At the foot of Mt. Ararat
28 October 2008 - 25 January 2009

The exhibition in the Fore-Hall of the Winter Palace is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of an outstanding Orientalist and archaeologist who devoted a considerable part of his life o archaeology in the Caucasus - the founder of Urartian studies in the country, Boris Borisovich Piotrovsky (1908-1990).

The items from the collections of the Museum of the History of Armenia and the Erebuni Fortess Museums reflect Boris Piotrovsky’s many-sided scholarly interests and his invaluable contribution to the study of the ancient cultures that existed on Armenian soil.

The exhibits can be divided into several groups. The first group consists of artefacts of the 12th to 2nd millennia BC from various archaeological sites on the territory of Armenia: small-scale plastic art, ceramics, gold and bronze articles and jewellery. The items presented show clearly the transition from the use of stone to bronze. The character of the depictions changes - from coarse, schematic images to carefully finished cast articles, in which the finest details are emphasized. Particularly outstanding are the bronze weapons - a sword and battle-axe.

The second group comprises artefacts belonging to the Urartian culture of the 9th to 7th centuries BC. Urartu was an ancient Middle Eastern state that formed on the Armenian uplands in the 9th century BC. It arose out of an alliance of tribes created to resist the might of Assyria. Urartu is notable not only for its military successes, but also for its advanced art. This includes monumental architecture (Teishebaini, Erebuni, Argishtikhinili), fresco painting (Erebuni) and artistic crafts. The exhibition includes sculptural depictions of deities in bronze and clay, bone and stone figurines of animals, ceramics, gold and silver ornaments and vessels, and also bronze armour, military accoutrements and cult utensils bearing dedicatory inscriptions of the Urartian kings and a few clay tablets carrying cuneiform texts. The majority of the Urartian artefacts come from the excavations of the Teishebaini fortress (present-day Karmirblur on the western outskirts of Yerevan) that were carried out from 1939 to 1971 by a joint archaeological expedition of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR and the State Hermitage under the leadership of Boris Piotrovsky and made the systematic study of Urartian civilization possible. Teishebaini was a major administrative and economic centre in the Transcaucasian region, the seat of a governor and a garrisoned stronghold to which tribute was brought from the surrounding districts and where it was processed. The city was surrounded by gardens, vineyards and fields. Teishebaini took over from earlier Urartian centres in the Transcaucasus that date back to the 8th century BC. This explains why the Karmirblur digs yielded many items bearing the signature of rulers from the 8th century BC - Menua. Argishtis I, Sardur II and Rusa I. The fortress fell to a surprise attack. The storming was accompanied by a great fire and collapsing ceilings buried the contents of the storerooms. This event can be compared with the demise of the Roman Pompeii, where it has proved possible to reconstruct a complete picture of the life and death of the town. Beneath the collapsed walls and ceilings of buildings in the Teishebaini fortress there truly proved to be a whole museum of the culture and art of ancient Urartu.

The exhibits of the third group date from the 6th and 5th centuries BC and represent the post-Urartian period on Armenian territory. Notable among them are two rhytons (figured drinking vessels): a ceramic one in the form of a calf and a silver one featuring a half-figure of a horseman.

The last group includes glass items from mediaeval Dvin (8th-13th centuries AD) and is a tribute to the memory of the prominent scholar and archaeologist Ripsime Dzhanpoladian, Boris Piotrovsky’s wife, who devoted her life to the study of mediaeval Armenian culture and made a major contribution to the study of glass-making in Armenia.

The Hermitage Publishing House has produced an illustrated catalogue raisonne for the exhibition. The curator is Anna Nikolayevna Novikova, a junior researcher in the Hermitage’s Department of the East.

Painted jug
18th-17th centuries BC
Larger view

Bowl with a depiction of lions
17th-16th centuries BC
Larger view

Helmet bearing a dedicatory inscription of King Argishtis I
8th century BC
Larger view

Stauette of the god Teisheba
7th century BC
Larger view

Goblet
7th-6th centuries BC
Larger view

Rhyton with the figure of a horseman
6th-5th century BC
Larger view

Bowl
10th-11th centuries
Larger view