„Pietri” și „pietricele”. Despre gemele tezaurului de la Pietroasa / On “Stones” and “pebbles”. The gems in the Pietroasa treasure

In the universe of material culture encompassed by archaeology, precious and semi‑precious stones (gems) seem to be a rather discreet presence. However, their colourful universe suggests a multitude of approaches and details with important contributions both in nuancing the meaning of objects, and in determining their defining characteristics, such as their dating or the identification of the cultural areas and workshops they originated from. Primarily, the present article highlights the multitude of directions such a study can take. Gems that once upon a time adorned (and some still do) the artefacts in the Pietroasa treasure represent a good starting point in the attempt to capture the ways such “stones” and “pebbles” were perceived though time (or “stānas” and “papolstānas” in Old English, somehow suggesting the archaism of the Romanian terms, “pietri” and “pietricele”). Taking into account the special discovery context of the treasure, its recovery and preservation, and the fact that the vast majority of the gems that used to decorate seven of the twelve items of the assemblage are lost forever, an important step is the understanding of : 1) how the items looked initially and 2) what was the visual impact they exerted on the viewer. The fascination induced by the massiveness and brilliance of gold itself is so great that it can represent an impediment in the attempt to recreate the original aspect where the precious metal was used only as a support and a secondary element, both visually and in terms of value. We have identified two ways to get closer to this initial aspect of the artefacts. First, essential information is provided by the judiciary documents that accompanied the recovery process of the artefacts, with the accounts of the peasants who discovered them capturing to a certain extent the emotion they may have exerted on the viewers, also. The second way is through the macro‑ and microscopic study of the items themselves, by understanding their various constructive details. Correlating all the treasure’s complicated history and the changes the artefacts underwent after their discovery, their twofold destruction – once after they were bought from the peasants and later in 1875 when they were stolen – and their threefold restoration – in 1838–1840 in Bucharest, in 1867 in Paris and in 1884 by Paul Telge – the investigation of the artefacts get increasingly complicated. Consequently, their study and that of the gems that adorned them should consider not only their destructions, but also the spirit of their restorations, in a 19 th century manner. Of great assistance in this regard are the 84 loose garnets, most of them fragmented, preserved alongside the treasure items, offering only a pale image of the many gems once collected in “four boxes of fragments”. To exemplify the degree of detail they can reveal, I focused on those that could have been detached from the settings of the large brooch, highlighting the shapes and aspects of the edges, the particularities of the mounts and the decorative motifs they were part of. The identification of previous finishes on the reverse or towards the edges of the free gems also prompted a short excursus into the reuse, retouching and adaptation of these garnets. All the topics touched upon in this article remain open and represent more of a starting point, suggesting that the studied “stones” or “pebbles” still offer multiple perspectives and approaches, as well as unsuspected insights into the multitude of histories fused into the creation of these gem‑adorned artefacts.