From 12 to 14 August 2024, the annual All-Russian theoretical and practical conference on “The Archaeology and History of the Bosporan Kingdom” was held at the East Crimean Historical and Cultural Museum Preserve in Kerch.
On this occasion the scholarly forum was dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the first director of the Kerch Museum of Antiquities, Yuly Yulyevich Marti.
“The aim of this year’s conference is to tell about the latest results in the study of the history and culture of the Bosporan Kingdom,” Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage and President of the Union of Museums of Russia, wrote in his greetings to the participants. “Although research in this field began a long time ago, the scholarly community is continuing to expand its explorations and to discover new things. Yuly Yulyevich Marti, to whom the conference is dedicated, was the first of our country’s archaeologists to begin to study small Bosporan towns. He conducted excavations on the site of Pantikapaion and drew up plans of settlement sites. His work brought in its train successful archaeological expeditions across the whole of the Kerch and Taman peninsulas. You have gathered here because you are continuing the cause of the great archaeologist Yuly Yulyevich Marti, and that is a major honour and service to the world of learning.”
The conference was opened by Tatiana Umrikhina, Director of the East Crimean Historical and Cultural Museum Preserve. In the plenary sessions, the participants discussed the problems facing the archaeological expeditions working at Nymphaion and Citea, questions of the cessation of earth-moving work by outside organizations on the territory of ancient settlement sites. They also spoke about the need to create a new modern storage facility for artefacts found by archaeologists on the Kerch peninsula. Currently they are being brought to the Kerch Lapidarium, where there is not enough room for them.
Presentations were made by Alexander Butiagin, head of the Hermitage’s Classical Archaeology Sector and leader of the Myrmekion Archaeological Expedition, Olga Sokolova, a researcher in the Hermitage’s Department of Classical Antiquity and leader of the Nymphaion Expedition, Sergei Solovyev, a researcher in the Hermitage’s Department of Classical Antiquity and leader of the Classical Integrated Expedition, and Vladimir Tolstikov, head of the Department of the Art and Archaeology of the Classical World at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and head of the Bosporan (Pantikapaion) Expedition, as well as other researchers.
The traditional external session was held at the ancient settlement site of Pantikapaion, where the latest discoveries made at the excavation of the New Upper Mithridates sector were presented.
During the conference. Olga Solodilova, Chairwoman of Kerch City Council, Olga Burova, First Deputy Culture Minister of the Republic of Crimea, and Ivan Korneyev, head of the Hermitage’s History and Information Service, presented honorary diplomas to the leaders of the archaeological expeditions and members of staff of the East Crimean Historical and Cultural Museum Preserve.
The conference at the East Crimean Historical and Cultural Museum Preserve was held with the support of the Culture Ministry of the Republic of Crimea and the V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University.
