Conference: 70th Anniversary of the Archeology Department

On 31 October, 2001, a conference took place in connection with the 70th Anniversary of the Department of East European and Siberian Archeology. The conference was opened by G.V. Vilinbakhov, Deputy Director of the State Hermitage. The first presentation made by Yu.Yu. Piotrovsky dealt with the history of the creation of the Hermitage archeology collection and the Department itself. The conference program was devised with a view to demonstrate the Department's work as fully as possible. The Department's oldest member, Ye.I. Oyateva, specialist in the art of the Kama region, described the methods of deciphering a pictographic text and reconstructing an ancient view of the world which is almost identical for all ancient civilizations. Ye.F. Korolkova in her presentation touched upon the much-debated problem of differentiating artifacts from burials into household and ritual objects. Ya.V. Domansky and K.K. Marchenko dedicated their presentation to the discussion of relations between the Greek colonies on the Black Sea and Scythian nomadic tribes. System of measurements used by the ancient Altai nomads was in the center of L.S. Marsadolov's attention: he showed there was a certain module underlying all measurements, for example, in constructing kurgans. The presentation made by L.L. Barkova dealing with a knitted headgear detail used by the Altai nomads from the Second Pazyryk Kurgan discussed one of the so far unresolved problems of religious beliefs. M.B. Schukin suggested discussing the idea of the famous traveler and explorer Thor Heyerdahl about the Scandinavian peoples' migration to Saxony, Denmark and Sweden from Asia. This hypothesis might explain the archeological phenomenon of the spreading of golden and silver filigree jewelry into Scandinavia and Northern Europe from the 1st century AD on. R.S. Minasyan dealt with problems of the study of metal working in the forest areas of Eastern Europe during the 1st millenium. The presentation made by Z.A. Lvova was dedicated to the history of the fortress of Sarkel as revealed by a comparison of archeological data with the new written sources, the Russian translation of Bulgar chronicles published in 1993 in Kazan and Orenburg. N.A. Fonyakova spoke about the methods of dealing with geometrical ornamentation on household and ritual artifacts of the Saltovo-Mayatsky culture of the second half of the 8th-10th centuries.

Proceedings of the conference were published in (70th Anniversary of the Archeology Department: Conference Presentation Abstracts), St. Petersburg, 2001.

A.Yu. Alekseyev, Ph.D., Archeology Department Director

Discussion at the conference

At the conference

70th Anniversary of the Archeology Department: Conference Presentation Abstracts
St. Petersburg 2001