Moschevaya Balka Boots

Nomadic Magyar / Kazhar
9th-10th century



Through History takes you on a journey through time, towards the Silk Road:

It was the great overland trade route of the ancient, mythical world, carrying goods, including silks, from China to the Mediterranean across the largest landmass of the old world.
In the 6th century AD, tensions between Byzantium and the Sassanid Empire disrupted trade along the traditional route.
Central Asian merchants then developed a new route to Byzantium, going north of the Caspian Sea and crossing the Caucasus Mountains via steep passes (mainly in the North Caucasus, the Darial Gorge).
The first caravan carrying Chinese silks travelled via this North Caucasus route in 568. The Caucasian silk routes remained in use throughout the Middle Ages, losing their importance only in the 14th century.
Along this route passed many mythical empires, including that of the Kazhars and then Kievan Rus'.

In the 20th century, numerous textile finds from the 9th and 10th centuries were discovered near the mountain passes and on the foothills below the Caucasus.
The main site of Moshchevaja Balka ("Ravine of Mummies or Relics") is a cemetery of what was probably the largest trading post on this mythical route when it reached Europe.
located in a densely wooded area at approximately 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) above sea level.

Anna A. Ierusalimskaja, curator of North Caucasus antiquities at the Hermitage, has written extensively about the finds (in Russian and German), but Elfriede R. Knauer concludes that "neither the age nor the places of manufacture of the majority of the Chinese silks nor of those from the Eastern Mediterranean recovered from the North Caucasus sites can yet be defined with absolute certainty. In the absence of further criteria, Ierusalimskaja's dates can only be accepted with caution."

However, these discoveries seem to correspond to a nomadic Kazhar civilization, which has since completely disappeared, and where several tribes of the North Caucasus "seem to have shared a fairly uniform and - without the textile discoveries - unspectacular material culture, known as the Saltovo-Majaki culture.

The boots were made from a pattern of the assembly diagram made by Olga Orfinskaya of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Thanks to Josselin for this valuable advice.