Feodosia earrings made in the ancient Greek technique of grain. Treasures of the Hermitage. Tepe-Oba ridge: facts

So, in 1853, the famous Feodosia marine painter I. Aivazovsky received official permission from the Ministry of the Imperial Court and Districts to carry out archaeological work in the area of ​​Feodosia. The purpose of the archaeological research was allegedly the search for "old, antique Feodosia".In the middle of the 19th century, there were allegedly disputes between scientists around the world about the location of the medieval Kafa-Feodosia. Someone placed it on the slopes of Tepe-Oba, in the area of ​​Cape St. Ilya, someone at the foot of Karadag, in the area of ​​today's Koktebel, but someone in all seriousness carried ancient Kafa 70 km to the east, to Cape Opuk. But once the famous archaeologist of that time, Siberian A.A. While walking along the slopes of Tepe - Oba, he discovered an ancient Greek coin, presumably 5th century BC. The archaeologist shared his find with the famous Feodosia artist I. Aivazovsky, expressing his opinion about the existence of an "ancient city" in the area of ​​Cape St. Ilya on the slopes of the Tepe-Oba ridge. The artist fully supported the ideas of Sibirskiy A.A. and took a direct part in organizing an archaeological expedition.

Already in the spring of 1853, on the slopes of the ridge, survey work was in full swing, almost immediately they were discovered 5 mounds- burial grounds. Four mounds were completely empty, but in the fifth ...! In the fifth, the burial of a woman, presumably 4-5 centuries BC, was discovered, a lot of exquisite ceramic objects, as well as a whole galaxy of interesting jewelry, including the FEODOSIAN EARRINGS, unique in their craftsmanship. The news of the unique Feodosia find spread all over the world, attracting the attention of numismatists, antique dealers and goldsmiths. Jewelers from all over the world tried to copy the decoration, but to no avail - the technologies of the ancient Greek masters were irretrievably lost. Even famous Carl Faberge, trying to repeat the "Feodosia earrings", suffered a complete fiasco.

Encouraged by the incredible find, I. Aivazovsky with trebled energy continued his archaeological searches, and during the summer-autumn of 1853. uncovered more than 80 mounds in the vicinity of Feodosia, and luck smiled on the artist again - one of the burial grounds on the Tepe-Oba ridge was also full of jewelry. Naturally, all the found jewelry were recounted, described and sent to St. Petersburg, where they were exhibited for all to see in the Hermitage.
According to the results of the archaeological expedition led by I. Aivazovsky, the following conclusion was made - on the slopes of the Tepe-Oba ridge there was a Greek Necropolis, approximately 4-5 centuries BC.

This beautiful story about "Feodosia earrings" can be heard from Feodosia guides or read on numerous "historical" sites. The reality, however, is much harsher and dirtier.

In fact, the number of so-called "antique jewelry" not subject to copying is quite large and amounts to hundreds and thousands of jewelry. Naturally, this group also includes the so-called "Scythian gold", jewelry found in Scythian burial mounds. The geography of the finds of "Scythian gold" is very extensive - from Altai to the Danube from east to west, and from the White Sea to North Africa from north to south. Many of the "Scythian adornments" are really unique and technologies unknown even at the present time were used to create them. The photographs below ("Feodosia earrings on the first") show a small part of the "gold female earrings" discovered during excavations of Scythian burial mounds in completely different places: South Siberia, Tavria, Taman, Dnieper, Volga region. These unique products will be united by one thing - they are truly unique, it is extremely difficult, and often impossible to counterfeit them, and they are works of art of ancient Greek antique jewelry masters, whose technologies have been irretrievably lost.

Exactly - in the Scythian burial mounds lay "ancient Greek gold" !!! Including Siberian and Altai! How it got there, modern "historical science" is absolutely not interested in - but you never know - bought at the bazaar, at a sale!

The only arguments of these "fighters for ancient Greece" is the assertion that the Scythians are nomads, and the nomads are not capable of creating unique masterpieces.
But back to the "Feodosia earrings". So, on the slopes of the Tepe-Oba ridge, an archaeological expedition led by I. Aivazovsky discovered some burial mounds in the amount of about 90 pieces, which were identified as the Greek Necropolis of the 4th century BC. However, 50 years later, a certain German forester F. Siebold, on the same slopes of the Tepe-Oba ridge, found about 30 objects of the medieval hydraulic system of Feodosia, as well as a significant number of ceramic water pipes. Naturally, the ceramic plumbing was not created in the 4th century BC, but much later, in the 15-16th centuries.

