Meaning and significance of ornamentation of kissel bowls from the collection of the Nizhny Novgorod state historical and architectural museum-reserve

The article attempts to decipher the sence and meaning of the images on 8 kissel bowls from the Nizhny Novgorod Museum-Reserve collection. Kissel bowl is a dish for preparing ritual food, and the ornaments on it are always symbolic. Using the method of analogy with other types of decorative and applied art on kissel bowls, individual elements of the ornament with a sacred meaning and their entire complexes were identified, which made it possible to attribute some objects to one or another ritual of our ancestors.