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The Hermitage Guide

AURORA ART PUBLISHERS

LENINGRAD

Introduction by Boris Piotrovsky

Texts by Boris Asvarishch, Alice Bank, Xenia Gorbunova, Galina Komelova, Vladimir Lukonin, Vsevolod Potin, Irina Saverkina, Galina Smirnova, and Vladimir Vasilyev

Translated from the Russian by Vladimir Vezey and Yuri Pamfilov

Layout and design by Galina and Yuri Dyshlenko

© Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad, 1981

Printed and bound in the USSR

The main part of the infinitely rich archaeological collection of the Hermitage, some 450,000 odd items, is housed in the Department of Prehistoric Culture. Its stocks contain finds from a vast territory stretching from the Carpathians in the west to the Pacific coast in the east, and from the shores of the Black Sea and the Tien Shan foothills in the south, to the Taimyr Peninsula in the north. The materials preserved cover an enormous period in the ancient history of the peoples inhabiting this territory — a period embracing the Paleolithic Age and the beginnings of Russian statehood.

The origin of the Hermitage’s archaeological fund dates back to the early nineteenth century. In the middle of the nineteenth century the Museum acquired the famous Tmutarakan Stone bearing the oldest known Russian inscription, dated 1068 A.D. About the same time the Hermitage received, by transfer from the Kunstkammer (Russia’s first public museum), the country’s oldest archaeological collection, known as the Siberian Collection of Peter the Great. This collection consisted of numerous gold articles excavated by barrow-diggers in West Siberia and Kazakhstan in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Many such articles found their way into the hands of Nikita Demidov, a wealthy Urals industrialist, who presented them to Tsar Peter’s wife, Catherine. They were greatly prized by the tsar, who initiated a further search for such finds, so that the collection grew and came, in time, to number more than 250 gold articles: massive cast plaques that served as belt buckles, torques, bracelets, animal figurines, and various other ornamental objects.

The articles of ancient goldwork composing the main body of the Department’s collection were furnished by the systematic excavations carried on in Russia during the second half of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth. After the Imperial Archaeological Commission was founded in 1859, all finds of outstanding interest were usually placed in the Hermitage. Thus the objects yielded by the barrows and necropoli along the northern Black Sea coast and in the Northern Caucasus — the famous burials of Scythian and Sarmatian nobles in the barrows of Kelermes, Solokha, Chertomlyk, Khokhlach, and many others — reached the Museum, forming a collection of Scytho-Sarmatian antiquities which, judged by its scope and artistic value, remains unsurpassed to this day. As for relics of earlier date, brilliant examples are provided by the Maikop Barrow with its unique specimens of third millennium B.C. toreutics, and the Koban culture complexes of metal artefacts, dating back to the late Bronze Age (early first millennium B.C.). Towards the end of the nineteenth century the Museum acquired a great hoard of objects in precious metals, discovered in the vicinity of the Malaya Pereshchepina village near Poltava, and numerous pieces of jewellery from old Russian hoards found at Nevel, Gniozdovo and other places.

It was not until after the October Revolution of 1917, however, that the Hermitage collections of archaeological objects began to be studied and arranged on a strictly scientific basis. A new department was created, in 1931, named initially the Pre-class Society Department but later renamed the Department of Prehistoric Culture. Its nucleus was composed of the archaeological collections of the Helleno-Scythian and, partially, of the Byzantine sections of the former Department of Antiquities, comprising, to begin with, some 20,000 items.

Subsequently, the new department received archaeological material unearthed by pre-Revolution excavations and previously housed in other museums, such as the Leningrad Artillery Museum, the Moscow Regional Museum, the Moscow University Institute of Anthropology, and in private collections, belonging to the Stroganovs, Romanchenkos, Alexeyevs, and to Nikolai Roerich. A substantial increment came after the War of 1941—45, when the Russian Museum transferred to the Hermitage the collection of its former Ethnography Department.

The main credit for the growth of the Museum’s collections over the past thirty years should go to the archaeological excavations which have been regularly carried out by the Hermitage jointly with the USSR Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Archaeology, and which have substantially helped fill the gaps in the collections. Materials are also acquired from other organizations which conduct excavation works yielding finds of historical and artistic value.

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.

The Bronze Age culture of the peoples inhabiting the steppes of the Ukraine and the valleys of the Volga and the Don is represented by remains of the Old Pit, Catacomb and Timber Grave cultures, although there is considerably less material than from the Tripolye culture. Of outstanding importance is the so-called “founder’s hoard” comprising pottery moulds and various instruments used in making axes, adzes, daggers, etc., discovered on a site in the Volgograd region.

The Caucasian section contains artefacts dating from the period of the Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age, and derived mostly from the Northern Caucasus (objects of chronologically later origin forming part of the collection of the Oriental Department). Among the earliest are the finds from the Agubekovo and Dolinskoye settlements and from a burial in the vicinity of Nalchik. The most important, however, is the famous complex of finds from the Maikop Barrow, discovered in 1837. Here, concealed beneath a great mound of earth, a timber crypt disclosed three bodies, including one of a tribal chief. It was around his remains that the largest number of objects was found: two gold, fourteen silver and eight pottery vessels; pieces of a funerary canopy ornamented with numerous gold plaques depicting lions and bulls; multitudinous gold, silver and stone beads and other ornaments, as well as a set of copper and several stone implements, including flint arrowheads. Since these Maikop finds comprise one of the earliest funerary comlexes of the tribal nobility and illustrate the relations between the tribes of the Northern Caucasus and the civilizations of the Ancient Orient, they have long drawn the attention of scholars. The material from Meshoko, the only settlement of the Maikop culture practically fully explored, affords an insight into the mode of life of the local population.

The remains of the Koban and Colchian cultures testify to a high level of metallurgy and metal working in the Caucasus during the first millennium B.C. The Koban burial ground in the mountains of North Ossetia, where over six hundred burials of the twelfth to tenth centuries B.C. have been excavated, has yielded a large quantity of bronze articles, most of which are ornamented with geometric and plant designs as well as animal and, occasionally, human figures. This material includes weapons, horse trappings, belts, fibulae, bracelets, vessels, etc. Figurines of men and animals also occur among the finds.

The Department’s newest section, that of Central Asia, — its collections were formerly part of the Caucasian section — contains material from complexes of the ancient (fifth to third millennia B.C.) settlements in the south of Turkmenia, which belong with the Painted Pottery culture of the early farming populations, spread over the vast area from the Balkans all the way to China. Finds from Turkmenia include thin-walled pottery decorated with monochrome or polychrome ornamentations; tools; adornments; and clay statuettes of women and domestic animals. Particularly interesting are the finds from the barrows of the early (fifth and fourth centuries B.C.) nomads of the Pamirs, and the comprehensive collection of articles from the Ferghana settlements and cemeteries dating mainly from the early centuries of our era. Material relating to later periods is housed in the Oriental Department.

The museum boasts the most archaic specimens of Scythian culture and art. These are sixth-century B.C. finds, yielded by the Kostromskaya, Kelermes and Ulsky Barrows in the Kuban area and by the Litoi Barrow in the Dnieper valley.

Among the later rich burials of the Dnieper valley, the Solokha and Chertomlyk Barrows, discovered near Nikopol, are best known. Buried under a mound eighteen metres high at Solokha were a king, his armour-bearer, an attendant and a groom, and five horses. The grave goods found here give an idea of a king’s personal battle array: a sword in a scabbard, and a bronze helmet of Greek workmanship. The gold-plate covering of the scabbard and sword-hilt is adorned with animal figures, and the silver-gilt one of the gorytus (combined bow-case and quiver) is embossed with representations of warriors in battle and scenes of animal combat. An object that gained world-wide fame is a gold haircomb with a sculptured group of Scythian warriors engaged in battle. Justly prized for its exceptionally high artistic merits, the comb is also of great historic value, since it accurately depicts the men themselves, the clothes they wore and the weapons they fought with. Another find from the Solokha Barrow is a set of gold and silver utensils, including silver vessels of Greek workmanship, a wine bowl, and a ladle with a strainer.

The Chertomlyk Barrow, whose mound measured some 20 metres high and 50 metres in diameter, had been looted, but even what remained was truly magnificent. Buried here was a king, his queen, his two armour-bearers, several grooms, and eleven horses. The royal burial has yielded weapons and gold plaques with a variety of designs, but our main interest is in the casing of the king’s gorytus — a massive gold plate depicting episodes from the Greek myth of Achilles — and in the gold cover of his scabbard with the scene of battle between Greek and Persian warriors. The queen’s burial contained a large number of gold ornaments: plaques forming part of a headdress, pendants, a torque with the terminals shaped as lion figures, bracelets, finger-rings, and a string of beads.

An admirable work of art is a silver amphora embossed with a design of flowers, leaves, palmettes, figures of birds, and gryphons tearing stags, and with a magnificent frieze of men and horses in relief. A large shallow silver bowl and ladle were found next to the amphora. The tomb of one of the royal armour-bearers also yielded valuable articles. The caches were found to contain fragments of decayed woollen textiles, numerous gold costume plaques, and more gold plaques from women’s headdresses. Equally rich are the horse trappings, which include some 250 gold, silver and bronze bridle sets with bits, cheekpieces and ornamental plaques, as well as gold plates from saddle mountings, and finials from chariot poles.

An important part of the Scythian section is comprised of beautiful specimens executed in the animal style. Viewed as a whole, they illustrate the development of this style all the way from the earlier realistic efforts to later works rendered in a simplified, stylized manner. The earliest specimens include two gold shield ornaments: the stag from the Kostromskaya Barrow, and the panther, from the Kelermes Barrow; characteristic of later periods are the plaques and cheekpieces decorated with distorted, strongly ornamentalized animal figures, which come from the Elizavetinskaya Barrows.

Judged by their expressiveness and their high standard of craftsmanship, the Hermitage Scythian artefacts, taken as a whole, remain unmatched. It is perfectly safe to say that there is no research on the Scythians that does not quote the Hermitage material. The Museum’s collections will long continue to serve as an inexhaustible source of information for students of archaeology, history and art.

In addition to the collections of artefacts from the treasure-rich barrows of the Scythian steppes, the section also contains numerous finds from the Nemirov, Grigorovka and other fortified sites of Podolia, as well as those from barrows on the Middle Dnieper and Middle Dniester, which tell of the occupations and mode of life of the agricultural tribes who inhabited the Scythian wooded steppes.

The collections presenting the culture of the South Russian grasslands and the Crimea during the period after the passing of the Scythians and down to the Middle Ages are housed in the Sarmatian section (the name “Sarmatian” in this case being somewhat conventional).

Outstanding among the large body of Sarmatian material proper is the set of finds from the Khokhlach Barrow, known as the Novocherkassk Treasure and dating from the first century A.D. This barrow rose over the burial of a high-born woman, and though the tomb had been looted, what remained was enough to become one of the Museum’s greatest collections of jewellery. A unique specimen is a gold diadem with pendants, adorned with colourful garnet and glass insets and, in the centre, a woman’s head carved in quartz. The diadem is crested with a frieze of stag and goat figures and two trees. This item is typically “barbarian” in style, combining as it does elements of Greek and Sarmatian art; it is thought to have been fashioned by Bosporian jewellers for a Sarmatian patron.

Excavations of 1952 at the great Kalinovka cemetery on the left bank of the Volga uncovered 159 Sarmatian burials. Typical of the articles found in the men’s graves were weapons, such as swords, spears, and quivers with arrows; of those in the women’s graves — wire temple rings, glass beads, bronze bracelets, bone haircombs, bronze mirrors, stone mortars used in the preparation of rouge powder, bone needle-holders, iron scissors, and spindle weights. Needless to say, all of the burials yielded pottery vessels, whose handles are often shaped as figures of animals which supposedly possessed some magical power. One burial contained a wooden coffin with the skeleton of a woman in a ceremonial dress adorned with gold plaques, gold earrings, a massive torque, spiral wire bracelets with terminals in the form of stylized animal figures, and silver and gold vessels.