It turns out a very amusing picture - the medieval hydraulic system was built straight on the ancient Greek necropolis! There is one of two things - either our ancestors, who built the ceramic water supply system, had no idea about hygiene and sanitation, or someone is openly and blatantly lying. But I don’t think that our ancestors would have started building a hydraulic system in the middle of burial mounds, so the point is different!

By the way, it is known that the Siberian-Aivazovsky expedition revealed the order 90 burial mounds on the Tepe-Oba ridge, but where are they, and why have they not survived to this day? And as a rule, all burial mounds where something worthwhile was found has its own name (Kurgan Kul-Oba, Kurgan Solokha, Tsarsky Kurgan, etc.) "? No way.

The same F. Zibold, describing the Tepe-Oba ridge in 1900, mentions, in addition to hydraulic structures, numerous stone ruins of other structures, but these were definitely not burial grounds.

By the way, the big question is why gentlemen historians of the mid-19th century, who allegedly talked about the location of "old Feodosia", did not see these ruins and hydraulic structures, as if they did not exist? Have they been struck by sudden blindness?

But after all, I. Aivazovsky, who was allegedly born in 1817 in Feodosia, must have known for certain about some ruins on Tepe-Oba, which at that time could have had a completely different look.

In the painting by K. Bossoli, depicting Feodosia in 1842, we can observe a rather interesting landscape - fortifications and structures of unknown purpose in the foreground and the city itself in the background, in the valley. It is quite obvious that the Italian artist painted the picture while on the slopes of the Ridge - there is no more similar angle to be found. The question is - what happened to these structures in 15 years? Disappeared without a trace or turned into burial mounds?

It must be admitted that no Greek Necropolis, consisting of Scythian burial mounds, on the Tepe-Oba ridge NEVER EXISTED, on the ridge there were structures of a different nature, absolutely incompatible in their purpose with the City of the Dead.

But where, in this case, and when exactly was the archaeological expedition of Siberian-Aivazovsky carried out?

Indeed, in the vicinity of Feodosia there are a lot of incomprehensible heights that can be identified as burial mounds, only they are located mostly in the north and northeast of Feodosia, i.e. on the opposite side of Tepe-Oba. There are several hills, similar to barrows, to the south of the ridge, in the valley of Dvuyakornaya Bay, but these may well be the remains of fortifications.

In any case, in the vicinity of Feodosia for the period of the middle of the 19th century, there were quite a lot of interesting ancient monuments, which, I would venture to suggest, had not yet been plundered and desecrated.

Undoubtedly, a very rich profit awaited the archeologists-treasure hunters.

And here a very interesting moment arises. The age of many Crimean burial mounds in Crimea is about 2000 years and more. According to the official history, over these 2000 years dozens of tribes and peoples have passed through the Crimea, but for some reason no one had a desire to see what is stored in these very pyramid mounds until the 19th century, when research and development of ancient monuments began ... Therefore, it should be admitted that from time immemorial, only one people lived on the Crimean Peninsula - a descendant of the Tavro Scythians - the Russians, in any other case, all the burial grounds and mounds would have been destroyed long before the 19th century. In the 19th century, the owner of the peninsula changed - it became part of the Russian Empire, which, despite its name, by no means represented the interests of the Russian people, rather the opposite. Therefore, without exception, all archaeological expeditions on the Crimean Peninsula pursued, by and large, only two goals - to destroy the monuments of the past of the Great People and, if possible, to enrich themselves as much as possible, having torn apart and appropriated the riches that have been accumulating in the territories of the Tauride Peninsula for millennia.

Aivazovsky's Archaeological Expedition is no exception. It is enough to take a closer look at the personality of the chief archaeologist of the expedition, and also antiquary and numismatist - Sibirskiy A.A., as well as the personalities of his patron friends J. Reichel, B. Kene, I. Bartolomei, P.-Yu. Sabatier. All these gentlemen clearly not of Russian origin stand at the origins of the creation of the Imperial Archaeological Society, the curator of which was directly the House of Romanov. Naturally, all these people had the largest collections of jewelry and gold antique coins in Europe. I don't think it's worth proving where this wealth fell on their heads. This happened in the order of things - most of the looted jewelry and antiques simply remained in the hands of the people who led the "archaeological searches" and then settled in numerous private collections, a smaller part went to museums.

By the way, I. Aivazovsky also had a fairly large jewelry collection, which after the death of the artist in 1900 remained his widow - A. Burnazyan - Sarkisova. After the October Revolution, the widow's collection was arranged real hunt, and since the power in Crimea changed several times a year, literally everyone hunted for Aivazovsky's jewelry collection - both the occupying Karaite-German government of Solomon Solomonovich of Crimea, a former friend of I. Aivazovsky, and the White Guard "black baron" Wrangel, and the Chekists of Dzerzhinsky ... The latter, I must say, have succeeded the most. A. Burnazyan was arrested by the Cheka and spent at least six months in prison, from which she only got out after the jewelry collection was handed over to the new authorities.

