Through Bosnia and the Herzegóvina on foot during the insurrection, August and September 1875Evans, Arthur, Sir
History
Through Bosnia and the Herzegóvina on foot during the insurrection, August and September 1875
Evans, Arthur, Sir
Bosnia and Herzegovina -- Description and travel; Bosnia and Herzegovina -- History -- Rebellion of 1875
Horace’s lines to too bibulous Croats:—
Natis in usum lætitiæ Scyphis
Pugnare Thracum est.
[Illustration: Roman and Croatian Pottery.]
The other name by which this cup is known to the Croats and Illyrian
Sclaves, _Scalica_, is equally classical, and will recall at once the
Latin _Calicem_ and the Greek κύλικα. In form it has indeed degenerated
from the goblets of Olympus! but one need not despair of tracing its
pedigree from their graceless Roman corruptions. As to the Chalice of our
own and the Romance languages, though it is more like the classic _Calix_
in shape, it is not like these a living popular development, but, with
its name, a mere church introduction, a fragment of antiquity mewed up
for us in ecclesiastical reliquaries.
The other vessels to be found in the Croatian crockery-markets, if they
do not both in shape and name so obviously betray Roman influences, at
least in nearly every case bear witness to the common character of South
Sclavonic civilization. There is hardly a shape in the Agram market which
may not be found again at Belgrade or Bucharest.
[Illustration: Croatian Pottery.
1. Lónac (black-ware milk or water jug). 2. Péhar (reddish-yellow, for
wine, &c.). 3. Dúlčec (green glazed ware, for water, &c.). 4. Tégel
(brown with white bands). 5. Vessel used in Slavonia for slow boiling
(black ware). 6. Cylindrical jar, Slavonia. 7. Zamaclo (bright green
glaze). 8. Lid of same. 9, 10. Svična, or Čereapac, lamp and candle.
11. Whistle in form of a bird. 12. Scafa, or Scalica, drinking-goblet.
13. Dish, or plate (Zdillica, reddish ware with patterns inside). 14.
Earthenware sieve. 15. Raindl, or Raina, for cooking (red ware). 16.
Croatian glass. 17. Flašica. 18. Earthenware hand-stove (Rengla).]
If we pursue this science of the market-place and examine the rude
jewelry which the Agram maidens are wearing, or the musical instruments
which the countrymen have stuck into their belts or slung round their
shoulders, we are again struck by this double evidence of South Sclavonic
solidarity and the influence of Greco-Roman civilization. There are some
ancient Croatian brooches in the Museum at Agram on which is to be seen
the same filagree-work—the pyramids of grains, the spiral tendrillings,
which turn up again on other gold and silver ornaments—Frankish, Norse,
and Anglo-Saxon—and proclaim the common late-Roman origin of all. Like
those of our old English barrows, these brooches are bossed with gems set
in raised sockets. But here, unlike in England, this kind of work seems
never to have died out; it is perpetuated still in the ear-rings, studs,
and brooches of the modern Croats. The same Byzantine style reappears
among Serbs and Roumans, and we shall find it again among the Bosnian
mountains.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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