The same section contains articles from the excavated settlements of the wooded steppe tribes whose economy was based on farming and stock-breeding and who were the bearers of a culture known by the name of Cherniakhovo, a village in the Kiev region where the first find was made. Material yielded by the Lepesovka site in the Khmelnitsky region is considered to be of particular interest. The settlement had been destroyed by fire and many articles had been damaged, but they still permit a fairly complete reconstruction of the inhabitants’ way of life. Locally made weavers’ and blacksmiths’ tools, pottery and ornaments were found here together with imported utensils.

During the fourth century both the Sarmatian and Cherniakhovo cultures fell under the attacks of the Huns at the start of the Migrations Period. The specific features of contemporary (fourth and fifth century) culture can best be seen in the collections of Bosporan antiquities obtained mostly from burials excavated in Gospitalnaya (Hospital) Street in the town of Kerch. Members of the nobility were buried in family tombs and common people in ordinary graves. Finds include a gold wreath, a gold torque with terminals in the shape of dragons, richly ornamented weapons and horse-gear. Characteristic of the jewellers’ work from this period were a predilection for rich colours and a general tendency to achieve strong decorative effects. This gave rise to a lavish use of semiprecious stones, and such techniques as filigree work and grain decoration; sometimes cloisons were soldered onto the surface and filled in with almandine and red glass. These techniques were also employed in ornamenting weapons and horses’ harness. The manufacture of such articles was apparently centred on the Bosporus, although they were also widely spread all over the steppeland area, the Northern Caucasus, the Urals, the Kama valley, and southeastern Europe.

An important part of the section comprises objects from the early Middle Ages (sixth and seventh centuries). Among the many hoards belonging to that period the most noteworthy is the Pereshchepina Treasure, accidentally found in 1912 by some shepherd-boys near the village of Malaya Pereshchepina in the Poltava area. This rich find of artefacts of various provenance has been for years the object of intensive study. Together with artefacts of local origin, it includes a set of church plate and coins of Byzantium, and vessels from Iran and Central Asia. The earliest piece is a dish with a picture of the Persian king Shapur II (A.D. 310—363), while the latest is a Byzantine coin minted prior to A.D. 668.

While considering the sixth and seventh centuries, we should mention a set of finds from the fortress of Eski-Kermen and the cemetery at Suuk-Su in the Crimea. By the end of the sixth century the Crimea had become a part of the Khazar Khanate whose culture is reflected in the collections of finds yielded by excavations in the fortified town of Sarkel on the Don, and a large variety of household articles, artefacts and craftsman’s tools, weapons and ornaments from settlements and cemeteries of the Saltovo-Mayatsky culture, so called from the names of the Saltovo burial ground and the hill-fort of Mayatsky in the Kharkov and Voronezh regions, respectively.

The culture and way of life of such nomad peoples as the Pechenegs, Torki and Polovtsy during the period between the ninth and thirteenth centuries may best be judged by the rich collection of goods discovered in the numerous barrows of the South Russian steppes. Outstanding among these goods are sets of weapons including single-edged swords, spears, fragments of bows and quivers with arrows, and sometimes accompanied by protective armour — leather helmets with a framework of iron, iron face guards and mail shirts. The physical features and outward appearance of the Polovtsy can most readily be learned from the so-called stone babas, monuments to members of the tribal nobility, which reproduce with great exactitude the details and ornaments of their ceremonial costumes.

Among the various sections of the Department the one devoted to Siberia is perhaps the biggest, with Siberian exhibits taking up almost a third of the display. These exhibits have been brought from the Minusa Basin and other areas of the Enisey valley, from West Siberia, Lake Baikal, the Altaian barrows, and some from Kazakhstan. Archaeologically, they cover the period from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages.

Thanks to the efforts of the Krasnoyarsk archaeological expedition organized under the auspices of the USSR Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Archaeology, the Hermitage collection now presents an unbroken historical record of the tribes inhabiting the Minusa Basin. Among the earliest finds are those belonging to the Okunev culture of the Bronze Age (first half of the second millennium B.C.). They comprise both the usual kind of grave goods, such as utensils and household articles, and works of art, including mythical beings carved in stone, steatite statuettes with realistically sculptured female heads, and bone plaques ornamented with engraved designs. The stone slabs of the cists still show drawings of animals, three-eyed human faces and fantastic beasts.

Dating back to the Bronze Age are also finds from the cemeteries of the Andronovo culture in the Minusa Basin and the Karasuk culture in Kazakhstan, as well as objects from settlements and cemeteries along the Ob River.

Justly famous is the collection of Minusa artistic bronzes wrought by the craftsmen of the Tagar culture, who lived along the middle Enisey during the seventh to third centuries B.C. Beautifully made artefacts of cast bronze (knives, adzes, plaques, mirrors, pole-tops, and other articles) were usually adorned with the sculptured figures of animals. Elements of the Tagar culture can be traced in the Tashtyk culture (first to fifth centuries) which came to replace it in the Minusa Basin. A barrow in the Tepsei burial ground has yielded a series of seven remarkable wooden plaques dating from the third to fifth centuries, somewhat charred, unfortunately, and having handles carved either with scenes of battle or with running animals — subjects apparently meant to illustrate legends, stories or songs. Another Tashtyk complex comes from a tomb in the Oglakhty Hills, where several bodies were found, dressed in fur garments, with plaster masks covering their faces, two life-size dolls, also wrapped in fur, a quiver, and wooden and pottery pots.

The same section is the repository of Russia’s first archaeological collection — the so-called Siberian Collection of Peter the Great. The most outstanding collection, however, and one that is justly famous, consists of finds discovered in the Pazyryk Barrows in the Altai Mountains. The first barrow was excavated here in 1929, and four more in the 1950s. In the Altaian highlands, some 1,650 m above sea-level, layers of permanently frozen ground form beneath any sizable mound of stones. The cairns of these burials reached 50 m in diameter and 2 to 4 m in height, so that all of the more than 6,000 articles that had lain in their icy graves over 2,500 years, such as furs, felts, textiles, and wood, were found in an excellent state of preservation. Among the finds unique of their kind mention must be made of a Persian pile carpet of great antiquity; a very large felt rug with two rows of appliqué ornament, with the motif of a horseman and a goddess seated on a throne; a four-wheel wooden funeral cart constructed entirely without nails; a harp and a tambourine; fur and linen clothing; horses’ headdresses surmounted with antlers; tree-trunk coffins occasionally decorated with carving; saddles and saddle-cloths; and many carved wooden plaques shaped as animal figures and used as harness ornaments. Horse trappings from Pazyryk Barrow 1 are especially rich and ornate. The mummy of the chief in Barrow 2 has preserved its tattooing, which depicts various animals, both real and fantastic.

Latest in point of date among the collections of the Siberian section are the seventh- to eleventh-century finds from the Turkic barrows in the Altai Mountains and articles left by the Kyrghyz population of the Enisey valley.

Collections reflecting various chronological periods are also kept in the section devoted to the Northeast European part of the USSR, which includes the Urals and adjacent areas, the Kama valley and parts of the areas east of the Urals.

The early period is represented by remains from the Shigir and Gorbunovo pile settlements of the third and second millennia B.C., located in the Sverdlovsk region, in the marshy country of lakes now turned into peat-bogs. Owing to the conserving properties possessed by peat, articles made of bone, wood, birch bark, and other organic material have been preserved.

The next stage in the development of culture in this area is reflected in the collections of finds from the Zuyevka and Turbino cemeteries of the Ananyino culture (eighth to third centuries B.C.), Pyany Bor and Gliadenovo type monuments (second to fifth centuries), complexes of the Lomovatovo culture (sixth to ninth centuries), such as various household articles, a large collection of arms, and numerous ornaments. Of particular interest are the openwork plaques of cast bronze executed in the Kama valley animal style and characterized by a combination of various animal, bird and human features in single figures. Many of the motifs of the Kama animal style still occur in the applied art of the peoples inhabiting the Urals. The chronologically latest finds presented in the section are those of the tenth to fourteenth centuries. They come from the fortified settlement of Rodanovo on the right bank of the Kama. The section devoted to the Northwest European Part of the USSR is very extensive both in its chronological range, i.e. from the Neolithic to the first appearance of towns in Old Russia, and in the area encompassed, which stretches from the country’s western frontiers to the Kama valley. Many of the finds belong to the Neolithic cultures of the forest zone. Extensive collections of flint tools have been assembled from finds in the numerous settlements of the Upper Volga Basin, the Valdai Hills lake country and the lands between the Volga and Oka. Among these tools, fashioned by pressure flaking, are polished stone axes, adzes and hammer-hatchets ornamented with figures of bear and elk evidently having some magic significance. The collections also comprise various kinds of pit-comb ware, and numerous articles fashioned of bone, horn and wood, including figures of animals and anthropomorphic idols. In recent years new material from the pile settlements of the Nevel district of the Pskov region has been received.

Rather unusual among the exhibits from the Neolithic Age are great pieces of rock with drawings depicting elk, deer, swans, ducks, dugouts with rowers, and various mysterious symbols, chipped out 4,000 years ago. These images were probably intended for magic rituals. They were brought to the Hermitage in 1935 from the environs of a village called Besov Nos (Cape Devil) on the shores of Lake Onega.

The same section contains collections of finds from the fortified settlements of Finnish and Baltic tribes, which include pottery whose different techniques of ornamentation make it possible to define the areas of habitation of the ancient Finns and Balts. Prominent in these collections are also remains of later cultures of the peoples of Baltic stock (the Raginiansky and Ludza cemeteries) and those of the Finno-Ugrians (the Middle Volga area, Liadino and Novo-Tomnikovo cemeteries). These finds reveal the distinctive ethnic characteristics of the culture developed by the Finno-Ugrian population of the northern areas of Eastern Europe and the Balts inhabiting the Eastern Baltic coast in the latter part of the first millennium and the early second. Among these, the bronze and silver adornments deserve attention. The ceremonial attire of Lettish women, for instance, consisted of a complicated headdress of ribbons with metal tubes and bells, several massive twisted necklaces and moulded bracelets (occasionally as many as nine on each arm), chains and plaques, fibulae and buckles. Finnish women wore various kinds of zoomorphic “tinkling” or “jingling” pendants, mostly in the shape of horses or ducks.

The collections representing the pre-Slavic and Slavic cultures include finds from sites belonging to the Pomor, Zarubintsy and Pshevor cultures (second century B.C.—fourth century A.D.), to early, and definitely Slavic, sixth- and seventh-century settlements along the South Bug and Dniester, as well as to settlements of the Romny-Borshevo culture. All of these sites throw light on the successive stages in the cultural evolution of the precursors of the Slavs and the Eastern Slavs themselves down to their unification in a single state in the ninth century.

Finally, this section contains material unearthed during the excavation of Old Russian cities, notably Staraya Ladoga, the oldest city of the Russian Northwest, which rose on the banks of the Volkhov on the site of an ancient settlement of the eighth and ninth centuries. A clear picture of life in this thriving centre of trade and commerce in the various periods of its history can be obtained from the Staraya Ladoga collection which is noted for the excellent state of preservation of its exhibits, whether made of wood, leather or textiles. Other finds include kits of blacksmiths’, bronzeworkers’, shoemakers’, and wood-and bonecarvers’ tools, and specimens of their production. Objects from Scandinavia, the Baltic littoral, the Mediterranean, and the Orient bear witness to the extensive trade carried on by Staraya Ladoga, situated as it was at the crossroads of Eastern Europe’s important waterways. At the same time Staraya Ladoga furnishes valuable material that facilitates the solution of a series of important problems arising from research into the Slav-Varangian relations, and the settling of the Slavs over the northern region of the Old Russian state.

