page_title: History of jewellery in Ukraine
section_title: Traditional Ukrainian jewelry
hierarchical_section_title: History of jewellery in Ukraine / Traditional Ukrainian jewelry
caption_attribution_description: English: "Kolty" (singular "kolt") are pendants that attached to a woman's headdress at the temples. The hollow space within the two concave gold disks that compose a "kolt" contained perfumes or scented oils. The pendants were usually decorated on both sides, since they could rotate as the woman walked. This "kolt" is decorated with delicate cloisonn&#233; enamel, a technique learned from Byzantine masters starting in the late 10th century. "Kolty" were frequently worn at wedding ceremonies; the lilies (center), birds, and seeds that fleck the birds' breasts are all symbols of fertility. The bird is also an image retained from Russia's pagan past.
context_page_description: Jewellery as an art form originated as an expression of human culture. Body ornamentation, one purpose of jewellery, has been known since at least the Stone Age. The history of jewellery in Ukraine reflects the influence of many cultures and peoples who have occupied the territory in the past and present.
context_section_description: The early 6th century saw the spread of Slavic people, and the state of Kievan Rus' was founded in around 880 CE. Traditions of previous inhabitants did not vanish, and this was quite apparent in the jewellery. Alongside original autochthon forms, there is a mix of Scythian, Sarmatian, Hun, Greek, Celtic and Viking influence on Slavic jewellery. The techniques which were familiar to the ancient Slavs included forging, stamping, chasing, granulation, lost-wax casting enameling, and niello.
  Artisans reached a very high level of technical proficiency. The Benedictine monk Theophilus rated jewelers of Kievan Rus second only after the Byzantines. Besides the pendants, rings, torques, armlets, fibulas, necklaces and other such jewellery, which had been common to all nations, Slavs had original jewellery – silver armlets of a distinctive Kiev type, temple rings, enameled kolts and diadems. Slavic metal amulets such as spoons, hatchets, horses, ducks, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic sewed plates are also well known.
  Around this time, Ukraine also began to feel the influences of the Byzantine Empire, most notably in world view, culture and art. New types of creative works appeared, such as rich book settings, often embroidered with pearls (mainly from the Dnieper river), liturgical cups, crosses, icon setting frameworks, and later on boxes for storing relics, church chandeliers, cups, and plates.  In 1240 the Mongol invasion of Rus led by Batu Khan completely destroyed Kiev. The artisans of Rus' were made prisoners and forced to work for the Tatars. The Mongol occupation lasted for several centuries. Revived centres in Halych and Volodymyr tried to continue Kievan traditions. Simultaneously, small colonies of north-eastern Slavs along the Volga River and its tributaries were borrowing some of the better Rus' handicraft traditions. In combination with local cultural traditions as well as under the influence of Baltic people they contributed to the new culture that would later be called Russian.
  Traditional jewelry in Hutsul and Pokuttya regions includes beadwork and Ukrainian embroidery.
caption: Ukrainian kolt
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