were ‘wild, unruly and disloyal peoples’ (Khodarkosky 1997: 10). Still, some
enlightened echoes still resonated in the view of some nomads as ‘good
savages’ (ibid. 99).
Regarding the objects that arrived in the museum at this time, among these
were those originating from one of the founders of the commission, Count
Sergei Grigorievich Stroganov (1794–1882), who followed the family tradition
in purchasing archaeological objects of the Sassanian period. These, however,
did not go to his own family collection, but, signiWcantly, to the Hermitage.
Other discoveries came from excavations proper made in the colonized lands
to the east and south of Russia. In 1862–3, in the wide area surrounding the
Black Sea, Ivan Egorovich Zabelin (1820–1908) excavated Chertomlyk, one of
the largest Scythian barrows, dated to the fourth centurybce(Shapiro 1976:
146), and he also undertook some digging in the ancient Greek colonies on the
Black Sea shore, Phanagohria, and Olbia. In 1864 the laying of water pipes in
the city of Novocherkassk led to the accidental discovery of a Sarmatian
barrow with the name of Khokhlach, a rich burial dated from theWrst century
bce. It included the head of a Greek goddess made by a Greek craftsman. In
1869 a large group of objects were found in Koban, in Ossetia, in the north
Caucasus, on the east shore of the Black Sea. The objects belonged to burials of
the Koban-Colchis culture and included bronze axes with engraved geomet-
rical patterns with representations of animals. In 1903 the archaeologist
Nikolai Ivanovich Veselovsky (1848–1918) excavated two Scythian barrows
dated to the sixth centurybcein the Kuban areas near Kelermes. 4 In 1912–13
he also excavated the Soloha or Solokha kurgan, a royal burial located to the
south of Nikopol (now in Ukraine) (Shapiro 1976: 143–6).
In parallel to oYcial archaeology, antiquarian collecting continued among
the well-oVclasses of Russian society, with a particular emphasis on Greek
coins coming from the Black Sea area. One of the better studied collections in
terms of its formation is that of the Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich
(Stolba 2003). Among the largest collections mentioned by Stolba were also
those of Count Stroganov and Stempkovsky mentioned earlier in the chapter.
Some of the antiquarians also undertook excavations. One early example is
that of Prince Alexander Alexandrovich Sibirsky (1824–79), who dug in
today’s Ukraine in the Greek necropolis of Feodosia of the third toWfth
centuriesce(Gavrilov 2003). 5 In 1880 P. O. Burachkov excavated in the
Greek city of Kerkinitida (Kutaisov 1992).
4 Around this time, at the turn of the century, a new term was invented, that of Scythianism,
used by the literature historian Ivanov-Razumnik (1878–1946). Scythianism came to mean the
belief that a person is caught between the cultures of the East and the West, the old and the new.
Whether or not Scythianism was ever used in an archaeological context is unknown.
5 The excavation was continued in 1894 by A. L. Bertier-Delagard, who was probably a
Frenchman, but about whom I have found no information.
Russian Empire and French North Africa 257