It is possible that A. Burnazyan managed to preserve some part of the collection, since it is known that during the Great Patriotic War some jewelry from the artist's collection somehow ended up in the hands of the Germans who occupied Feodosia. The further fate of the jewelry collection of I. Aivazovsky is unknown, because it came from the darkness, went into the darkness.

So, in 1853, the famous Feodosia marine painter I. Aivazovsky received official permission from the Ministry of the Imperial Court and Districts to carry out archaeological work in the area of ​​Feodosia. The purpose of the archaeological research was allegedly the search for "old, antique Feodosia".In the middle of the 19th century, there were allegedly disputes between scientists around the world about the location of the medieval Kafa-Feodosia. Someone placed it on the slopes of Tepe-Oba, in the area of ​​Cape St. Ilya, someone at the foot of Karadag, in the area of ​​today's Koktebel, but someone in all seriousness carried ancient Kafa 70 km to the east, to Cape Opuk. But once the famous archaeologist of that time, Siberian A.A. While walking along the slopes of Tepe - Oba, he discovered an ancient Greek coin, presumably 5th century BC. The archaeologist shared his find with the famous Feodosia artist I. Aivazovsky, expressing his opinion about the existence of an "ancient city" in the area of ​​Cape St. Ilya on the slopes of the Tepe-Oba ridge. The artist fully supported the ideas of Sibirskiy A.A. and took a direct part in organizing an archaeological expedition.

Already in the spring of 1853, on the slopes of the ridge, survey work was in full swing, almost immediately they were discovered 5 mounds- burial grounds. Four mounds were completely empty, but in the fifth ...! In the fifth, the burial of a woman, presumably 4-5 centuries BC, was discovered, many exquisite ceramic objects, as well as a whole galaxy of interesting jewelry, including the FEODOSIAN EARRINGS, unique in their craftsmanship. The news of the unique Feodosia find spread all over the world, attracting the attention of numismatists, antique dealers and goldsmiths. Jewelers from all over the world tried to copy the decoration, but to no avail - the technologies of the ancient Greek masters were irretrievably lost. Even famous Carl Faberge, trying to repeat the "Feodosia earrings", suffered a complete fiasco.

Encouraged by the incredible find, I. Aivazovsky with trebled energy continued his archaeological searches, and during the summer-autumn of 1853. uncovered more than 80 mounds in the vicinity of Feodosia, and luck smiled on the artist again - one of the burial grounds on the Tepe-Oba ridge was also full of jewelry. Naturally, all the found jewelry were recounted, described and sent to St. Petersburg, where they were exhibited for all to see in the Hermitage.
According to the results of the archaeological expedition led by I. Aivazovsky, the following conclusion was made - on the slopes of the Tepe-Oba ridge there was a Greek Necropolis, approximately 4-5 centuries BC.

This beautiful story about "Feodosia earrings" can be heard from Feodosia guides or read on numerous "historical" sites. The reality, however, is much harsher and dirtier.

In fact, the number of so-called "antique jewelry" not subject to copying is quite large and amounts to hundreds and thousands of jewelry. Naturally, this group also includes the so-called "Scythian gold", jewelry found in Scythian burial mounds. The geography of the finds of "Scythian gold" is very extensive - from Altai to the Danube from east to west, and from the White Sea to North Africa from north to south. Many of the "Scythian jewelry" are really unique and technologies unknown even at the present time were used to create them. The photographs below ("Feodosia earrings on the first") show a small part of the "gold female earrings" found during excavations of Scythian burial mounds in completely different places: Southern Siberia, Tavria, Taman, the Dnieper region, the Volga region. These unique products will have one thing in common - they are truly unique, it is extremely difficult and often impossible to counterfeit them, and they are works of art of ancient Greek antique jewelry masters, whose technologies have been irretrievably lost.

Exactly - in the Scythian burial mounds lay "ancient Greek gold" !!! Including Siberian and Altai! How it got there, modern "historical science" is absolutely not interested in - but you never know - bought at the bazaar, at a sale!

