The STaTe hermiTage muSeum annual reporT
The STaTe hermiTage muSeum annual reporT
The STaTe hermiTage muSeum annual reporT
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permanent exhIbItIons permanent exhIbItIons<br />
Scenes of fight between a deity and predators. Wall painting. Varakhsha. Late 7th – early 8th century.<br />
Fragment of a wall painting from the so-called Red Hall<br />
and military life of Central Asia from the 7th century onwards.<br />
Here, one can see stone sculptures of dead heroes, an<br />
inscribed tombstone, silver vessels of the nomads. <strong>The</strong> culture<br />
of the Turks was greatly influenced by that of the Sogdians,<br />
who traded all over the steppe. <strong>The</strong> walls of the room<br />
are decorated with Penjikent paintings containing an image<br />
of a female warrior. <strong>The</strong> lower tier of the painting is given<br />
over to fables which have a lot in common with the Indian<br />
Panchatantra. Some of them are familiar to the Russian<br />
visitors from their retellings by Ivan Krylov: the fable of the<br />
goose bearing golden eggs; the story of three wise men who<br />
resurrected a tiger who then proceeded to eat them; the<br />
fable about a stupid monkey who killed its beloved master.<br />
<strong>The</strong> next two rooms tell the story of Devashtich, the ruler<br />
of Penjikent who managed to weave his own thread<br />
into the intricate tangle of Sogdian policies of the early<br />
8th century, when the country was claimed by the Chinese,<br />
Turks, and Arabs. He, in turn, laid claim to the rule of<br />
Sogd. After the city was taken by the Arabs, Devashtich fled<br />
with some loyal retainers to the fortress of Abgar in the<br />
mountains to the east of Penjikent (modern-day Mount<br />
Mug). <strong>The</strong> finding of mediaeval manuscripts from Abgar<br />
has given us most of the information about Devashtich’s<br />
rule. <strong>The</strong> mountainous climate has preserved organic remains.<br />
<strong>The</strong> excavations on Mount Mug carried out in the<br />
1930s discovered the unique Sogdian culture. A separate<br />
room contains the wall paintings from Devashtich’s palace<br />
in Penjikent, one of which may be an illustration of the<br />
storming of Samarkand by the Arabs. <strong>The</strong> penultimate<br />
room of the exhibition houses the sculpture and paintings<br />
from Ajina-tepe, a Buddhist monastery which functioned<br />
in the 7th – 8th centuries in North-Eastern Bactria (in the<br />
south of modern-day Tajikistan). In the centre of the room<br />
there stands a stupa, a cult pyramid-shaped structure which<br />
was meant to contain sacred objects.<br />
Finally, the last room contains the paintings from the Kakhkakha<br />
site (Shahriston District, Northern Tajikistan,<br />
mediaeval land of Osrushana), dating back to the 8th –<br />
9th centuries. <strong>The</strong>y are the last manifestations of the pre-<br />
Islamic pictorial art of Central Asia. One of the paintings<br />
shows two infants suckled by a she-wolf – an image which<br />
goes back to the Roman prototype of the Capitoline wolf,<br />
while others follow Sogdian canons but have an astonishing<br />
delicacy of pattern and an unusual colour scheme.<br />
<strong>The</strong> exhibition has not only been renewed, but also significantly<br />
expanded. New acquisitions from the Institute<br />
of the History of Material Culture under the Russian Academy<br />
of Sciences have been added to it, including finds<br />
from nomadic burial sites and from the Kushan-Sassanid<br />
site of Zar-tepe. Monumental paintings from Penjikent<br />
featuring Amazons, harvest and hunting scenes, a number<br />
of paintings from Shahriston, and small sculpture from<br />
Sogdiana are displayed for the first time. <strong>The</strong> paintings Lament<br />
and Feasting Painters have returned after many years<br />
of thorough restoration and conservation.<br />
By Pavel Lourie<br />
SiBerian anTiQuiTieS.<br />
<strong>The</strong> fifTh paZyryK Burial mound<br />
7 december 2010. room 26<br />
<strong>The</strong> winter palace: ground floor<br />
<strong>The</strong> exhibition at the Department of the Archaeology<br />
of Eastern Europe and Siberia tells the story of the excavation<br />
of the Fifth Pazyryk Burial Mound, one of the most<br />
interesting archaeological sites from the Scythian period<br />
in the Altai Region.<br />
Here, one can see the results of excavations conducted under<br />
the supervision of S. Rudenko (1949) in the Pazyryk<br />
Valley in the Altai Mountains. <strong>The</strong> natural climate conditions<br />
of this area created pockets of sub-burial permafrost<br />
which preserved items made of wood, felt, leather, fur, fabrics,<br />
and other organic materials. <strong>The</strong> exhibition focuses<br />
on the finds made during the exploration of a horse burial<br />
found on the outer side of the burial chamber in the north<br />
part of the burial pit. Despite the fact that the barrow was<br />
plundered many centuries ago, the burial remained undisturbed.<br />
<strong>The</strong> rich harness of one of the horses was completed<br />
with a leather mask crowned with a wooden stag’s head<br />
with branching leather antlers, and a saddle-cloth (cheprak)<br />
lined with Chinese silk. <strong>The</strong> saddle-cloth of another horse<br />
was lined with a Persian woollen fabric.<br />
<strong>The</strong> horses were buried together with a ladder, parts of<br />
drag sledges, wheels, draft poles and axles of a dismantled<br />
wooden cart, felt figurines of swans, a large felt carpet and<br />
parts of a funeral “tent”. <strong>The</strong> oldest woollen tufted carpet<br />
in the world was also found here.<br />
<strong>The</strong> exhibition also includes a burial chamber which contained<br />
a log coffin with mummified bodies of a man and<br />
a woman interred in the Fifth Pazyryk Burial Mound.<br />
Chinese silks and Persian wool make it possible to outline<br />
a circle of contacts between the Scythian tribes of the Altai<br />
and the ancient civilizations of Central Asia and the Near<br />
East in the 4th – 3rd centuries B.C.<br />
On 20 May 2009, five rooms illustrating the cultural and<br />
historical evolution of the Sayan-Altai Region, Southern<br />
Siberia and the Transbaikalia from the Early Iron Age up<br />
to the Mongol Conquest (8th century B.C. – 13th century<br />
A.D.) were opened to the public. Materials on display<br />
in Room 26 complete a permanent exhibition which makes<br />
it possible to feel the everyday life, traditions and customs<br />
of the people who once lived in these areas of Central Asia.<br />
In accordance with the research and education policy<br />
of the museum, the exhibition provides a powerful illustration<br />
of the rich and varied cultural heritage of the peoples<br />
of Russia.<br />
By Nikolai Nikolayev<br />
28 29