Ancient Collections of the Anapa Museum Z.Ye
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ANCIENT COLLECTIONS OF THE ANAPA MUSEUM Z.YE. KHARALDINA and A.M. NOVICHIKHIN The appearance of an archaeological museum in Anapa has been predeter- mined by its over two-thousand-year history. One of the most interesting pages of the town history is the ancient epoch, i.e., the time when on the shore of the Anapa bay there existed one of the biggest towns of the Bosporan kingdom- Gorgippia. Already in the mid-19th century barrows in the vicinity of Anapa attracted the attention of archaeologists. In 1850-1880 A.A. Sibirsky, F.S. Biren and V.G. Tisengausen conducted excavations here.' Systematic excavations were undertaken for the first time by a professor of Petersburg University, N.I. Veselovsky. Having settled in Anapa in 1895, he carried out large-scale studies of barrows in the Kuban' and Ukraine and at the same time excavated sites in the vicinity of Gorgippia and purchased accidentally found antique objects from the local population.2 N.I. Veselovsky as well as his predecessors donated his finds to the central museums, but it is known that he kept certain objects in his country house in Anapa. Apparently his collection furnished the basis for the Anapa Museum of Antiquities which opened in one of the rooms of the town kursaal around 1910. The turbulent events of 1917, the civil war and the subsequent changes led to the closing of the Anapa museum. It was reopened in 1932 thanks to archaeolo- gist and local historian G.F. Tchaikovsky. However, during World War II and the German occupation the museum collections disappeared. The museum opened again in 1945. Chance finds from the fortified town and necropolis of Gorgippia formed the core of the first collections. In 1954-1956 the museum started receiving the first archaeological complexes, material from burials uncovered at the excavations of the necropolis of Gorgip- pia by an expedition of the Institute of Archaeology of the USSR Academy of 348 Sciences led by LV Pozdeeva,.3 Regular massive replenishment of the collections of antique objects began in 1960 when a special "Anapa" expedition of the IA of the USSR (since 1992-Russian) Academy of Sciences led in 1960-1973 by LT. Kruglikova and since 1974 by E.M. Alexeeva undertook to excavate Gorgip- pia, its necropolis, and the monuments in its chora on a systematic basis. A considerable number of finds were handed over to the museum by an expedi- tion of the Moscow Regional Pedagogical Institute led by Yu.S. Krushkol and V.N. Karasev who excavated from 1959 to 1977 a ground barrow of the 6th-4th cent. B.C. and an ancient rural estate near the hamlet of Rassvet of the Anapa region. A sizeable contribution to the formation of the ancient collections was made by the Anapa archaeologists and research fellows of the museum A.I. Sa- lov and N.D. Nesterenko who conducted protective excavations in the necropolis of Gorgippia,4 monuments in the Gorgippian chora and studied the place where ancient coin hoards had been found. Apart from the finds directly linked with Gorgippia, the Anapa museum has finds from other ancient settlements of the Northern Pontic region. Thus the museum funds have a few objects from Patreus (excavations by Yu.S. Krushkol), a number of ancient grave stones from the vicin- ity of Kepoi (excavations by N.I. Sokol'sky), ceramic stamps from Phanagoria (chance finds). In 1966 the State Hermitage handed over to the Anapa museum a collection of 174 objects: painted black-glazed and red-glazed vessels, am- phorae, beads, a bronze candelabrum. Judging by the codes, the majority of the objects belong to pre-revolutionary finds in Olbia and Berezan'. Today the collection of antiquities in the Anapa Archaeological Museum num- bers over 15 000 items. The collection of ceramics is one of the most numerous in the museum. It contains practically all types of ancient pottery of local Bosporan manufacture as well as imported objects. Tare pottery is represented by amphorae from various centres: Chios, Thasos, Rodes, Sinope,5 Heraclea, Corinth, Mendex, Cnidos, Cos and others. Most of the undamaged objects (there are over a hundred pieces in the collection) belong to the late ancient epoch and come from cellars of houses .