Why Did It Become So Popular? Twisted Jewellery from the Formative Period of the Hungarian State in the Carpathian Basin

Abstract

The use of wire had an important place in the European crafts milieu during the Antiquity and the Middle Ages, however, jewellery made entirely by twisting wires was specific only to particular periods and geographical areas. It is well known that twisted neck-rings (torcs) and arm-rings were widespread in the north and east of Europe – a huge number of such finds come from famous Viking-age silver hoards. Similar twisted items, mainly made of bronze, were also popular in the Carpathian basin during the last decades of the 10 th and the 11th century, but they are less known to a wider scientific audience. Nearly four hundred torcs and probably several hundred twisted bracelets and finger-rings originate from cemeteries of the so-called Arpad period. This paper will discuss archaeological contexts, as well as morphological and technological characteristics of twisted jewellery in order to gain a better understanding of the nature of the relationships between East–Central Europe and the surrounding world in the beginning of the High Middle ages.