incorrect, since the historian Abu-l-Fida died in 1331, and an-Nasir Nasir ad-din died in 1340.

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On Yuan fabrics, we see a copy of the pattern borrowed from Iranian textile samples. Moreover, it seems that the artists, copying the image of a bird, did not associate it with a parrot. At the same time, the medieval Chinese knew these birds (parrots) in all the variety of their species.

During the Tang period, flocks of green long-tailed parrots of local origin lived in the Long Mountains. These birds could talk and are believed to have belonged to a breed of green long-tailed parrots with a purple breast. Perhaps it is about them that we are talking in the ancient Chinese work "Catalog of Mountains and Seas": "There is a bird that looks like an owl, but with green wings, a red beak and a human tongue, which can speak. It is called a parrot" [2004, pp. 50-51]. The southern provinces of China supplied the Tang court with colored long-tailed parrots. Beginning in the third century, the lords of tropical countries sent Indonesian parrots as gifts to the Chinese Emperor. These were new breeds for China - loris and cockatoos. Long-tailed lorises, known in China as "five - colored parrots", were most famous for their beauty (Schaeffer, 1981, pp. 139-141). Zhou Qu-fei's notes say that the inhabitants of the South breed colorful parrots; red and white parrots are found in one of the provinces, and sometimes these smart birds are taught songs [2001, pp. 270-271].

In medieval China, Tang silk samits are decorated with parrot figures. The manner of depicting paired birds on silk from the Famen Temple, located 200 km west of Xi'an, corresponds to a new compositional solution of the ornament for the Tang era: birds or animals placed in a round medallion are arranged symmetrically relative to its center and in such a way that the head of one creature follows the tail of another. This arrangement of ornaments on Chinese silk fabrics is also common for the beginning of the Liao period (Zhao Feng, 1999, p. 148). What is important for us is that the images of parrots on these fabrics are realistic and different from those shown on the Yuan samples.

During the Tang period, exotic parrot breeds were welcome in palaces, so artists who prepared cardboard boxes for silk Chinese fabrics were most likely attracted by the bird's aesthetic characteristics. In Chinese decorative art, the parrot was not a royal symbol. This role was played by a dragon and a phoenix, marking the emperor and empress respectively. The parrot is not among the characters inhabiting the "bird kingdom" in Chinese mythology. His image gradually disappears from the decor of silks, and in Yuan fabrics we meet with forms taken from Iranian samples, which are not filled with symbolic meaning.

In Iran of the period under review, the image of a parrot occupied different semantic niches. In didactic literature, it is the companion and adviser of kings, the watchful eye of jealous husbands, a model of eloquence and wisdom. In Muslim mythology, among 30 birds, parrots were symbols of the sun and paradise beatitudes [La Seta..., 1994, p. 188]. In a poem by an Iranian poet of the 12th-13th centuries. The attar " Mantik at-tayr "("Conversations of birds") states that the parrot has green feathers, making it similar to the prophet of the Muslim tradition, the immortal Khizr, who wears green clothes (Bertels, 1997, p. 121). In" Tu-ti-nam "("The Book of the Parrot"), the Persian author of the last quarter of the 13th - beginning of the 14th century, Ziya ad-din Nah-shabi, referring to the Prophet Muhammad, calls him" the parrot of the flower garden of perfection " (1979, p.17).

From India to Persia, the parrot was perceived as a royal symbol. In the" History of Aghwan "by Moses Kagankatvatsi, a writer of the tenth century, it is reported that the ruler of Aghwan Jevanshir (660) received an elephant and a green parrot as a gift from the ruler of Baghdad:" We saw a royal bird decorated with royal splendor and splendor. She looked beautiful: the yellow feathers reflected a greenish glow, and the reddish color of the breast glittered here and there around the neck, glittering like spring dew drops in the fields. The golden-colored tip of her breast fell down like pearls; the pupils and whites of her eyes and the thick stripe running along her neck bent a second time at her mouth; the tip of her round tongue, like a tooth, emitted sharp sounds, and often, in a voice peculiar to human nature, composed words" [1861, pp. 159-161].

In Alisher Navoi's poem "The Language of Birds", the parrot acts as a royal bird and adviser to kings:

I'm a bird used to strangers.,
I'm used to flying over my native Hindustan.
My tongue is famous for its eloquence,
I'm used to healing evil with sweet words.
The overlords kept me in cages,
Consoling themselves by talking to me in sorrow [1996, p. 222].

Thus, during the creation of silk fabric from the Verbova Log, the image of this bird is present in the cultural and semantic space of Persia, but in China this bird was not endowed with semantic meaning.

Fish. The source of origin of the second animalistic character in the decor of the Verbovo Log fabric - fish-is not clearly defined. Its image cannot be mapped to a specific view. Fish is a fairly popular image in the Golden Horde art; it is represented in the ornament of bronze mirrors, silver vessels and ceramic products [Fedorov-Davydov, 1976, p. 163, fig. 125; p. 171-172, fig. 132-133; p. 173, fig. 144]. Meanwhile,

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the image of fish on textiles of the Mongolian period is known, in addition to the fabric under consideration, only in one more version. On the 14th-century striped Dalmatian from Regensburg, whose decor includes images of waterfowl, various animals and flowers, fish play a secondary role, while on the brocade from Verbovo Log they are the main characters of the decor along with the parrot. Regensburg brocade was made by an Iranian weaver who signed his work: "Master Abd al-Aziz "(Scott, 1993, p. 118); he combined images of Chinese lions playing with Muslim emblems in silk decor (Sobolev, 1934, p.183-184).