The only arguments of these "fighters for ancient Greece" is the assertion that the Scythians are nomads, and the nomads are not capable of creating unique masterpieces.
But back to the "Feodosia earrings". So, on the slopes of the Tepe-Oba ridge, an archaeological expedition led by I. Aivazovsky discovered some burial mounds in the amount of about 90 pieces, which were identified as the Greek Necropolis of the 4th century BC. However, 50 years later, a certain German forester F. Siebold, on the same slopes of the Tepe-Oba ridge, found about 30 objects of the medieval hydraulic system of Feodosia, as well as a significant number of ceramic water pipes. Naturally, the ceramic water supply system was not created in the 4th century BC, but much later, in the 15-16th centuries.

It turns out a very amusing picture - the medieval hydraulic system was built straight on the ancient Greek necropolis! There is one of two things - either our ancestors, who built the ceramic water supply system, had no idea about hygiene and sanitation, or someone is openly and blatantly lying. But I don’t think that our ancestors would have started building a hydraulic system in the middle of burial mounds, so the point is different!

By the way, it is known that the Siberian-Aivazovsky expedition revealed the order 90 burial mounds on the Tepe-Oba ridge, but where are they, and why have they not survived to this day? And as a rule, all burial mounds where something worthwhile was found has its own name (Kurgan Kul-Oba, Kurgan Solokha, Tsarsky Kurgan, etc.) "? No way.

The same F. Zibold, describing the Tepe-Oba ridge in 1900, mentions, in addition to hydraulic structures, numerous stone ruins of other structures, but these were definitely not burial grounds.

By the way, the big question is why gentlemen historians of the mid-19th century, who allegedly talked about the location of "old Feodosia", did not see these ruins and hydraulic structures, as if they did not exist? Have they been struck by sudden blindness?

But after all, I. Aivazovsky, who was allegedly born in 1817 in Feodosia, must have known for certain about some ruins on Tepe-Oba, which at that time could have had a completely different look.

In the painting by K. Bossoli, depicting Feodosia in 1842, we can observe a rather interesting landscape - fortifications and structures of unknown purpose in the foreground and the city itself in the background, in the valley. It is quite obvious that the Italian artist painted the picture while on the slopes of the Ridge - there is no more similar angle to be found. The question is - what happened to these structures in 15 years? Disappeared without a trace or turned into burial mounds?

It must be admitted that no Greek Necropolis, consisting of Scythian burial mounds, on the Tepe-Oba ridge NEVER EXISTED, on the ridge there were structures of a different nature, absolutely incompatible in their purpose with the City of the Dead.

But where, in this case, and when exactly was the archaeological expedition of Siberian-Aivazovsky carried out?

Indeed, in the vicinity of Feodosia there are a lot of incomprehensible heights that can be identified as burial mounds, only they are located mostly in the north and northeast of Feodosia, i.e. on the opposite side of Tepe-Oba. There are several hills, similar to barrows, to the south of the ridge, in the valley of Dvuyakornaya Bay, but these may well be the remains of fortifications.

In any case, in the vicinity of Feodosia for the period of the middle of the 19th century, there were quite a lot of interesting ancient monuments, which, I would venture to suggest, had not yet been plundered and desecrated.

Undoubtedly, a very rich profit awaited the archeologists-treasure hunters.

And here a very interesting moment arises. The age of many Crimean mounds in Crimea is about 2000 years and more. According to the official history, over these 2000 years dozens of tribes and peoples have passed through the Crimea, but for some reason no one had a desire to see what is stored in these same pyramid barrows up to the 19th century, when research and development of ancient monuments began ... Therefore, it should be admitted that from time immemorial, only one people lived on the Crimean Peninsula - a descendant of the Tavro Scythians - the Russians, in any other case, all the burial grounds and mounds would have been destroyed long before the 19th century. In the 19th century, the owner of the peninsula changed - it became part of the Russian Empire, which, despite its name, by no means represented the interests of the Russian people, rather the opposite. Therefore, all, without exception, archaeological expeditions on the Crimean Peninsula pursued, by and large, only two goals - to destroy the monuments of the past of the Great People and, as much as possible, to enrich themselves as much as possible, having torn apart and appropriated the riches accumulating for thousands of years in the territories of the Tauride Peninsula.

Aivazovsky's Archaeological Expedition is no exception. It is enough to take a closer look at the personality of the chief archaeologist of the expedition, and also antiquary and numismatist - Sibirskiy A.A., as well as the personalities of his patron friends J. Reichel, B. Kene, I. Bartolomei, P.-Yu. Sabatier. All these gentlemen clearly not of Russian origin stand at the origins of the creation of the Imperial Archaeological Society, the curator of which was directly the House of Romanovs. Naturally, all these people had the largest collections of jewelry and gold antique coins in Europe. I don't think it's worth proving where this wealth fell on their heads. This happened in the order of things - most of the looted jewelry and antiques simply remained in the hands of the people who led the "archaeological searches" and then settled in numerous private collections, a smaller part went to museums.

