Traditional neck jewelry of Western Polissya and Volyn in western Ukraine
The western part of Western Polissya is part of the Republic of Poland (Podlaskie, Lubelskie Voivodeship), the southern part is part of Ukraine (Volyn, Rivne region).
Volyn is a territory in the north-west of modern Ukraine in the basin of the southern tributaries of the Pripyat River and the upper reaches of the Western Bug (its right tributaries), it is the territory of Volyn, Rivne, western part of Zhytomyr regions, northern part of Ternopil and Khmelnytsky regions, between the Western Bug River and the upper reaches of the Teteriv River - a tributary of the Dnipro River. It is also worth mentioning the conditionally named Galician Volyn - the territory of the Lviv region, which is close to the Volyn-Polish ethnoregion (the outskirts of Sokal, Radekhiv and Brody).
Archaeological finds indicate that in the X-XI centuries in the territory of Western Polissya and Volyn were widespread silver pendant archer (found in Peresopnytsia and village Torgovytsia in the vicinity of Mlyniv in Rivne region) and various types of crosses and pendants-medallions on Christian themes.
Neck ornaments were based on beads ("korali", "karali"): coral, amber, clay, multi-colored glass ("patsyorky" made of blown glass) and beads, among which a cross was worn on a lace or braid. Coral necklace - mostly 2-3 strands, richer women wore 5-10 strands ("stalok").
One of the most popular necklace was made of amber, which was mined in Volyn (in Dubrovytsia and Ushomyr). Ukrainian amber varied in color: dark brown, yellow, red-yellow, orange, whitish-yellow, as well as in transparency: transparent, translucent, turbid and opaque. Beads were made of small pieces of amber using special tools. Amber necklaces most often consisted of a single row, laid on the principle from smaller elements at the edges to larger ones in the middle and the largest in the center. The most common was a round, slightly flattened polyhedral shape (36-64 faces) of beads. The size of the beads is 8-20 mm in diameter. Together with the necklaces, round medallions with images of saints ("obrasky", "molytovky", which were bought in Pochayiv) and copper and silver crosses were worn or attached to them.
In Volyn there was a metal female breast ornament - dukach, which was worn on a ribbon or a series of beads. Volyn dukachs were made of coins, medallions or men's award medals. In Volyn dukachs, it is the medallion that has the central place, and the bow visually only complemented it or was absent at all. Often Volyn dukach resembles an openwork brooch with a medallion in the center. In Volyn dukachs of the XIX - early XX centuries there are thalers of the Austro-Hungarian Empress Maria Theresa, thalers of Maximilian of Bavaria, Polish coins and coins of the Russian Empire.
It is not known exactly what kind of beaded syliankas and gerdans were used in Western Polissya and Volyn, because there are no samples of them in available sources.
Although researchers claim that beaded jewelry was made in Volyn and Polissya, but they did not create sylianka-komir, and in the vicinity of Sokal in Lviv region (the territory of Galician Volyn) there were beaded jewelry with geometric floral ornaments.
Zoriana Kuryliak