The Hermitage guide

A place apart in the Department’s stocks is held by complexes of archaeological finds coming from completely excavated sites. Among these are the excellently preserved collection of objects from the ancient Russian town of Staraya Ladoga, and the copious material obtained in the early Slavic settlement at Novotroitskoye and the Khazar fortress of Sarkel.

The Department’s collections of Scythian and Sarmatian gold have been enriched by fine specimens of the animal style, discovered in the Chilikty Barrow in Kazakhstan and in burials near the villages of Kalinovka and Verkhneye Pogromnoye in the Lower Volga area. Particularly significant was the growth of the Department’s Siberian collection, which was augmented by finds from barrows in the Altai Mountains (Shibe, Bash-Adar and Pazyryk near the village of Tuekta), belonging to the Scythian period and matchless in respect of their richness and state of preservation, as well as material from a first-century B.C. burial in the Oglakhty Hills on the Middle Enisey. Expeditions undertaken by the Hermitage in the 1950s and 60s produced rare finds from the Neolithic and Bronze Age pile settlements, discovered at Usviaty and Naumovskoye in the northwest region; these also enlarged the Department’s collections. Another source of material was Meshoko, the first and most thoroughly explored site belonging to the Maikop culture of the Northern Caucasus. The Department’s pre-Scythian and Scythian collections were substantially enriched by finds from the many-layered settlement of Magala, one of the most remarkable examples of the Thracian culture to be found in the Western Carpathians, and also by a splendid assortment of items from sixth-century B.C. barrows near the villages of Kruglik and Doliniany, which enabled the Hermitage to arrange for the first time an exhibition devoted to the culture of the population of the Dniester area of the Scythian wooded steppe.

The Polesye expedition brought to the Hermitage articles of the Zarubintsy culture, a culture hitherto not represented in the Museum’s collections. Its most interesting remains are the Otverzhichi and Velemichi burial grounds, which have by now been fully explored. Year after year the Department’s collections are enriched by the finds of the expedition that carries out excavations on burial grounds in the Ferghana area, which date back to the early centuries of our era.

All in all, the Department’s collections are approximately twenty times larger today than they were in the beginning. They provide a vivid picture of the main stages in the early history of the peoples who inhabited or continue to inhabit our country. The materials owned by the Department are subdivided into nine sections on geographical or chronological principles.

The earliest relics are assembled in the Paleolithic section. It contains Lower Paleolithic implements of obsidian discovered on Mt Satani Dar in Armenia, as well as objects found in a hunters’ station of the glacial period, and those yielded by a child’s burial under a dwelling at the Malta station near Irkutsk, whose wealth and variety of Paleolithic remains and objects of art put it among the world’s most important sites. Its treasure of female figures, both clothed and nude, and birds, all carved out of mammoth tusk some 20,000 years ago, its images of a mammoth and serpents engraved on ivory plaques, its necklaces of beads and patterned pendants, bracelets, diadems, and a plaque with incised zigzag-shaped design, have won this site world-wide renown. In addition, during the past decade the section was enriched by a magnificent set of stone implements from sites on the Middle Dniester, which characterize the Stinkovo version of the Mousterian culture.

The section devoted to the South European part of the Soviet Union contains exhibits belonging to the Eneolithic Age. Quite adequately represented in the collection are the relics of the well-studied Tripolye culture (third millennium B.C. and first half of the second), whose sites are to be found all over the Ukraine and Moldavia. Exceptional value is attached to finds from the settlements of Bernova Luka and Polivanov Yar and the Vykhvatintsy burial ground, as reflecting the step-by-step cultural development of the ancient farming population of the country’s Southwest. The collection includes pottery — occasionally of very curious shape — decorated with white, brown or black paint; numerous female statuettes and figurines of domestic animals, made of clay; copper tools; personal adornments; and other artefacts.