Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

discovering the scythians
1.2 During his travels in Western Europe Peter spent time in Amsterdam, where he met many scholars
and collectors. Among them was Jacob de Wilde, collector-general for the Admiralty of Amsterdam, who
had amassed a considerable personal collection of scientific instruments and antiquities. The two men
first met in de Wilde’s library on 13 December 1697. The occasion was recorded by de Wilde’s daughter,
Maria, in an engraving published in 1700 (Tzar Peter is on the right).
Rumours that there were gold artefacts to be found in ancient grave mounds soon
began to circulate and it was not long before the commanders of the communities of
Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk began to organize bands of mound-diggers (bugrovshchiki) to
dig into the many kurgans (burial mounds) scattered about the landscape in search of
treasure. One report, sent from Tobolsk to Tzar Alexey in 1670, speaks of much gold
and silver being dug out of ‘Tartar’ graves by the Russians.
Six years earlier a Dutchman, Nicolaas Witsen, had spent a year in Russia as part of
the Dutch embassy and, developing a deep interest in the country and its culture, had
begun to collect artefacts emanating from Siberia. He continued to do so through
Russian agents long after he had returned home. ‘How civilized must have been
the people who buried these rarities’, he wrote. ‘The gold objects are so artfully and
sensibly ornamented that I do not think European craftsmen could have managed
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