Almandine pendants of the second half of the 18th century from the Tver excavations as an object of comprehensive scientific study

In 2014 the excavations carried out by the TNIIR-center expedition in Zagorodsky posad in Tver discovered a hoard of silver jewelry that included silver pendants with tubular beads made of almandine garnet and amethyst. The hoard is dated to the second half of the 18th century which is a rather late period archaeologically. However, some artifacts from the hoard have a rather close relationship with numerous finds of unworked almandine garnet which date to an earlier period of the 16th-17th centuries. Recently, crystals of almandine garnet, its fragments and tiny chips as well as broken beads and blank parts made of this gemstone have been documented more frequently during excavations in such cities as Moscow, Tver, Veliky Novgorod and others. The earlier studies found that the unworked almandine garnet came from the Kitel deposit in the northern Ladoga region. The studies performed by the authors show that the almandine of the tubular beads has the same source. The data on the composition and the microtexture characteristics of the silver used to make the pendants were obtained as well.