Among the remains of Russian culture of the tenth to thirteenth centuries, articles of the handicraft industry are particularly noteworthy. These are mainly temple rings, cast and chased in varied forms, characteristic of the areas settled by such Slavs as the Krivichi, Radimichi, Poliane, Severiane, and others. Most of these adornments come from barrows excavated in village cemeteries. The hoards buried by the urban nobility, many of which were interred during the Mongol invasion, contained gold and silver diadems, kolt pendants, bracelets, rings, chains and torques, and reliquary crosses, all decorated with niello, filigree work, enamels, and patterns of granulation.

This is only a brief, by no means exhaustive description of the famous collection that continually draws the attention of experts in many countries of the world.

G. Smirnova

1

Idol

Copper. Galich hoard. 2nd millennium B.C.

2

Clay statue tie of a seated woman

Southern Turkmenia, Kara-Depe. 3rd millennium B.C.

3

Fish

Stone. Chance find from the right bank of the Angara River, Irkutsk Region. 3rd millennium B.C.

4

Gold panther

Kelermes Barrow 1. 6th century B.C.

5

Gold plaques of a sword scabbard

Kelermes Barrow 1. 6th century B.C.

6

Saddle cover

Felt, leather, horse-hair. Pazyryk Barrow 1. 5th century B.C.

7

Head of a she-elk Horn.

Shigir peat-bog. 2nd millennium B.C.

8

Bronze pin in the form of a pole-axe

The Caucasus. 1st millennium B.C.

9

Bronze pole-top with a bull’s head

Ulsky Aul, Barrow 2. 5th century B.C.

10

Bronze pole-top with a sculptured goat

Minusinsk Region. 5th century B.C.

11

Bronze buckle with representations of a tiger and an ibex

Mongolia, Olen-Souli. 6th or 5th century B.C.

12

Gold buckle shaped as a coiled-up panther

Peter the Great’s Siberian Collection. 6th century B.C.

13

Pole-top with a stag Wood, leather.

Pazyryk Barrow 2. 5th or 4th century B.C.

14

Bronze cauldron with horse-shaped handles

Burial near the village of Troyany, Odessa Region. 1st century

15

Head of a beast

Horn. Staraya Ladoga. 9th or 10th century

16

Diadem

Gold, almandine, chalcedony, pearl

Khokhlach Barrow near Novocherkassk. 1st century

17

Gold comb

Solokha Barrow. 5th or 4th century B.C.

18

Pole-top with a gryphon’s head

Wood, leather. Pazyryk Barrow 2. 5th or 4th century B.C.

19

Bird-like idol

Bronze plate. Chance find from the village of Ust-Kishert, Perm Province

20

Gold bull-calf

Maikop Barrow. 3rd millennium B.C.

21

Chamfron in the shape of a horned tiger and goose

Horn. Pazyryk Barrow 2. 5th or 4th century B.C.

22

Piled rug

Wool. Pazyryk Barrow. 5th century B.C.

23

Stone women

Krasnodar Region. 11th or 12th century

The Department of the Art and Culture of the Peoples of the East was organized in 1920, after the October Revolution of 1917, with the active participation of three outstanding Russian Orientalists Nikolai Marr, Sergei Oldenburg and Vasily Barthold. Their pupil Iosif Orbeli became the first Head of the Department. Today the Department has one of the world’s most important collections of Oriental art.

Interest in Eastern artefacts arose in Russia long ago; the first Russian museum, Peter the Great’s Kunstkammer (Cabinet of Curios), housed a large number of Oriental coins, and a series of prominent works of art from Graeco-Bactria, Syria and Achaemenid Persia. Catherine II had a collection of glyptics that included engraved gems from Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Parthia, Sassanian Iran, Byzantium, and China. Apparently in the 1770s, Admiral Grigory Spiridov brought from the Archipelago a Byzantine marble slab depicting circus scenes, and some relics of classical antiquity. Also around this time Sassanian and Byzantine silver vessels were found at Sludka, a village in Perm province. All these items later formed the basis of the Hermitage Oriental collections.

Interest in Egyptology was aroused in Russia, as in many other European countries, at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In 1826—27 the Academy of Sciences acquired the collection of the Milan merchant Francisco Castiglione (Egyptian sculptures, wooden sarcophagi and objects of the applied arts). The granite sarcophagi of Queen Nechtbasteteru and her son Aahmes, a military chief; the group sculpture of Amenemheb, the governor of Thebes, with his wife and mother; and the statue of the goddess Sekhmet, were also acquired at this time.

In the mid-nineteenth century, Oriental artefacts began to arrive from archaeological excavations. Among these accessions were the golden bowl and ladle, uncovered during Alexander Tereshchenko’s excavation in the 1840s of the town of Sarai-Berke (near present-day Volgograd). A large number of objects characterizing Sarai-Berke’s daily life and handicrafts were presented to the Museum by the Academy of Sciences in the 1860s. Also around the middle of the past century the Hermitage acquired its first Assyrian monuments: large bas reliefs found during Austen-Henry Layard’s excavations at Nimrud and Place’s at Khorsabad, and painted vessels from Susa, excavated by Jean-Jacques de Morgan and Toscanio. It was at this time, too, that the so-called Siberian Collection of Peter the Great, which contained numerous works by Eastern craftsmen, was placed in the Museum. In 1885 the very rich collection of Oriental weaponry previously kept in the Arsenal at Tsarskoye Selo was transferred to the Hermitage; and in 1885 came the Basilewsky collection, comprising many Byzantine works of art (ivories and bronzes, enamels, mosaic icons, and a marble sarcophagus) and objects of Islamic art (a lustred vase, with a game of polo, glass lamps painted in coloured enamels and gold, bronze vessels with inlaid decoration, and a huge silver triptych, dated 1288; this last item, a unique example of its type, belonged to Cilician king Hetum II).

Vladimir Bock, Keeper of the Medieval and Renaissance Department, undertook two expeditions to Egypt in 1888—89 and in 1897—98. He was one of the first scholars to become interested in relics from the Coptic and Arabian periods. Bock purchased a large number of valuable articles and obtained still more by excavating necropoli; he returned to the Hermitage with an enormous collection of patterned textiles, sculptures, glass, leather, pottery, bronze, ivory, and bone objects.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries local interest in archaeology increased in many areas of the country, and many new finds came into the Museum’s collections. Some barrows at the Belorechensky village and burials in the North Caucasus were excavated by Nikolai Veselovsky, and the site of the ancient hill-town of Afrasiab was explored by Vasily Barthold. At the end of the nineteenth century a pair of carved wooden doors from the Gur-Emir mausoleum at Samarkand (Tamerlane’s tomb), joined the Museum’s collection, and in 1910—11, the treasure of the last Khans of Khiva, containing goldwork and jewellery. The excavations of Marr at Garni and Ani and the acquisitions made by Yakov Smirnov at Ashnak (Armenia), the excavations of F. Bayern at Mtskheta and Samtavro (Georgia), and of V. Resler in Azerbaijan, all enriched the Museum’s holdings. The collections of V. Dolbeznev and К. Olshevsky, which entered the Department at the end of the nineteenth century, contained materials from the burial grounds of Kamunta, Kumbulta and Chmi (North Caucasus), dating mainly from the third to the eighth century. Thanks to the tireless energy of Smirnov the Hermitage acquired a number of important pieces of Sassanian silver.

Thus, by 1917 the Hermitage could boast of a fairly large Oriental collection numbering about 10,000 items. However, no special Oriental department existed at that time, and the objects were scattered among different exhibitions. It was only after the Great October Revolution, which had proclaimed national equality as one of the basic principles of the new society, that conditions were created for the formation of the Oriental Department in the Hermitage. In 1921, within a year of its foundation, the Section of Islamic East was reorganized into that of the Caucasus, Iran and Central Asia. The year 1922 saw the opening of the first exhibition of Sassanian antiquities, a landmark in the Hermitage’s Oriental studies.

In 1925 the very rich collection of objects of applied art from the Museum of the Stieglitz School in Leningrad was transferred to the Hermitage. This collection included examples of Byzantine art and a magnificent selection of Central Asian, Iranian and Turkish carpets, textiles, glazed tiles, ceramics and bronzes. These articles formed the basis of a number of sections within the Department, notably that of the Far East. In 1934 a collection of articles of Buddhist art, fragments of temple murals and loess sculptures, that had been gathered by Oldenburg’s expeditions to the northern oases of Sinkiang in 1909— 10 and 1914—15, came to the Hermitage from the Academy of Sciences’ Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. In 1933 the Hermitage received from the Ethnography Department of the Russian Museum the finds of two expeditions (1908 and 1926) of the famous Russian explorer Piotr Kozlov — the man who conducted the excavations of Khara-Khoto — and in 1934, the world-famous relics discovered by him in 1924—25 in the Hunnish barrows in the Noin-Ula Mountains (Mongolian Peoples’ Republic). About the same time the Hermitage bought the rich collection of terra-cottas, ossuaries and glyptics, formed by Boris Kastalsky, a student of local lore. In 1931 many items, albeit far from all, once in the Russian Archaeological Institute in Constantinople, were returned to the Soviet Union. Among these was a good selection of Palmyrene reliefs and a rich collection of Byzantine lead seals. In 1930 and 1934 a number of Byzantine and Greek icons, some collected by the outstanding Russian scholar Nikolai Likhachov and the others probably by the expedition of P. Sevastyanov, were transferred from the Russian Museum to the Hermitage. It is also largely due to Likhachov’s work that the Hermitage has such a rich assortment of cuneiform tablets, Egyptian papyri, ancient Oriental glyptics as well as palaeographic and epigraphic materials of later date. The Section of the Ancient Orient was enlarged by the inclusion of the collection of the famous Egyptologist Boris Turayev and numerous items from the collection of Alexander Bobrinsky who for many years was Chairman of the Archaeological Commission.

The Hermitage sent out special expeditions with the aim of comprehensively studying the culture of Eastern peoples. Valuable artefacts were acquired at the North Daghestan village of Kubachi. This village is a site which has remained peculiarly intact and preserved unique textiles, ceramics and bronzes made by craftsmen in the Transcaucasia, Iran and Egypt. From the same site came bronze cauldrons and stone slabs with relief decoration, of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and of more recent date. Since the middle of the 1920s the Hermitage collection have been enriched with scientifically documented materials from archaeological excavations in Central Asia, the Transcaucasia, and other regions.

The Department’s increasing scientific activity kept up with the continued growth of its collections. Young scientists came to work there alongside such outstanding Orientalists as Vasily Struve, Natalia Flittner, Ernst Kwerfeldt, Vasily Alexeyev, Nikolai Nevsky, and Camilla Trever. By the end of the 1930s, the progress in Soviet Oriental studies necessitated a fundamental revision of the existing exhibitions, with the materials traditionally organized in three main sections: the Ancient Orient, the Medieval Near and Middle East, and the Far East.

This scheme, however, did not reflect clearly enough the actual historical development of the cultures of these different countries and peoples. The first exhibition of a new type, The Culture and Art of the Peoples of Central Asia, was held in 1940. Archaeological activity was also expanding, highlighted by the successful excavation of Karmir-Blur (near Erevan) begun in 1939 under the direction of Boris Piotrovsky, and the excavations at Paikend (Central Asia) started in 1939 by Alexander Yakubovsky and Vladimir Kesayev. Scientific work was continued during the Great Patriotic War of 1941—45, in besieged Leningrad as well as in evacuation areas.

Today the research and exhibition work of the Department is divided between four sections: the Ancient Orient, the Near and Middle East and the Byzantine Empire, India and the Far East, and the Caucasus and Central Asia.

