"1 day - 1 exhibit": the lock of Abu Bekr

The "Kazan reporter" continues joint project with the National Museum of RT "1 day - 1 exhibit". Today we will study the lock, created almost 900 years ago and the inscription on it.

The museum's archeological collections number more than 230,000 exhibits and are the main archaeological repository of the republic. One of the most important parts of this collection is the Bulgarian one. It was based on a collection of antiquities from the rich collection of A.F. Likhachev, which numbered more than 7000 unique items of Bulgarian culture, found mainly in the vicinity of the ancient cities of Bulgar and Bilyar. The meeting allows us to disclose unknown pages of the medieval history of the Tatar people, which, due to a number of circumstances, are poorly covered by written sources.

The products of the Bulgarian casters, chasers, jewelers testify to the high level of craftsmanship. Simultaneously with the products there is also a handicraft tool that allows to define various techniques for making objects: molds, matrix, etc.

Archaeological research has shown that the Bulgarian masters widely used the technique of embossing, stamping  and engraving. Numerous finds of linings and plaques from the Bulgarian monuments testify to the wide variety of matrix-stamps used by Bulgarian jewelers, the earliest of which date back to the 10th-11th centuries. Among the products of local craftsmen there are also imported things.

A unique exhibit, most likely brought from the Middle East, is a bronze cylinder lock. It is made by casting on a wax model, decorated with an artistically performed Arabic inscription. Here you can read: "The work by Abu-Bekr's son Ahmed. Permanent glory and peaceful success, and happiness is universal, and greatness, and well-being (yes), the ruler of this (lock). In the chronology of 541 years (1146-1147). "

This is nothing more than a PR move by a master trying to please his customers with his eloquence. But even he could not imagine that his work would be admired after nearly 900 years. This unique exhibit is called the only subscription product of that era in Volga Bulgaria.

By the way, in the archives of the National Museum of RT the scheme of this lock has been preserved. This is the picture from the article about this lock SE. Malovo. He was the first to translate this inscription. The article was published in the notes of the College of Orientalists at the Arab Museum in 1926 in Leningrad.

Among the household items of the Bulgarian era, bronze locks were popular in the form of static stylized figures of animals: horses, rams, leopards, dogs - covered with a circular ornament. Such locks were widespread in the Muslim world from North Africa to Khorezm and are an important evidence of the extensive contacts of Bulgaria.

Anton Reikhstadt, together with the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan