November 2023 saw the 175th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Russian Orientalist, historian and archaeologist Nikolay Ivanovich Veselovsky (1848–1918). He was a man who made a considerable mark on Russian scholarship with his works on the history and archaeology of Central Asia, the Golden Horde and the Northern Black Sea region, writings on the history of Oriental studies and archaeology in this country.
On 25 September 2024, the exhibition “Epochs, Burial Mounds, Findings: Honouring the 175th Anniversary of Nikolay Veselovsky” will begin its run in the Halls of Central Asia on the ground floor of the Winter Palace (Halls 34–37). The display includes more than 200 unique exhibits that serve to characterize the sites and archaeological cultures that Veselovsky discovered – the Maikop and Scythian cultures, artefacts from the “Golden Cemetery”, the mediaeval Belorechensk burial ground and elsewhere. The items selected for display are the most significant from the excavations and purchases made by the scholar, who systematically acquired antiquities for the Imperial Archaeological Commission. The main emphasis is on presenting little known or entirely unknown objects. The display is supplemented by copies of documents from the Research Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute for the History of Material Culture (including some previously unpublished) and pictorial reconstructions.
Veselovsky is associated with the discovery of such well-known archaeological sites as the Maikop (Oshad), Solokha, Novosvobodnaya, Kelermes and Razmennye (Kostromskaya) burial mounds. His digs initiated the archaeological study of the ancient cities of Central Asia: at the Afrasiab site Hellenistic art from the pre-Islamic period in Turkestan was unearthed. Veselovsky’s excavation of the Maikop Kurgan (Oshad) in 1897 became one of the most famous discoveries in archaeology. Those explorations launched the study of the Maikop culture and presented the Hermitage with an extremely rare collection of antiquities. Veselovsky was among the first to investigate Scythian sites in the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region. The famous stag from the 1st Razmenny (Kostromskaya) Kurgan that has become one of the symbols of the Hermitage was also among his finds.
Over the 29 years that he worked in the Imperial Archaeological Commission, Veselovsky constantly went off on expeditions, remaining in the field from May to September.
Thanks to Veselovsky’s selfless efforts in the archaeological exploration of sites in the south of Russia, unique finds from Kelermes, Oguz, Solokha, the Yelizavetinskaya and Ulyap barrows, the Golden Cemtery, Belorechensk and Moshchevaya Balka became part of the Hermitage collection. Each of the items has its own history, and the most astonishing have been specially chosen for the exhibition.
The exhibition curator is Tatiana Vladimirovna Ryabkova, senior researcher in the State Hermitage’s Department of the Archaeology of Eastern Europe and Siberia.
An illustrated scholarly catalogue of the exhibition is in preparation: Epokhi, kurgany, nakhodki. K 175-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia N. I. Veselovskogo (Saint Petersburg, State Hermitage Publishing House, 2024). The authors are researchers and specialists from the State Hermitage, the RAS Institute for the History of Material Culture and Saint Petersburg State University.
The exhibition in Halls 34–37 of the Winter Palace is open to all holders of tickets to the Main Museum Complex from 24 September 2024 to 26 January 2025.
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More about the exhibition
Nikolay Ivanovich Veselovsky began his archaeological activities with the study of Central Asian sites – a topic that was directly connected with his main scholarly interests as an Orientalist. These large-scale undertakings initiated the systematic study of historical cultural sites in Turkestan. However, after the first field season, a wholly successful one in all respects, Veselovsky switched to the excavation of kurgans (burial mounds) of the Scythian-Sarmatian era in the region north of the Black Sea.
From 1894 he embarked on excavations in the Kuban region and by 1917 more than 500 kurgans had been investigated there. In the course of this work, a whole series of exceptional sites were discovered: the Kostromskaya kurgans and the Maikop kurgan Oshad (1897), the Kelermes (1903–04), Ulyap (1910), and Solokha (1912–13) burial mounds, as well as many more. The excavation of the Maikop kurgan laid the foundation for the study of a previously unknown early Bronze Age culture. In 23 years of determined work, Veselovsky explored hundreds of burial places, making it possible to produce a geographical map and a timescale for sites in the part of European Russia around the Sea of Azov and adjoining areas. That coordinate system of sorts serves as a foundation for modern-day researches.
Professor Veselovsky’s discoveries became a brilliant chapter in the history of Russian and world archaeology. The scholar’s passion for excavation coincided with the interests of the Imperial Archaeological Commission, and of its chairman, Count Alexei Alexandrovich Bobrinsky, who himself had some experience of exploring burial mounds.
The interest in Scythian sites can be attributed to the fact that royal Scythian burial mounds particularly contained as a rule works of high artistic technique. Such objects were the quarry of numerous opportunist tomb raiders. In 1903 a real sensation was caused in Saint Petersburg by some extraordinary finds from the Kelermes kurgans that had been sent to the Imperial Archaeological Commission by David Schultz, who had carried out a dig after presenting himself to the local authorities as a member of the commission. He was issued with a permit to excavate, but it soon emerged that some mysterious seller had brought a large batch of gold articles to Rostov-on-Don and offered them to local craftsmen and shops, while insisting that they should be immediately melted down after purchase. The seller’s identity was established by Veselovsky, who arrived in Rostov in May 1904 specially to clarify the situation. Having investigated, he acted swiftly, sending the commission a telegram: “The seller is Schultz. Send orders to Anapa to withdraw the permit. There were many items.” The permit was annulled, and Veselovsky himself took over the further exploration at Kelermes.
The Professor evidently worked so hard in a effort to preserve for scholarship what was disappearing before his eyes. The accusations of “treasure-hunting” that have been put forward by some researchers are unjust, since besides grand and prestigious artefacts ordinary items were also recorded and passed on to the collections: pottery, fragmentary elements of horse harness and weaponry, bronze personal adornments, and so on.
Veselovsky personally engaged in the restoration of finds. According to the reminiscences of contemporaries, in his study at the Archaeological Commission he matched and glued together shards of vessels, and cleaned ancient fabrics, doing everything with his characteristic thoroughness. A drawing of a rhyton from the Talayevsky Kurgan bears the annotation: Restored by Prof. N.I. Veselovsky.
Through working with numerous artefacts of different eras and the study of the scholarly literature, Veselovsky became a leading expert in determining the cultural-historical context to which things belonged and their authenticity. In the line of duty, he would systematically acquire antiquities from traders, corresponding regularly with some, and appraised the pieces that dealers sent to him to be passed on to the Imperial Archaeological Commission. Due to a large extent precisely to his reputation and commitment, he saved quite literally from the melting pot some exceptional items that then became part of the Hermitage collection.
Veselovsky’s scholarly legacy is some extremely rich sets of objects from his excavations that entered the Hermitage over the course of more than half a century. The best-known pieces include a Panathenaean amphora and armour bearing a depiction of the Gorgon Medusa from the Yelizavetinskaya burial mounds, a gold comb and silver vessels from the Solokha kurgan, the gold decoration of a gorytos (bow-case) in the form of a stag from the 1st Razmenny (Kostromskaya) Kurgan and sumptuous adornments and vessels from the Maikop Kurgan. The diverse and exceptional items featured in the exhibition are a monument to Veselovsky’s energy, diligence and selfless dedication.
In 1918 a whole era passed away together with Veselovsky. Roughly a year after his death, the Imperial Archaeological Commission ceased to exist, becoming the Academy for the History of Material Culture. Mikhail Rostovtsev and Alexei Bobrinsky, men who had worked directly with Veselovsky, became émigrés in 1918 and 1919 respectively.
The exhibition “Epochs, Burial Mounds, Findings: Honouring the 175th Anniversary of Nikolay Veselovsky” is emblematic and appropriate. The Veselovsky era in archaeology left Russia a huge and precious scholarly legacy, in the study and popularization of which the State Hermitage is engaged.
Through the efforts of several generations of restorers, Hermitage curators and researchers, objects have been described, studied and brought into scholarly circulation. Besides research, museum and exhibition activities, the Hermitage traditionally also carries out archaeological exploration, including at sites that were discovered by Veselovsky. It is this long-term systematic work that made it possible to organize a fitting exhibition to mark the notable anniversary of the birth of Nikolay Ivanovich Veselovsky.
This
press release draws upon texts written by
T.V. Ryabkova, I.L. Tikhonov
and M.V. Medvedeva
for the exhibition catalogue Epokhi, kurgany, nakhodki
(State Hermitage Publishing House, 2024)