The Section of the Ancient Orient houses cultural and artistic material from Ancient Egypt (including the Ptolemaic, Roman and Coptic periods), and from Babylonia, the Palmyra, Assyria and the neighbouring countries.

Although the Hermitage does not possess equally representative collections from all the periods of Ancient Egyptian history, the Egyptian section nevertheless gives a sufficiently clear picture of the artistic and cultural development of this great ancient civilization; and there are first-class exhibits from almost every epoch. The main bulk of the Egyptian collection is composed of minor sculpture, objects of artistic craftsmanship, and stelae. The literary papyri The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, The Prophecy of Neferti and The Instructions of the Pharaoh Akhtoy III to His Son Merikare are world famous. The statue of Amenemhet III, a wooden figurine of a youth, the statuette of Pharaoh Takharka, a stele and vase of Pharaoh Haremheb, are all worth mentioning. Among the small number of objects from the Ptolemaic period there is an interesting statue of Arsinoë III. The pride of the Hermitage’s Egyptian section is its collection of Coptic textiles, which is one of the best in the world.

Almost all the major ancient civilizations of the Near East are represented in the Hermitage. The most important items here are the cuneiform tablets from 3,000—1,000 B.C.: the oldest Sumerian tablet, and a collection of Hittite cuneiform texts, economic, historical, judicial, literary, mathematical, and also some glossaries; there are also some cuneiform writings from the Seleucid period. The collection contains seal amulets from Mesopotamia, dating from 4,000—3,000 B.C., and carved Assyrian stones. Included in the small number of Achaemenid artefacts is an inscribed weight used for weighing metal. The world-famous bilingual Palmyrene Tariff, discovered by the Russian traveller S. Abamelek-Lazarev, has been part of the Hermitage collection since 1902. The first study of the Near Eastern collections was carried out by Vladimir Golenishchev and Mikhail Nikolsky.

The Section of the Near and Middle East and Byzantium contains Byzantine antiquities of outstanding artistic merit: the illustrious collection of sixth- and seventh-century silver vessels; a rich assortment of carved ivories: diptychs, pyxides and caskets; cloisonné enamels; and one of the world’s best collections of twelfth- to fifteenth-century icons (including mosaic). The constantly increasing archaeological collection from Chersonesus is also of great interest. These materials help in tracing certain essential aspects of the relations which linked Byzantium with Balkan Slavs and Oriental countries.

The collection of artefacts from the Near and Middle East is world famous. The Iranian material is particularly complete; the Museum owns the world’s largest collection of Sassanian silver (over 50 pieces of Sassanian origin and 60 showing Sassanian influence) and carved stones (over 900). These silver objects, like the Byzantine ones mentioned above, have mainly been recovered from hoards in the Urals region.

Worthy of attention among the twelfth- to fifteenth-century Persian items are the ceramics: the lustred vase depicting a game of polo, a cup painted in enamels in the Minai technique, and a small stand glazed in lustre. There are also rich and varied collections of bronzes (especially a group of figured bronze vessels) and tiles. Iranian culture and art from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries are mainly represented by handicrafts; these include carpets made in Isfahan, Jushahan, Herat and Tabriz; silks, brocades and velvets, and ceramics with carved or engraved patterns, glazed in lustre or painted in cobalt, from Isfahan, Kerman, Yezd, and Kashan; and a rich collection of Iranian ornamental weapons. The section possesses a small but valuable collection of miniatures, among them originals of the prominent seventeenth-century artist Riza-i-Abbasi.

The collection of articles from Islamic Egypt occupies an important place among the Department’s items illustrating Arabian art and culture. Most of these materials were amassed by Bock and include textiles, ceramics, wood carvings, bronzes which are often inlaid with gold, silver or copper, and glass lamps decorated with enamels and gold. Two magnificent Fatimid rock crystal vessels deserve particular attention. The collection also contains papyri of the Islamic period and other epigraphic materials in Arabic, along with bronzes manufactured in Syria and Iraq (especially in Mosul), a famous dish decorated with pictures of Nestorian saints, found in Kashgar, and a number of well-preserved Syrian painted glass vessels from barrows in the North Caucasian and Kuban regions.

The Turkish art of the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries is represented by works of artistic craftsmanship. The collection of ceramics includes examples from several centres — Damascus, Iznik, and Kütahya; of particular interest is the tiled fireplace decoration made at Iznik in the seventeenth century and brought to Russia from Cairo. There is an exceptionally good assortment of Turkish textiles, carpets, bronzes, and ornamental weapons.

Outstanding among the collections of the Indian and Far Eastern section are the silk fabrics and embroidery of the first century B.C., found at Noin-Ula in Mongolia, and the murals and sculptures of the sixth to tenth centuries, brought by Oldenburg’s expedition from the Monastery of the Thousand Buddhas, near Tun-huang. Paper money and carved boards for the printing of books and woodcuts, and a large number of Buddhist paintings on canvas, paper and silk of the Tibeto-Tangutan and Chinese schools, are some of the most remarkable finds from the excavations of the Tanguto-Mongolian town of Etzina, or Khara-Khoto in the Gobi Desert.

The ruins of this town were discovered and explored by the famous Russian traveller Piotr Kozlov. The religious painting Buddha Amida Meeting the Souls of Righteous Men should also be mentioned, along with paintings of the deities of the celestial bodies, the portrait of an official and the woodcut The Four Famous Beauties. The materials from Sinkiang constitute a special group; these are mainly paintings and sculptures from cave temples. The collections from Khotan are particularly interesting and include early first millennium A.D. terracottas and vessels of high artistic quality. The fragments of wall paintings and sculptures from the Kuça Oasis date from later periods, the fifth to seventh, and the ninth and tenth centuries; there are also materials from Karasahr and the Turfan Oasis which flourished from the ninth to eleventh centuries. Credit for the collecting, exhibiting and publishing of all these materials should go to Academician Oldenburg.

Chinese art is represented in the Hermitage by porcelains, lacquers, enamels, and articles in carved stone. A significant part of the collection comes from eighteenth-century imperial Russian palaces, including china from the private factories of Chingtehchen and china made for export to Western Europe. A large screen of Coromandel lacquer also came from one of the royal palaces. Painting is not so well represented, but the Hermitage does have some works from the twelfth to eighteenth centuries, and also pictures of the early twentieth-century artists Chi’i Pai-shih and Hsii Pei-hung. Several years ago Academician Vasily Alexeyev, the well-known sinologist, donated to the Museum his rich collection of popular prints.

The collections of Indian artefacts — textiles, metalwork, bone, ivory, and wooden articles from the Mogul Age, miniatures of the Mogul school, and ornamental weapons — was enlarged in 1957 with the addition of modern paintings. In the 1970s the Indian Government presented to the Hermitage several works of artistic craftsmanship.

The collection of objects of Japanese culture and art includes a variety of handicraft articles dating from the seventeenth century to the present day, and also some coloured woodblock prints from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, among them works by Suzuki Harunobu, Kitagawa Utamaro and Katsushika Hokusai. Recently a large number of modern works in the applied arts have significantly enriched this collection. The Mongolian collections form part of the Far Eastern section. They consist mainly of archaeological finds from the Noin-Ula burial mounds, relics coming from other regions of Mongolia and from the Buriat Republic, Ukhtomsky’s large collection of painted and sculpturesque Lamaistic icons from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, and objects from Karakorum found during Sergei Kiseliov’s excavations.

The earliest artefacts in the Central Asian section characterize the way of life of ancient farmers and cattle-breeders who inhabited the territory of South Turkmenistan in the fourth millennium B.C. The Semirechye altar (c. 1,500—1,000 B.C.), the famous Airtam frieze (first century A.D.), materials from Kwarasm (especially sculptures of the third and fourth centuries), fragments of murals and loess sculptures (seventh and eighth centuries) from Pianjikent, and paintings and stucco carvings from the palace at Varakhsha (seventh and eighth centuries) are all of great interest.

Glazed ceramics from Afrasiab, unglazed ceramics from Munchak-Tepe and tiles from Afrasiab and Uzgent are all distinguished by their high quality. Among the bronzes the kalamdan (case for writing implements) dated 1148 is worthy of note. Artefacts from Sarai-Berke constitute a special group, characterizing the town’s daily life, its handicrafts and its relations with other countries. Mosaic tiles and other ceramic items found there were obviously produced by Central Asian craftsmen, as was the exceptionally beautiful blue earthenware pot, whose fine decorations still show traces of gilding.

There are tiles from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries which at one time ornamented buildings in Samarkand. Other exhibits from this period include a huge bronze cauldron from the Mosque of Khwaja Ahmad Yasevi near Turkestan, which was made on Tamerlane’s orders in 1399; candlesticks inlaid with silver and gold; and a pair of intricately carved wooden doors with traces of incrustation in ivory, mother-of-pearl and silver. Illuminated manuscripts from the Herat school also deserve a mention, especially The Golden Chain by Jami and Khamsa by Nizami. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are represented by Turkmenian rugs, textiles, ornamental weapons, jewellery, and ceramics.

The collections of the Caucasus section have become noticeably larger in recent decades. The items span a vast historical period from the decay of the primitive communal system in the eleventh and tenth centuries B.C. to the flourishing of the medieval civilizations (with the inclusion of some groups of objects dating from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries). The materials from the Karabakh Mountain area are extremely interesting, notably the golden glove from Archadzor, and a Khodjaly bead with the name of the Assyrian king Adad-nirari II (?) (911—890 B.C.). Many deservedly famous pieces come from the site of Karmir-Blur (Teishebaini) near Erevan, where excavations were carried out under the direction of Academician Boris Piotrovsky. By the middle of the last century the Hermitage already held examples of Urartian art which were later supplemented by the finds of Marr’s and Orbeli’s expedition to Toprak-kala on Lake Van. However, a comprehensive study of Urartian civilization, especially on its northern fringes, became possible only after many years of extensive excavations at Karmir-Blur.

The finds in the villages of Ashnak (Armenia) and Bori (Western Georgia) are the most significant of all the materials from a later period; for example, inlaid gold jewellery from the first to the third century and silver objects — local and imported (including a dish with the picture of a horse before the altar). Among the chance finds from the Caucasus are remarkable articles dating from the last centuries B.C. and the first centuries A.D.: a silver dish of Roman origin depicting a Nereid, a unique goblet of ruby glass in a silver mounting, a doublewalled glass bowl, and a silver rhyton shaped as a bull’s head. The excavation of the burial grounds at Kamunta, Kumbulta and Chmi (North Caucasus) yielded rich archaeological materials. The relatively well-preserved textiles are of great interest; these were either locally made or came from Iran or the Byzantine Empire. Excellent textiles of local work or imported from Sogdiana, Byzantium or Iran were found in the burial ground in the gorge of Moshchevaya Balka in the Kuban area; the examples include a kaftan of the late eighth or early ninth century, made of Iranian silk and decorated with pictures of the Senmurv — a fantastic creature, half bird, half beast. Bronze vessels form a special group; there are dishes, jugs, aquamanilia, and incense burners from the mountain villages of Daghestan, mainly from Kubachi.

The collection of materials which illustrate the mature medieval cultures in present-day Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan is, infortunately, incomplete. Particularly notable among objects of Georgian provenance are a medallion of St George executed in the technique of cloisonné enamel, fragments of silver icon frames from the eleventh to sixteenth centuries, including two plaques by the eleventh-century master craftsman Ivaneh Monisadzeh, and details of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century carved architectural decorations, a recent gift to the Hermitage from the Georgian SSR Museum of Arts. Among relics of Armenian origin there are fragments of fresco paintings from the Bakhtageki church at Ani (thirteenth century); a bell, found near Poti, and some tenth- to thirteenth-century ceramics and fragments of stucco decorations from the ninth or tenth and twelfth or thirteenth centuries, yielded by the excavations at Ani, Anberd and Dvin, and recently donated to the Hermitage by the History Museum of Armenia. The culture and arts of the peoples living in the territory of Azerbaijan are illustrated by tiles of Iranian work from Pir Hussein Revanan’s tomb at Khanakah (west of Baku), ceramics from the ninth to thirteenth centuries, and bas-reliefs and bronze cauldrons from medieval Daghestan (again mainly from the Kubachi village).

A. Bank, V. Lukonin

55

Statue of Pharaoh Amenemhet III

Black granite. Egypt. 1900—1800 B.C.

56

Decoration for a tunic with a representation of the Goddess Gaea

Fabric. Coptic Egypt. 4th century

57

Relief with archers

Alabaster. Assyria. 8th century

58

Eagle-shaped water-carrier

Bronze. Persia. 11th century

59

Neck ornament

Gold. Eastern Persia. 4th century B.C.

60

Diptych representing circus scenes

Ivory. Byzantium. 5th century

61

Icon of St Gregory the Thaumaturgist

Byzantium. 12th century

62

Airtam frieze

Marl limestone. Central Asia. 2nd century

63

Patterned fabric

Persia. 16th century

64

Painted faience bowl

Persia. 12th century

65

Bronze figure of a winged deity

Urartu. 7th century

66

Sassanian silver dish with a representation of King Shapur II hunting

Persia. 4th century

67

Glass lamp

Syria. 14th century

68

Painted faience jug

Turkey, Iznik. 16th century

69

Silver phalar (decoration of a horse harness)

Graeco-Bactria (?). 3rd century B.C.

70

A Youth and a Girl on Horseback. Fresco

Central Asia, Pianjikent. 8th century

71

Head of a Buddhist monk

Unbaked clay. Central Asia. Ajin-Tepe Monastery. 8th century

72

Clay figurines: Bodhisattva and monk

China. 7th century

73

Crystal vessel

Egypt. 10th century

74

Porcelain pitcher

China. 14th century

75

Deity of the Moon

Paper, mineral colours. Mongolia, Khara-Khoto. 9th century

76

Ando Hiroshige. 1797—1858. Japan

Landscape

77

Piled rug

Persia, Kashan. Second half of the 19th century

78

Bronze cauldron from the Mosque of Khwaja Ahmad Yasevi

Town of Turkestan. 14th century

79

Silver dish representing a Nereid riding a hippocampus

Rome. 2nd century

80

Lacquered box

Painted by Muhammad Ali. Persia. 18th century

81

Icon of Jama, Master of Hell

Tibet, Lamaian school. 19th century

82

Buddha Amida Meeting the Souls of Righteous Men

Silk, mineral colours. Mongolia, Khara-Khoto 9th century

83

Steel dagger

The Caucasus. 19th century

84

Ladies on the Terrace

Miniature on paper. India. Lamaian school. 18th century

The Department of Russian Culture is the youngest of the Hermitage’s specialist departments. Its formation was directly connected with the changes in the Museum’s policy effected after the October Revolution of 1917, when materials began to be assembled so as to illustrate not only the history of art, as before, but other essential aspects of man’s cultural heritage as well. Once the Oriental Department and the Department of Prehistoric Culture had been opened, the need for an exhibition reflecting the historical advance of the Russian people became increasingly evident, all the more so since the Hermitage would be able to present the history of Russian culture in the light of its interrelations with the cultural history of other peoples inhabiting the Soviet Union and many countries lying beyond its borders.

The Department was founded in 1941, when a large and valuable collection was transferred to the Hermitage from the History Department of the Ethnographical Museum of the Peoples of the USSR in Leningrad. This contained tens of thousands of items illustrating various aspects of Russian culture and art of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and including, among others, numerous exhibits from the former Gallery of Peter the Great, created in the early eighteenth century. The remainder of this Gallery reached the Museum later, with the materials which arrived from the Institute for the History of Science and Technology, the Russian Museum, and Peter the Great’s Summer Palace (all in Leningrad), where they had been preserved after the dispersal of the Gallery.

In 1941 the Institute for the History of Science and Technology transferred to the Hermitage an exceptionally valuable collection of instruments and machine tools dating from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. In 1949 the Department received from the Museum for the History of Artillery in Leningrad a unique collection of seventeenth- to twentieth-century Russian banners as well as many foreign ones taken as trophies in war; and in 1954 the Museum of the October Revolution in Leningrad presented the Hermitage with artistic and documentary material principally relating to the Decembrist Rebellion of 1825. Of particular interest among the accessions from other museums is a series of oil-paintings depicting the interiors of the Winter Palace (from the Palace Museum at Pavlovsk), and two collections of jewellery, one from the Central Reserve Store of Countryside Palace Museums, and the other from the State Repository in Moscow.

Over 3,500 objects of Russian applied art, more than 20,000 engravings and lithographs, and a large number of watercolours and pencil drawings came from other departments of the Hermitage where they had been assembled and preserved since the eighteenth century.

Since 1954 the Department has regularly sent out expeditions to various regions of the Russian Federation, in order to discover and collect examples of ancient Russian art. As a result, the Museum came into possession of over 150 works of early Russian art, including some thirteenth-century icons, such as a Si Nicholas by a painter of the Novgorod school, a group of fifteenth- to seventeenth-century icons by northern artists, and a sixteenth-century Our Lady of Smolensk, an icon from the Yaroslavl region.

Since 1958 the Department has been carrying on archaeological excavations in Pskov. Among the more remarkable recent findings are over 500 specimens of pendant seals — lead plaques with stamped designs and inscriptions — dating from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries. In 1974 the archaeologists uncovered some precious late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century frescoes on the walls of the Church of the Intercession, built in 1398. The church was almost completely buried under earth fortifications constructed in 1701, and this saved both the building and its frescoes from subsequent destruction.

One of the most important sources of new accessions is the work of the Hermitage Purchasing Commission; another, donations made by private collectors. Among the more recent acquisitions, a collection of works by Russian craftsmen, bequested to the Museum by Sergei Pavlov, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences, deserves particular attention. It contains forty-eight beautiful pieces of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century glassware, and over thirty pieces of silverwork, some of which bear the marks of well-known silversmiths.

During the last decade alone, the collections of the Department have almost doubled in size and now number over 285,000 items. In their present state they provide a fairly complete picture of Russian cultural history from the sixth to the nineteenth century. The permanent exhibitions illustrate the evolution of Russian representational art, architecture, literature, education, science, and technology. The composite arrangement of materials makes it possible to show more clearly the interrelations between the various phenomena of cultural life in the process of social development, and to give an idea of the great wealth of Russia’s cultural heritage.

The early periods in the history of Russian culture are represented by a rich variety of items. Most interesting of all are archaeological artefacts, which include several widely known complexes of finds, such as those unearthed in Kiev on the sites of the Desiatinnaya Church and the St Michael Golden-Domed Monastery; some material uncovered in Novgorod and on the fortified site of Raiki in the vicinity of Berdichev; and, finally, the Vladimir hoard of gold and silver articles. The superb craftsmanship of ancient Vladimir jewellers is well illustrated by gold kolt pendants, beads, riasnos (elaborate chains for kolt pendants), and agraffes with designs of the finest filigree work. The splendid collection of objects (over fourteen thousand items) found in 1957—64 during Mikhail Karger’s excavation of the ancient Russian town of Iziaslavl was also placed in the Hermitage. It is one of the richest complexes of finds relating to the culture and art of twelfth- and thirteenth-century Rus. The collection of manuscripts and early printed books has grown considerably over the last few years. It includes such magnificent specimens of Russian book decoration as fifteenth-century illuminated manuscripts of the Gospels, with miniatures and head ornaments; The Apostle and Ostrog Bible, printed by Ivan Fiodorov; a Psalter rendered in verse by Simeon Polotsky, printed in Moscow in 1680 and illustrated with an engraving by Afanasy Trukhmensky after a drawing by Simon Ushakov; and seventeenth-century Gospels in embossed bindings.

The collection of thirteenth- to eighteenth-century icons and eleventh- and twelfth-century frescoes is small but worthy of note. The Kiev, Moscow, Novgorod, Pskov, and northern schools of painting are represented. Among the oldest examples of work by northern artists are some thirteenth- to sixteenth-century icons, of which a few bear inscriptions showing the date of execution, the painter’s and the patron’s names, and the place of origin. One of the early works of the Pskov school of icon painters is the Manifestation of Our Lord dating from the beginning of the fourteenth century. This icon is very close to the well-known frescoes in the Snetogorsky monastery near Pskov, which were executed in 1313. Among the earliest works owned by the Department are the fifteenth-century icon of St Theodore the Recruit and St Theodore Stratelates, of the Novgorod school, and the early sixteenth-century icons of St Nicholas, The Transfiguration, and The Nativity.

One must also mention the exceptionally important frescoes discovered by the expendition of Nikolai Voronin in Smolensk among the remains of the so-called Church on the Stream (twelfth and early thirteenth centuries). These frescoes used to decorate the lower section of the walls and acrosoleae of the church. Although badly damaged, they have retained their original lively colouring, parts of the design, and also an ornamentation showing birds, lion figures, etc. These frescoes throw light on the art of mural painting in Smolensk, which until quite recently was completely unknown.

The Department owns a small but carefully chosen collection of specimens of Russian decorative art of the twelfth to seventeenth centuries. This includes a wide range of objects, from gold and silver church plate studded with precious stones, to everyday items, such as ceramic tiles, and tools made from iron, tin, lead, and copper: framed mirrors, processional lanterns, window-frames, inkwells, tableware, kitchen utensils, caskets, small icons, and other things. The wealth of their forms bears witness to the fine taste and high artistic skill of the craftsmen concerned. These masters had an amazing command of a great variety of techniques — chasing, forging, engraving, niello, filigree, and granulation — and effectively combined silver and gold, enamels, gems, and pearls. One thirteenth-century copperplate with a representation of St Mark in gold is particularly interesting, as is the work of the celebrated silversmiths and engravers of the Kremlin Armoury — a unique seventeenth-century door from the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael in Veliky Ustiug, covered with numerous copperplates with gold and silver inlays and engraved biblical motifs.

There are also elegant silver koushes (scoops or ladles) of typically Russian forms, which remind one of a boat or perhaps a splendid bird swimming in the water, and spherical loving-cups decorated with ornamentation and inscriptions.

Finally, there is an extremely interesting collection of seventeenth-century Usolye enamels from the town of Solvychegodsk, including copper or silver bowls, scent bottles, caskets, and cups, all almost entirely covered with painted designs of brightly coloured enamels. These works have no counterparts in any other country. The Hermitage possesses many brilliant examples produced in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and showing a wealth of rich, saturated colours. Their intricate designs incorporate various flowers, birds and animals.

The collections illustrating the development of Russian culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are the most extensive and varied. Alongside paintings, sculptures, and works of the graphic arts, the Department preserves excellent collections of objects of applied and decorative art: furniture, textiles, and costumes, ceramics, gold and silver work, articles of copper, steel, bronze, stone, and wood.

The collection of paintings comprises almost 3,000 works by Russian artists — Vladimir Borovikovsky, Dmitry Levitsky, Karl Briullov, Alexei Venetsianov, Stepan Shchukin, Vasily Tropinin, and Nikolai Argunov; and foreign artists who lived in Russia, like Pietro Rotari, Carl Christineck, Jean-Louis Voile, and Johann-Baptist Lampi. This section differs from the famous collections of the Tretyakov Gallery or the Russian Museum in its approach to and choice of material, which is intended to illustrate the various stages in the progress of Russian culture. Of great interest to the cultural historian are portraits of Russian statesmen, scholars, inventors, writers, military leaders, and artists: Peter the Great, Boris Sheremetev, Mikhail Serdiukov, Andrei Nartov, Mikhail Lomonosov, Ivan Kulibin, Ivan Shuvalov, Gavrila Derzhavin, Alexander Suvorov, Francesco Bartolommeo Rastrelli, and many others; paintings by serf artists, such as M. Funtusov, Ivan Argunov, and Grigory Soroka; and portraits of people exemplifying various social types — landowners and civil servants, bankers, the military stationed in St Petersburg and in the provinces, retired soldiers, merchants, and minor officials.

Much information on the history of St Petersburg and Moscow is provided by the town views of such artists as the Swede Benjamin Patersson, who lived in Russia for more than thirty years, Karl Knappe, Fiodor Alexeyev, and Timofei Vasilyev. A series of paintings by pupils of Alexei Venetsianov (Yevgraf Krendovsky, Alexei Tyranov, Apollon Mokritsky, and others), showing palace interiors, help trace the architectural history of the Winter Palace and the Hermitage. The battle scenes by Louis Caravacque, Alexander Kotzebue, Peter Hess, Auguste-Joseph Desarnod, Bogdan Willewalde, and other painters, record important events in the military history of the country.

The Department possesses over 8,000 drawings and watercolours, which include many early nineteenth-century portraits, rare miniatures, and silhouettes; views of country houses and estates, genre scenes, pictures of the interiors of mansions; and also the family albums of the gentry.

The numerous watercolour and gouache views of Russian towns and the countryside, particularly pictures of St Petersburg and its environs, further add to the collection of topographical paintings. The Department also contains rare architectural drawings of buildings in the capital as they were in the 1730s and 40s, and excellent views of nineteenth-century St Petersburg by Andrei Martynov, Vasily Sadovnikov, Carl Beggrow, Fiodor Neyelov, Maxim Vorobyov, Iosif Charlemagne, and other artists, and views of early nineteenth-century Moscow by Fiodor Alexeyev and watercolourists of his school.

Material relating to the military history of Russia includes portraits by Saint-Aubin of participants in the 1812 War; documentary sketches by Konstantin Filippov, done during the siege of Sevastopol in 1855; and scenes from the Russo-Turkish War of 1877—78 drawn by the English war correspondent Dick.

The unique collection of paintings and watercolours by the Decembrists show their places of imprisonment, forced labour and exile in Siberia. Among them are works by Nikolai Bestuzhev, Alexander Muravyov, and Nikolai Repnin. The Decembrists’ theme is developed in the pencil sketches by A. Ivanovsky, representing the leaders of the rebellion undergoing interrogation, and in the highly sensitive and inspired portraits of the wives of two of the Decembrists — Alexandra Muravyova, painted by the Russian watercolourist Piotr Sokolov, and Yelizaveta Naryshkina, by Nikolai Bestuzhev.

The Department’s collection of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century engravings and lithographs, one of the largest in the country, is in no way inferior even to those of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and the History Museum in Moscow. It is based on a collection preserved in the Print Room of the Hermitage since the eighteenth century, whose keepers, the noted Russian engravers Gavrila Skorodumov, Nikolai Utkin, and Fiodor Jordan, aided its growth in every way they could. Since the October Revolution the Hermitage collection of Russian graphic art has increased to include over 35,000 works, the greater part of which are portraits.

Early eighteenth-century engraving is represented by the work of Alexei and Ivan Zubov, Adrian Schoonebeeck, Alexei Rostovtsev, and other artists. There are sumptuous albums containing plans and coloured views of St Petersburg in 1753; albums with coronation scenes; and rare prints by Ivan Sokolov, Grigory Kachalov, Yevgraf Chemesov, and Gavrila Skorodumov. All these are rightly considered masterpieces of world engraving and vividly illustrate eighteenth-century Russian graphic art, its variety of trends, subject matter, and technique. Early Russian lithographs of the 1810s and 20s are represented by the masterly works of Orest Kiprensky, Orlovsky, Carl Beggrow, Carl Hampeln, and others.

The collection of nineteenth-century Russian graphic art boasts excellent examples of patriotic cartoons from the period of the 1812 War against Napoleon; portraits by Nikolai Utkin and his pupils; xylographs by E. Bernardsky and K. Klodt: sketches of scenes from everyday life by Alexei Venetsianov and Ignaty Shchedrovsky; townscapes, portraits, and religious compositions by Fiodor Jordan and Ivan Pozhalostin; and graphic works by the Peredvizhniki.

The Hermitage collection of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century prints, drawings, and watercolours has great importance for the cultural historian since their subject matter reflects the most diverse areas of Russia’s cultural life at the time.

The Department’s section of sculpture is rather small. Among its most noteworthy possessions both historically and artistically are the bronze busts of Peter the Great and Alexander Menshikov by Carlo Bartolommeo Rastrelli and the series of copper and bronze bas-reliefs made in Andrei Nartov’s workshop in the 1720s in connection with the projected construction of a triumphal column in St Petersburg.

The Department owns a large and extremely varied collection of Russian artistic ceramics — about 11,000 items — which shows the development of the ceramic industry in Russia in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The bulk of this collection consists of porcelain. The products of the former Imperial Porcelain Factory in St Petersburg (now the Lomonosov Factory) are well represented. Particularly valuable are the specimens dating from the birth of the Russian porcelain industry in the mid-eighteenth century and associated with the name of its founder, Dmitry Vinogradov. These comprise a small cup of 1749, with a vine branch moulded in relief, a painted snuff-box bearing the mark of Vinogradov himself, and also items from Her Majesty’s Private Service (the first large Russian dinner service, made for the Empress Elizabeth) which are decorated with flower garlands moulded by hand.

In the second half of the eighteenth century the factory’s production was extremely varied both in design and decoration, and included dinner services for imperial palaces. The Hermitage collection contains items from some of these services, for example the Arabesque, Cabinet, and Yusupov ones.

Porcelain made in the first quarter of the nineteenth century was of more formal design but lavishly gilded. The Museum possesses only a few items from this period but those few are interesting and rare. Particularly beautiful are the large vases skilfully painted by accomplished artists. Early twentieth-century china is represented by the work of S. Sudbinin, K. Korovin, G. Zimin and others.

The collection also has numerous examples of porcelain manufactured by private factories. These small enterprises, founded at the turn of the nineteenth century, produced goods for the mass market. Almost half of them were situated in the region of Gzhel. The most important were the Francis Gardner and Alexei Popov factories which specialized in the production of small china figures, realistically representing characters from various social classes.

The collection of early Soviet china is very interesting, especially the work of Natalya and Helena Danko, Zinaida Kobyletskaya, and Alexandra Shchekatikhina-Pototskaya, as well as items based on the designs of Sergei Chekhonin.

The Department owns a fine collection of Russian glassware totalling more than 3,000 items. This includes sumptuous large goblets with engraved designs and gilt ornamentation, made in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries at the Izmailovo (near Moscow) and Yamburg factories; articles produced by the St Petersburg Glassworks in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the products of the Maltsev and Alexei Bakhmetyev glassworks; and coloured glass objects which appeared in the mid-eighteenth century after Lomonosov discovered the secret of making smalt.

Gold- and silverwork and jewellery from the late seventeenth to early twentieth centuries are illustrated in the Hermitage by over 11,000 items. The collection contains works crafted by silversmiths in Moscow, St Petersburg, Novgorod, Veliky Ustiug, Kostroma, and Tobolsk. There are articles intended for the court and the nobility, such as ladles and goblets presented as a reward for loyal service, salvers, plates, vases (often made in commemoration of historical events), as well as personal ornaments: finger rings, earrings, and breast chains decorated with river pearls, tourmalines, coloured enamels, and Siberian emeralds. The work of such artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as P. Semionov, A. Grigoryev, I. Liebmann, Yu. Landt, and V. Sorkovanov is well represented.

Foremost among the Hermitage masterpieces of silverwork is the monumental tomb of St Alexander Nevsky, the military leader and statesman of Old Russia. It was made by craftsmen at the St Petersburg Mint in 1747—52 from silver mined in the Altai Mountains, and weighs about 1.5 tons. In addition to the sarcophagus, which is covered with scenes in high relief, showing episodes from the life of St Alexander Nevsky, and has verses by Lomonosov engraved on its surfaces, there are a many-tiered pyramid, two pedestals displaying various articles of military equipment, and a pair of large candelabra. The abundance of decorative detail, and the asymmetrical, highly dynamic composition of this memorial reflect the influence of the Baroque which was dominant in Europe at the time.

The superb craftsmanship of Russian silversmiths is also exemplified by a collection of snuff-boxes, goblets, cups, pitchers, and other items decorated with niello, which were made for the most part in Moscow in the seventeenth century, and in Veliky Ustiug in the eighteenth.

The collection of enamels numbers approximately 500 items, of which those made in Veliky Ustiug in the eighteenth century deserve particular attention. From 1761 to 1776 the Popov factory there produced very beautiful and ingenious articles, such as large dinner services of silver and non-precious metals, completely covered with enamel, mainly white, and decorated with silver trimmings and delicate painting in silver.

The collection of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century jewellery comprises articles manufactured at the Fabergé, Sazikov, Ovchinnikov, and Grachov factories.

One of the most remarkable in the Hermitage is the distinguished collection of art objects in steel, made by the armourers of Tula. Of the five hundred such works recorded in various museums, three hundred are in the Hermitage. The collection contains articles of furniture, lighting fittings, vases, writing sets, perfume burners, caskets and coffers, snuff-boxes, and samovars. All these show the unrivalled skill and exquisite taste of the Tula craftsmen. The decorative effect of their work is based on the combination of ormolu and steel, either faceted to look like precious stones, or burnished blue, with its surface polished like a mirror. There are occasional examples of Tula steel in many museums all over the world, including those of London and Berlin.

The collection of artistic metalwork in bronze, tin, steel, iron, and cast iron has some interesting eighteenth-century examples of copperware: loving-cups, jugs, cups, large chased sconces with representations of the city arms of St Petersburg or of flowers, and also a tray made in 1723 at Yekaterinburg.

Decorative articles for the court — in jasper, malachite, lapis lazuli, agate, cornelian, porphyry, and rhodonite — were produced in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries at the Peterhof, Yekaterinburg, and Kolyvan Lapidary Works. The Hermitage collection is the best in the Soviet Union and includes huge vases, bowls, elegant obelisks, lampstands, and a large number of smaller items, all done by gifted Russian craftsmen.

The collection of Russian furniture from the late seventeenth to early twentieth centuries boasts many fine items designed by the architects Charles Cameron, Giacomo Quarenghi, Vasily Stasov, Carlo Rossi, and Leo Klenze, as well as articles by the well-known St Petersburg cabinet-makers Christian Meyer, Heinrich and Piotr Gambs, Vasily Bobkov, and André Tour, and by craftsmen of the town of Archangel.

The Department possesses a very varied collection of walrus ivory, ranging from small pendants and spillikins to writing-desks, all made by bonecarvers from Kholmogory, well known for their skill in this art. The collection includes very rare items crafted by O. Dudin and N. Vereshchagin at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The delicate carving, openwork decoration, and original designs of the compositions are indicative of the great respect these masters had for the agelong traditions of their art.

There are many examples of the art of woodcarving: distaffs, round birch bark boxes, caskets of varying shapes, sizes, and ornamentation, gingerbread boards, ladles, salt-cellars, handled bowls, and other household objects.

The collection of textiles and costumes numbers over 20,000 items. The costume section contains many excellent examples dating from the late seventeenth to early twentieth centuries, each one a work of art in its own right. The textiles section comprises a rich assortment of Russian fabrics of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. The world-famous Kolokoltsov shawls, for example, a type made only in Russia, were woven by serf craftswomen from very finely spun goat’s down on both sides (i.e. there is no wrong side on the finished cloth) and had ornamental floral borders, worked in an amazing variety of hues and tints.

The Hermitage is proud of possessing the largest collection of flags and banners in the world — about 6,500 items dating from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries. They are interesting from both the historical and artistic point of view. In addition to Russian regimental colours, there are banners from Sweden, Prussia, France, and Oriental countries, as well as standards, Turkish horsetails, ensigns, insignia, and flags from over fifty countries. Old Russian banners are represented by a collection dating from the seventeenth century. The huge banner of the streltsi (the shooters) regiment, with an icon of the Last Judgment on one side, and portraits of the Tsars Peter and Ivan on the other, dates from the 1680s.

And, finally, one must mention the unique collection of sixteenth- to nineteenth-century instruments, which contains rare sundials and sidereal clocks, telescopes, drawing and geodetic instruments, including some made in the workshops of the Academy of Sciences under the supervision of Mikhail Lomonosov and Ivan Kulibin. Among the various serrated saws and copying lathes of Peter the Great’s time there is some interesting machinery with self-propelled supports of advanced design, whose invention is usually accredited to Andrei Nartov.

The Department’s exhibitions are supplemented by displays arranged in several state rooms of the Winter Palace. The Concert Hall (designed by Quarenghi in 1793 and rebuilt by Stasov in 1839 after its destruction by fire in 1837) — an interior faced with white stucco — houses an exhibition of seventeenth- to twentieth-century Russian silver. The famous Malachite Room (1838—1839, designed by Alexander Briullov), whose malachite decor is unique, is connected with the events of the October Revolution. Here the counter-revolutionary Provisional government held its meetings. On the night of 25—26 October (N. S. 7—8 November) 1917, the ministers were arrested in the room next door (the so-called Private Dining Room) by the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet. In 1957 the Private Dining Room was turned into a memorial room and furnished as it had been in 1917.

A special place among the state rooms belongs to the 1812 War Gallery which Alexander Pushkin made the subject of one of his poems. It was constructed to Carlo Rossi’s designs in 1826 and restored after the 1837 fire. The gallery contains 332 portraits of generals who took part in the 1812 War and the foreign campaigns of 1813—14. The pictures were painted by the English artist George Dawe and by the Russians Alexander Poliakov and Vasily Golike.

The Great Throne Room (designed in 1792—1795 by Quarenghi; rebuilt after the 1837 fire by Stasov) is decorated in a colour scheme of white and gold: white Carrara marble and gilded bronze. In 1948 a mosaic map of the Soviet Union, made from Russian coloured stones, was installed here. The room also houses an exhibition of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century carved stones.

In 1980 the Palace of Alexander Menshikov, one of the closest associates of Peter the Great, was placed, after years of reconstruction and restoration, at the disposal of the Hermitage. Situated on the University Embankment, the Palace is a most interesting monument of the history and architecture of St Petersburg in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. It is planned to unfold here an exhibition devoted to the Russian culture of the Petrine period.

The first eleven halls are already open to visitors. They include a walnut room and four rooms in which the ceiling and walls are faced with Dutch tiles.

G. Komelova, V. Vasilyev

170

St Nicholas of Mozhaisk

Wooden sculpture. Russia. 17th century

171

Silver cup with enamel inlays

Russia, Solvychegodsk. 17th century

172

Bronze candelabrum

Russia. Mid-19th century

173

Lidded silver tureen

Russia. Made by the craftsman Kuzov. 1790

174

Carlo Bartolommeo Rastrelli. 1675—1744. Russia

Peter the Great. 1723—30

175

Glass goblet engraved with ships

Russia, St Petersburg. Imperial Glassworks. 18th century

176

Steel casket

Russia, Tula. Made by the craftsman Leontyev. Late 18th century

177

Ivan Chessky. 1777/82—1848. Russia

Spit of Vasilyevsky Island. Watercolour. 1817

178

Andrei Martynov. 1768—1826. Russia

View of Nevsky Prospekt from the Anichkov Palace

Watercolour. C. 1810

179

Dmitry Levitsky. 1735—1822. Russia

Portrait of Yakov Bilibin. 1810s

180

Karl Briullov. 1799—1852. Russia

Portrait of Sophia Bobrinskaya. 1849

181

Alexei Tyranov. 1808—1859. Russia

Interior of the Winter Palace Cathedral. 1829

182

Nikifor Krylov. 1802—1831. Russia

Portrait of Vladimir Apraxin. 1829

183

Peter Ernest Rockstuhl. Russia

Portrait of Alexander Osterman-Tolstoy. 1800s

184

Vase of ruby-coloured glass

Russia, St Petersburg, Imperial Glassworks. Mid-19th century

185

Steel samovar decorated with dolphins

Russia, Tula. Early 19th century

186

Silver ash-tray in the form of a dolphin

Russia. Made by Y. Rappoport, Fabergé firm. Late 19th or early 20th century

187

Silver vase (hock-cup) painted in enamel

Russia, Ovchinnikov’s firm. Late 19th century

188

Silver jug with swans

Russia. Made by the craftsman Grigoryev. 1825

189

Cashmere gown and Kolokoltsov-style shawl

Russia. 1820s

190

Porcelain figurines

Russia, St Petersburg, Imperial Porcelain Factory. Second half of the 18th century

The collections of the Numismatic Department are well known throughout the Soviet Union and abroad. They include mint cabinets containing classical, Byzantine, Oriental, Western European, and Russian coins; a cabinet for medals and orders; three repositories of which one contains specimens reflecting the 1500-year history of Western European coinage; a collection of numismatic antiquities; and, finally, a library, the best in the country, totalling more than 200,000 volumes on numismatics, sphragistics, heraldry, and genealogy. In all, the Department houses 1,100,000 items, many of which are on display on the third floor of the Winter Palace.

The exact date of the foundation of the collection is unknown, but it is traditionally considered to be 1771, when the M. Bremsen collection was purchased. Documentary evidence shows that a number of important acquisitions were subsequently made, and these, together with the M. Bremsen collection, formed the nucleus of a Münzkabinett (mint cabinet). As was often the case in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the mint cabinet was attached to the library, and its first keeper A. Luzhkov held the post of librarian.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Hermitage collection totalled over 15,000 coins. The mint cabinet changed places several times and in 1852 its collections were assembled in two rooms on the second floor of the New Hermitage — the present-day Armorial Hall and a corner room with two tiers of windows. The latter room, decorated with medallion-shaped reliefs on the walls, was called the Medal Room and, later, the Coin Room. Special mahogany showcases for coins can still be seen in the Department’s exhibition halls. Coin- and medal-cases were kept on the upper gallery where the numismatists worked. The Department occupied these premises for almost a century, until June 1941.

In 1864 the Münzkabinett was formed into an independent section of coins and medals. At this time the collections totalled about 100,000 examples of numismatic art. By 1917 the number of items had increased to over a quarter of a million. During the Soviet period the numismatic stocks of the Hermitage have grown more than fourfold. From the very beginning entire collections and individual rare coins were acquired for the Münzkabinett both at home and abroad. Suffice it to mention the J. Reichel collection; its 5,000 items of Russian origin were bought by the Hermitage in 1851, and the remaining 40,000 coins and medals mainly of Western European provenance came to the Museum at a later date. The C. Thieme collection, purchased in 1906 in Leipzig, contained 33,000 copper coins, token money and counters, and the collection of the Pskov merchant F. Pliushkin, bought in 1914, comprised 38,000 coins, ingots and several hoards of coins. In 1918 the Hermitage acquired about 2,000 Byzantine coins from the heiress of the well-known collector I. Tolstoy. The Museum was also given very generous donations. Thus, the widow of Academician V. Velyaminov-Zernov presented the Hermitage with 18,000 Oriental coins; in 1917 Academician I. Tolstoy donated his father’s marvellous collection of Russian coins, and in 1928 Academician S. Platonov handed over to the Hermitage a gold medallion of Constantine the Great (A.D. 306—337), found in a trench on the Southwest Front in 1916. Several years ago, a large number of coins, medals and badges were transferred to the Hermitage by Academician B. Bykhovsky.

The Hermitage collection has also profited from various finds. Many ancient coins in the Museum stem not from private collections and the Kunstkammer (Peter the Great’s Cabinet of Curios), but from hoards discovered at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. With the founding of the Imperial Archaeological Commission in 1859, an increasing number of hoards found their way to the Hermitage. (However, in keeping with the practice prevailing in the nineteenth century, hoards were usually not preserved as complete historical collections; only some rare specimens were selected from them, while the remainder was melted down. At the turn of the century this practice changed, and numismatic finds began to be regarded as documentary evidence. Since the 1920s every hoard has been preserved in its entirety.) In 1898, for example, a hoard was uncovered during the repair of the choir-stalls in the Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra. The earliest of its coins was the unique gold medallion of Constans II (A.D. 337—350), while the latest was minted in 1702. The hoard contained 6,198 gold coins and medals weighing twenty-seven kilograms and forty-three grammes, and 9,890 silver coins with a total weight of 273 kilograms. This hoard has provided the Hermitage with numerous interesting ducats and talers of different origin, including the unique Polish ten-ducat piece of Stephen Báthory, struck in 1580. In addition, the hoard yielded 232 talers with the Russian counter-marks of 1655, known in Russia as yefimki.

In 1934 hunters digging up a badger’s den in a forest on one of the tributaries of the Pasha River near the village of Vikhmiaz, in the Ladoga area, came upon a bronze cauldron full of small silver coins — tenth- and eleventh-century denarii minted in England, France, Italy, Hungary, Czechia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Germany. The hoard was placed in the Hermitage. It was found to contain a great many rare and even hitherto unknown specimens. Thus, a denarius with the name of Florentius could have been struck only by Florentius I, Count of Holland (1049—1061), since the hoard dates from the late eleventh century. The discovery of this coin made it possible to prove that the medieval coinage of Holland had begun over one and a half century before the date generally accepted. A denarius from Hildesheim, dating from the mid-eleventh century and depicting the Church of St Michael, stems from the same hoard. The church was later reconstructed and, prior to the discovery of the Hermitage coin, its earliest appearance was known only from a wooden model of the seventeenth century. Other noteworthy coins in this hoard include the denarii struck in Echternach. When doing his research into the tenth- and eleventh-century coins of the Lower Lorraine and Friesland the German scholar Günther Albrecht made use of the material of most European collections except the Hermitage’s, of which he was apparently oblivious. However, in the Vikhmiaz hoard, the denarii coined by various mints in the Lower Lorraine and Friesland are extremely well represented: taken together, all the hoards mentioned by Albrecht contained almost as many denarii from Thuin, Dinant, Liège, and Remagen as the Vikhmiaz hoard alone.

The Shchumilov hoard of Oriental coins unearthed in 1927 in the Novgorod Region contained a commemorative dirhem of the Abbasid dynasty. One of the acknowledged gems of the Hermitage collection, this dirhem was issued in A.H. 195 (A.D. 810/ 811); the mint is not indicated. The device, rather unusual for a dirhem, features the name of Umdjafar Zubaydah, cousin and wife of the famous Caliph Harun al-Rashid, who was well known for her piety, philanthropy and brilliant poetic gift. Legend has it that she founded several towns and contributed to the construction of water-reservoirs and caravanserais during her pilgrimage to Mecca. Since Umdjafar Zubaydah was born in A.H. 145 (A.D. 762/763), this dirhem, dated AH 195, must have been minted in honour of her fiftieth birthday.

