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Máró Márta: "Magyar", illetve "török" arany- és ezüstfonalak 17. századi magyar hímzéseken? A korszak "fémfonal-palettája" az írott források és az archeometriai elemzések tükrében
152 JÁRÓ MÁRTA "Hungarian"and "Turkish" gold and silver threads - were they used in 17th century Hungarian embroideries? The "palette of metal threads" of the period according to the contemporary written sources and the archaeometrical examination MÁRTA JÁRÓ The embroideries, made in the territory of Hungary in the 17th century, were often decorated with special motifs created from Western and Eastern (mainly Ottoman-Turkish) elements. To make them more splendid, besides of silk, different metal threads were also used for the work. The provenience of the different threads is very rarely given in the contemporary purchase- and customs tariff-lists, regulations of prises, etc. However, in other types of documents like dowry lists, inventories we find sometimes the "Hungarian" and "Turkish" indications of origin in connection with metal threads. This problem has already been mentioned in the 20th century Hungarian and foreign special literature, but not any explication was found for the denominations like "Hungarian gold", "Turkish silver", etc. The aim of the research was to make an attempt at the clarification of these terms by scientific methods. Lack of pieces which could be brought in connection with concrete inventory items, the study of 17th century written sources was carried out parallel to the scientific investigation of samples stemming from Hungarian embroideries dated to the same period. Hundreds of economic- and inventory-type documents, mentioning different kinds of threads in the same list, were taken into consideration to have a picture about the metal threads which could be seen with the naked eye and described by the compilers. The morphologically simplest ones, often in various names figure in the lists: flat metal strip, wire (often named scofium), their variants made by winding them around a fibrous core (fiié threads), etc. Gold, silver, rarely gilt silver and copper (or copper alloy) are marked as metals they were fabricated from. For comparison, the investigation of around seventy samples taken from more than forty embroideries was carried out by optical- and scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis. Gold or gold alloys were not used for making strips and wires. All the gold-coloured ones but two were made of gilt silver. The exceptions were fabricated of brass, resp. silvered and gilt copper. Both types of silver-gilt fiié threads, known by now, figure among the samples: single- and double-sided gilt silver strips wound tightly or (in some cases, with the double-sided ones), sparsely around a silk yarn. The silver strips were also tightly or sparsely wound around the core. Not any fiié thread of wire was among the threads. As a result, we got an approximate picture about the "palette of metal threads" of the period. The pieces of data were compared with each other and with the analysis results of samples from European and Ottoman-Turkish weavings and embroideries, published in the special literature, as well as obtained by us. There were not any significant differences in morphology or material of the threads, apart from some small ones, hinting at their origin. We have not found any document by now, mentioning workshops or masters producing metal threads in the Hungarian territories of the given period. Our hypothesis is that metal threads were scarcely fabricated in the territory of the Hungarian Kingdom or the Principality of Transylvania in the 17th century. The silver-gilt file thread (with a thicker gold layer on the surface), the deep yellow colour of which reminded the compiler of the Hungarian, high standard gold coins, was called Hungarian gold or -gold thread. The good quality, not tarnished silver fiié thread was probably described as Hungarian silver. The scofium, the name of the embroidery wires (gilt silver and silver ones), was neither a Hungarian nor a Turkish word. Since it was an Eastern import ware, probably the use of this term itself hinted at its Turkish origin. In some rare cases, the scofium and Turkish gold and silver figure together in the lists. We think that the latter ones describe fiié threads of strip, flattened from silver or gilt silver wire, wound sparsely around a silk core. They were often used in the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century, and the compilers could distinguish them from the other ones with the naked eye. To support or reject this hypothesis, further research of written sources and scientific investigations are needed.