On the analyzed brocade from the Verbova Log, the image of a fish, like a parrot, is quite distinct. The body is clearly marked with two dorsal fins and a distinctive forked tail. But its head is more like that of an animal, with a sharp ear, an open mouth, one or two teeth, and a long tongue. Such a manner of depicting fish is not typical for the products of the Golden Horde circle of monuments, which are based on Chinese samples and are mostly associated with the image of carp, and in one case with the image of sturgeon fish [Skripkin, 2001, p. 247, Fig. 1; Nedashkovsky, 2000, pp. 49-55, fig. 9, 7, 2; 10, 2, 4, 5].

In the mythology of the Caucasian peoples, the deity of the lower sky - Vishap - was embodied in the form of a fish, or a water dog, or rather a wolf (Meshchaninov, 1927, p. 20). Perhaps, on the cloth from the Verbovo Log, the fish is depicted with a wolf's head with a characteristic ear and sharp teeth in its mouth. Images of fantastic creatures created by combining parts of real animals-griffins, senmurvas and other "monsters" - were popular in Iranian art, including textile art.

At the same time, the fish on the silk under consideration can also be interpreted as a fantastic marine animal - Makara. This character was characteristic of the Indian tradition and of the cultures that were influenced by it. The features of an aquatic animal that predominate in Makara's images are usually constant, but the features of other creatures used to interpret her head vary. It can be the head of a dragon (with all its components), crocodile, elephant, or other monster. It appears that on a silver Tang dish from the National Museum in Inner Mongolia, two Makars playing with the sun with open mouths, sharp teeth and a long tongue, despite the presence of an elephant trunk, are quite comparable to the fish on silk from the Verbovo Log, although the artefacts show that the fish can be seen in the sea.,

11. Silver Tang dish with the image of Makara from the museum in Inner Mongolia.

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decorated with images of these images, they are separated both in time and space (Fig. 11).

The image of a predatory fish (shark), whose open mouth evokes associations with a wolf, is typical of cosmographic Arab-Persian works. In Zakariya al-Qazwini's " Wonders of Creation and Curiosities of Being "(1203-1283), a popular body of texts on natural knowledge, a shark with an open mouth and sharp teeth is shown in the section on marine animals. The same figure is shown in the Tabriz miniature of 1314 - 1315 "Jami at-tawarikh" by Rashid ad-din. A Persian artist, illustrating the biblical story of how Jonah was swallowed by a sea monster, showed the latter as a giant fish with sharp teeth [The Nasser D. Khalili Collection..., 2002], similar to the one depicted on the silk from the Verbovo Log.

The animal fish on the cloth from the Verbovo Log should be attributed to the artistic images of Iranian art. At the same time, the question of the origin of the images captured on the silk fabric from the Verbovo Log remains open. Apparently, historical and cultural inversions and borrowings were repeated and ambiguous. It is important that common pictorial canons were formed in a single semantic space.

Images of fish in the works of decorative art, created at the same time by the masters of Yuan China, are filled with a different meaning. Here the images of two real fish act as a benevolent motif, a symbol of unity, kindness, love and family happiness and belong to the system of eight auspicious signs of Buddhist symbolism. Ornaments located between panels with fish and between panels with birds are constructed according to a conventional geometric grid. In each strip, several repeating groups of basic motifs are used, which gives the impression of spatial development of the ornament vertically. These features make it possible to associate the panel decor with arabesques-ornaments typical of medieval art in Muslim countries. In terms of the style, form and content of individual elements, the design of the panels of the brocade under consideration is continued in the ornament of the magnificent silk lampas from Granada, woven in the XIV-XV centuries, in which arabesques alternate with Arabic scripts [Scott, 1993, p.106-107].

Finally, when analyzing the design of Verbovy Log brocade, one should pay attention to its tectonics, which is fundamentally different from the decorative system of Chinese silks of the Mongolian period. On silks of the Yuan Dynasty, the main design elements are located among the dense floral motifs of the background ornament projected on a horizontal plane (Daudet, 2005, p. 143). On the considered samples, the vertical development of the decor and a clear division into zones are obvious. This method of decorating silks corresponds to the Islamic artistic tradition. The characteristic alternation of panels with images of paired griffins with panels containing geometric ornaments and separated by narrow decorative stripes is presented in the design of East Iranian silk of the XIII century from the National Museum in Copenhagen (Watt and Wardwell, 1997, p. 136, fig. 64).

The meaning of the composition with parrots and fish on silk from the Verbovo Log can be interpreted in different ways. It is acceptable to consider the ornament as a mythological scheme of the Universe, in which birds and fish are zoomorphic symbols of the upper and lower worlds, and plant-geometric decor is an image of the World Tree. The combination of images of a parrot and a fantastic fish on a silk canvas probably reflects the novelty of the moment associated with the breakthrough of cosmographic ideas in the Muslim worldview, which is based on the policy of religious tolerance of the Mongol khans who ruled Iran. Finally, the overall plot may be a creative reinterpretation by a Persian artist of the Indian myth of the god of love Kama, who "rides around on a parrot, and his banner is carried by a symbol in the form of the mythical fish Makara" [Thomas, 2000, p. 172].

Verbov Log brocade should be considered products related to the Iranian weaving traditions, which is established on the basis of an analysis of the artistic style and technique of execution [Daudet, 2006, p. 139-159]. To date, this is the first known sample of East Iranian silk in the Golden Horde burial grounds of the North Caucasus and the Volga region.

Thus, the considered silks found in three Golden Horde monuments accumulate Chinese, Central Asian and Iranian artistic traditions and represent the silk products of the Mongol Empire. Among the currently known silks from archaeological sites in the south of Russia, no two identical fabrics are found. It is hardly expected that it will be possible to find silks with absolutely identical patterns in different burial grounds. In each case, the cultural and historical attribution of silk is determined individually, based on the proposed criteria.

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