Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

discovering the scythians
0 200 miles
0 200km
N
Sula
Psël
Vorskla
Deciduous forest
Forest steppe
Steppe and semi-desert
Semi-desert and desert
Mountains
Greek cities
major Kurgans
BugDniester
Dnieper
Volga
Danube
Istria
Tryas
Olbia
Chersonesos
Litoy
(Malgunov)
Tolstaya Mogila
Alexandropol
Chertomlÿk
Galmanova Mogila
Melitopol
Kul’-Oba
Nymphalon
Sea of
Azov
Seven Brothers
Donets
Panticapaeum
Tanais
Great Bliznitsa
Elizavetinskaya
Five Brothers
Kuban
Kelermes
Don
Kostromskaya
Pontos Euxeinos
C a u c a
s u s
1.8 The Pontic steppe and the northern Black Sea coast. The map shows the principal Greek colonies and
the larger and more important of the Scythian kurgans.
the Southern Province of the Russian Empire (1802–3). One of his observations was of the
remains of the Greek colony of Olbia in the estuary of the Bug—a discovery which
stimulated classical scholars to begin to consider the intriguing question of the
interaction between the Greeks and the native Scythians—a relationship already
known to them through the Histories of Herodotus.
The civilizing influence of the Russian state, coming after centuries of stultifying
Ottoman rule, brought with it many benefits and not least a new intellectual curiosity,
one manifestation of which was the foundation of museums in the flourishing port
cities of the Black Sea: Nikolaev in 1806, Theodosia in 1811, Odessa in 1825, and Kerch
in 1826. These provided the inspiration for collecting and for excavation. The earliest
of the excavations—which can fairly be said to have kick-started Scythian studies—
was carried out at the kurgan of Kul’-Oba in 1830 by a team of amateurs and museum
professionals from the museum at Kerch at the eastern extremity of the Crimean
peninsula. The excavators found a stone-built tomb, probably constructed by Greek
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