From 1852 onwards, samples of coins and medals struck at the St Petersburg Mint were sent regularly to the Hermitage. A certain portion of the coins, medals and orders now in the Museum was bought from various numismatic firms, such as the Hamburger and Hess Co. in Frankfurt-on-Main, the Kube Co. in Berlin, the Egger Co. in Vienna, the Rollin Co. in Paris, the Spink Co. in London, and the Schulman Co. in Amsterdam. Important accessions came to the Hermitage by way of exchange with the mint cabinets of Berlin, Jena, and Madrid.

After the victory of the October Revolution, during the difficult years of the Civil War and foreign intervention, the young Soviet state showed great concern for the preservation of historic and artistic treasures. Since 1921, by a special decree of the Soviet government all samples of coins, medals, orders, and badges issued by the Moscow and Leningrad Mints have been transferred to the Hermitage.

The unceasing growth of the Hermitage collection in the 1920s and 30s was largely promoted by the official policy of concentrating the more valuable numismatic objects in several major Soviet museums. At this time the Hermitage received a number of former private collections, among them the Stroganov collection totalling 53,000 coins and medals, and the numismatic collections previously housed in the Academy of Arts, the Pavlovsk Palace, Leningrad University, etc. At the beginning of the 1930s, several collections of coins were transferred to the Hermitage from the Academy of Sciences, particularly from its former Asiatic Museum (30,000 items).

The main sections of the Department are as follows: the coinages of Ancient Greece and Rome (where Byzantine coins are also kept); the coinages of the Orient; Russia; Western Europe; and the section of medals, orders and badges.

The collection of classical coins was formed on the basis of numerous private collections. Pride of place is held by coins discovered on the northern and eastern shores of the Black Sea. Among these the gold staters of the fourth century B.C., minted in Panticapaeum (present-day Kerch), are of especially high artistic merit. Their obverse shows a satyr, and the reverse depicts a gryphon standing on a corn-ear. Whereas the gryphon was considered to be the protector of treasures, the corn-ear symbolized wheat, the main wealth of the Bosporan kingdom at the time. Most gold staters came to the Museum in the late nineteenth century from excavation sites near Kerch. Other towns on the northern Black Sea coast, primarily Olbia and Cher-sonesus, yielded a large number of extremely interesting complexes of coins as well.

The Byzantine collection is amply represented by coins of the sixth and seventh centuries, silver miliaresia of the tenth and eleventh centuries, and gold coins including some rare specimens struck by Philippicus Bardanes (711—713).

The Oriental section possesses over 230,000 coins. Compared to the classical section which was augmented by archaeological finds, the collection of Oriental coins, especially Kufic and Juchian ones, largely benefited from the discovery of hoards. Most items of the brilliant Sassanian collection derive from hoards found in the Caucasus. The gold Sassanian coins include a unique double denarius of Hormizd II (303—309). Its obverse shows the profile portrait of the ruler wearing a diadem-like crown topped by a bird of prey. The reverse depicts a fire-altar, shaped as a column with a capital, above which tongues of flame rise. On either side of the altar are two figures, one of which also wears Hormizd’s crown.

Thanks to accessions from the hoards, the Hermitage collection of Kufic, especially Samanid, coins is now one of the best in the world. In addition to the above-mentioned dirhem with the name of Zubaydah, there is another fine dirhem of brilliant workman ship, minted by Daisam ibn Ibrahim al-Qurdi, a statesman who lived in the tenth century and at one time ruled Azerbaijan and Eastern Armenia.

Among the coins of the Mongol dynasties are some 9,000 Juchian specimens. One of the rare coins in this collection was minted by Turakina, widow of Gengis Khan.

The small Georgian collection (1,775 items) includes several rare pieces, such as figured copper coins minted by Georgi IV Lasha, the co-ruler of Queen Tamar and later the ruler of Georgia, and a fish-shaped copper coin dating from 1210, the only known sample of its kind.

The collection of coins of Cilician Armenia is almost of the same size as the Georgian one.

There is an interesting collection of stamps of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, totalling 350 specimens. 340 of these were used in minting gold, silver and copper coins in the Khiva Khanate in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Incidentally, they were found by chance below the stage of the Hermitage Theatre in the 1930s.

Prominent among the coinages of the Far East is the group of silver and gold Chinese ingots (about 600 items, 3 in gold), forming one of the best collections in the world. Varying in weight, these jüanpao ingots were widely used in the Chinese trade in modern times; they always bear the date and mint officina, weight, and various wishes of well-being.

Most richly represented in the Numismatic Department are the coinages of Western Europe (over 330,000 items plus coins from America and Australia kept in the same section).

Coins of the barbarian states and of the Carolingians constitute a relatively modest part of the collection. Among 150 gold Merovingian coins are such rare pieces as two tremisses with the name of St Eligius, or Eloi. The gold coinage of the Carolingians, which was generally very scarce, is illustrated by several specimens, notably the gold solidus struck in Dorestad (Holland). This coin was sent to the Memorial Charlemagne Exhibition held in Aachen in 1965.

There are scores of coins dating from the tenth and eleventh centuries, found in the territory of the Soviet Union. The period from the late twelfth to the fifteenth century is not as well represented, for silver coins of the time except Prague groschen and Polish and Baltic coins have not practically occurred in the finds made in Eastern Europe. The number of German bracteates of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, together with coins from the only hoard of bracteates encountered at Khotin, does not exceed 5,000. The Hermitage now has an extensive collection of early gold florins and ducats, particularly from Italy, Hungary and the Rhenish regions of Germany, which were uncovered in the hoards in the south and southwest of the USSR. The gold coinages of the Netherlands, England and France are extremely well represented. There is an exceptionally varied collection of large silver coins of the late fifteenth to eighteenth centuries — talers and testones (from the Italian testa, head, usually bearing a head of the ruler) — and an excellent collection of the first talers struck by the Schlicks, Counts of Czechia. There is also a group of Neapolitan talers of Charles V and Philip II with the countermark of Sigismund II Augustus, King of Poland, who inherited these coins from his mother, the Milanese Duchess Bona Sforza. The Neapolitan coins with the counter-mark of 1564 are the immediate predecessors of the Polish taler. Among the silver coins of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries there are many rare trial specimens and kindred piedforts — multiple or pattern pieces struck on an unusually thick flan. Intended for checking the quality and weight of conventional coins, these were often presented as gifts to the high-ranking persons inspecting the mints.

The collection of Russian coins, totalling with duplicates some 250,000, is especially complete, and is the best of its kind in the world. The foundations of Russian coinage were laid by Grand Prince Vladimir Sviatoslavich in the late tenth century, and coincided with the beginning of coinage in several European countries, notably Poland, Sweden and Norway (the first coins of these countries are also fairly well represented in the Hermitage). The earliest Russian gold and silver coins are called zlatniki and srebrianiki. Zlalniki are particularly rare; there are only ten known pieces of which seven are in the Hermitage. The srebrianiki of Prince Yaroslav the Wise are distinguished by their superb workmanship. No less remarkable is the zolotoi of Ivan III (1462—1505); although modelled on the Hungarian ducat widely used in commerce at that time, it nevertheless bears Russian legends. By issuing the Russian ducat Ivan III wished to show that Russia had become stronger both politically and economically and acquired increasing international prestige. At the end of 1974 the Museum received, a Russian imitation of an English noble, with the name of Ivan III.

From the fourteenth century until the reforms of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and Peter the Great the main monetary unit in Russia was the denga, coined of tiny bits of silver wire. Some types of the denga, especially those of the appanage period, are quite rare. The coin of the lowest denomination — the copper pulo — was struck in individual areas of the country and much less frequently than the denga. The reforms of the mid-seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries narrowed the gap between the Russian monetary system and that of Western Europe; the mintage of large silver roubles and gold coins was begun. Among the monetary units of the seventeenth century, the talers mentioned above, with the Russian countermark of 1655, are particularly interesting in that they reflect Russia’s economic relations with other European countries. The Hermitage possesses about one third (456 pieces) of the total number of such coins housed in various museums in the world.

One of the unique coins is the so-called Konstantin rouble. Since Tsar Alexander I died leaving no sons or grandsons, his oldest brother, Grand Duke Konstantin, was his logical successor. But Konstantin renounced his rights to the throne and Alexander’s third brother Nicholas became Emperor of Russia. In the meantime, in November — first half of December 1825, the St Petersburg Mint struck seven coins with the name of the heir presumptive, i.e. Konstantin. Two coins found their way to the collection of the famous numismatist J. Reichel, while the remaining five, with three pairs of stamps and trial tin impressions from them, were preserved in the Secret Archives of the Ministry of Finance until 1879. As the Konstantin roubles were minted in the time of the Decembrist Rebellion of 24 December 1825, they quickly became the subject of all sorts of legends, and even fakes appeared. Since then increasingly higher prices have been asked for these roubles. Thus, one of them was recently auctioned for 70,000 francs in Switzerland.

The same section contains a notable collection of Russian silver pay ingots, as well as several interesting hoards.

The section of medals, orders and badges numbers over 60,000 items, including 48,000 Russian and foreign medals. The Hermitage prides itself on the Italian Renaissance medals by Antonio Pisano, Matteo de Pasti, Nicolò Fiorentino, Leone Leoni, and Benvenuto Cellini. There are also about 11,000 works by German medal artists, such as Albrecht Dürer, Hans Schwarz and Friedrich Hagenhauer. The following figures may give some idea of the wealth and variety of the collection: it contains 6,000 French medals, 1,200 Netherlandish, over 2,200 Polish, about 1,200 English, 1,000 Swedish and Danish, 800 Austrian, and about 800 works of South and North American origin. The collection of Russian medals is of course especially representative, as that of medals devoted to events of Russian history and issued in Western Europe; there are more than 1,200 gold and platinum medals alone. Among the Russian medals of the eighteenth century (over 2,100 items), the works by Philipp Heinrich Müller, Christian Wermuth, Fiodor Alexeyev, Johann Georg Waechter, Timofei Ivanov, Samuil Yudin, and Johann Balthasar Gass deserve particular attention.

The Numismatic Department also houses numerous Russian, Western European and Oriental seals and signet rings, including Russian pendant seals of the tenth to fifteenth centuries and Russian signet rings of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. Of great interest are the designs on the Drohiczyn seals of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. What these seals were intended for remains an open question; some scholars presume they served as trade seals, others believe they were used for sealing up sheaves of pelts, the so-called fur-money.

Since its establishment, in addition to its main function as a repository of art treasures, the Department has been an important research centre of scientific activities in numismatics.

V. Potin

191

Silver decadrachm

Sicily, Syracuse. 5th century B.C.

192

Gold stater

Bosporus, Panticapaeum. 4th century B.C.

193

Double gold dinar of Hormizd II (303—309)

Sassanian Iran

194

Copper 40-nummi piece

The Ostrogothic Kingdom. 6th century

195

Gold medallion (8 solidi) of Constance II (337—361)

Rome

196

Silver denarius (bracteate) of Albrecht I the Bear (1134—1170)

Brandenburg

197

Gold tagekhan of Leon I (1198—1219)

Cilician Armenia. Rubenid

198

Bronze medal of Matteo de Pasti (1420—?), struck in honour of Izotta

Rimini, Italy

199

Four silver testones of Philibert II (1497—1504)

Italy, Savoy

200

Ten gold ducats of Stephen Bathory (1576—1586)

Poland. 1580

201

Star of the Order of St Andrew the First-Called with the ribbon of the Order of the Garter

Russia. Early 19th century

202

Silver srebrianik of Prince Yaroslav Vladimirovich (1019—1054)

Russia

203

Silver rouble of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (1645—1676)

Russia. 1654

204

Double gold chervonets (ten-rouble coin) of Peter the Great (1682—1725)

Russia

205, 206

Alexander Rukavishnikov. Born 1950

Bronze medal “In Commemoration of the First Space Flight”. The Soviet Union. 1976