World history and culture: “Scythians in England”: A Hermitage Exhibition in the British Museum

14 September 2017

The exhibition “Scythians: Warriors of Ancient Siberia” will be held in the British Museum in London from September 14, 2017 to January 4, 2018.

The title of the exhibition was devised by our British colleagues after some thought and reflects above all the way the European public is particularly attracted to the theme of Russia’s legendary region of Siberia, one of the best-known images of our country abroad. And interest in the theme of the warrior, the barbarian Scythian always remains high, wrapped in the romantic aura of the deep past, highlighted by the realities and myths of the modern world.

For this very reason, the emphasis in the exhibition is placed firstly on what is probably the chief characteristic of the ancient Scythians, who were above all nomadic animal herders and warriors, and secondly on the artefacts from Central Asia and southern Siberia that due to their state of preservation define Scythian culture particularly vividly, at times with ethnographic precision and authenticity. The exhibition will feature more than 850 items from the Hermitage: arms and horse tack, vessels, clothing, jewellery and watercolour depictions of finds, many of which have been in the museum since the 19th century and are true masterpieces of ancient craftsmanship and art.

Among the archaeological finds, an extremely important place goes to the highly artistic gold items from what is known as the Siberian Collection of Peter I, which marked the start of archaeological exploration of Russian territory and also the exhibits from the royal kurgans of the Northern Black Sea region – Solokha, Kul-Oba and Chertomlyk – that were explored in the 19th century. A special part of the display is made up of antiquities in the unique collection from the Pazyryk kurgans in the Altai mountains, where the deep-frozen burial chamber preserved objects made of felt, leather and fur, fabrics, wood and horn. They include unique imported articles from the Middle East, China and Central Asia.

The exhibition will feature items from three departments of the State Hermitage – the Department of the Archaeology of Eastern Europe and Siberia, the Department of the Ancient World and the Department of the History of Russian Culture. The last supplied 18th-century watercolours depicting finds from the Siberian Collection and prints showing Saint Petersburg at the time of the first archaeological discoveries. The Hermitage items will be supplemented by a few pieces from museums in Kazakhstan and Britain, including several items from the famed Oxus Treasure kept in the British Museum.