By the way, I. Aivazovsky also had a fairly large jewelry collection, which after the death of the artist in 1900 remained his widow - A. Burnazyan - Sarkisova. After the October Revolution, the widow's collection was arranged real hunt, and since the power in Crimea changed several times a year, literally everyone hunted for Aivazovsky's jewelry collection - both the occupying Karaite-German government of Solomon Solomonovich of Crimea, a former friend of I. Aivazovsky, and the White Guard "black baron" Wrangel, and the Chekists of Dzerzhinsky ... The latter, I must say, have succeeded the most. A. Burnazyan was arrested by the Cheka and spent at least six months in prison, from which she only got out after the jewelry collection was handed over to the new authorities.

It is possible that A. Burnazyan managed to preserve some part of the collection, since it is known that during the Great Patriotic War some jewelry from the artist's collection somehow ended up in the hands of the Germans who occupied Feodosia. The further fate of the jewelry collection of I. Aivazovsky is unknown, because it came from the darkness, went into the darkness.

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Scythian treasures from the Siberian collection of Peter I

In 1715, Nikita Demidov, a Ural mining breeder, sent Catherine I (“for a tooth” to the newborn Tsarevich) 100 thousand gold rubles and several gold items from Siberian burial mounds as a gift to Catherine I. These things were found by bugrovniki - people who hunted in search of ancient burial mounds and extracted values ​​from there. Many merchants of Siberia and the Urals bought the treasures obtained in this way and melted them, profiting from the sale of gold.

Peter I decided to put an end to this and issued a decree ordering all interesting and unusual finds to be handed over to the authorities. Soon, Prince M.P. Gagarin, the governor of Siberia, sent to St. Petersburg many antique gold items, which formed the basis of the world's first and only collection of Siberian gold items. At first, this collection was kept in the Petrovskaya Kunstkamera, and in 1859 it was transferred to the Hermitage. Since that year, the Imperial Archaeological Commission was established, which was entrusted with collecting information about antiquities and looking for antiques related mainly to national history and the life of peoples living in the vast expanses of Russia.

Over time, the collection has grown, and its constituent exhibits geographically went far beyond the limits of the Siberian burial mounds alone. Now it houses the world-famous "Scythian gold".

... A huge steppe, cut into parts by deep rivers, stretches in a wide strip from the Danube to the Yenisei (and further into Transbaikalia and Mongolia). For a long time, on these endless, like the sea, expanses, kindred peoples settled, not constrained by any obstacles. Here homogeneous cultures flourished and vast empires were created, often not very durable. The paths of devastating conquests and great migrations of peoples lay here.

The steppe, like the sea, was rarely calm: first in one place, then in another, storms arose, which often brought in mounds (earthen embankments) - these are characteristic features of the Eurasian landscape. Mounds stretched on all sides of the horizon, wherever you looked. Some of them barely rise above the steppe, others rise as a conical or hemispherical mountain. Often such mountains reached a height of 20-25 meters and hundreds of meters in circumference.

The burial mounds of the Scythian leaders are distinguished by the especially large size and complexity of the burial arrangement. The overwhelming majority of Scythian kurgans were plundered by their contemporaries, but not only ... For example, the rich Kelermes kurgans in 1903 were excavated not by specialists, but by one treasure hunter - a certain technician D.G. Schultz. In the Kuban region, he unearthed four undisturbed embankments, in which he found many expensive things - clothing and weapons of the buried.

And although the Kelermes kurgans were plundered, later scientists found here a beautiful silver mirror, decorated with engraving on the back and overlaid with a thin gold sheet, on which wonderful drawings are imprinted.

The back of the mirror is divided by rope-like radii into eight sectors, the sharp corners of which are filled with two petals. In the center of the mirror, these petals form a large rosette, and the rest of each sector is filled with images of animals and mythological subjects, both of which alternate with each other in the correct order. So, for example, in one of the sectors in full growth, in long (up to the toes) clothes, Cybele is represented - the winged oriental goddess, mistress of beasts. She holds by the front paws of two lions, cowardly tucking their tails. In the next sector, there is a fight between a bull and a lion, and under this scene there is a figure of a wild boar.

Some of the most interesting exhibits of the Scythian collection are items discovered in 1862-1863 in the Chertomlyk barrow (north of the city of Nikopol), and among them is a magnificent gold burning - a quiver for arrows and at the same time a case for a bow. This one was made by a Greek master jeweler, who also decorated it with reliefs on the subjects of ancient mythology. In two tiers, for example, it depicts scenes telling about the life and exploits of Achilles - from the moment when his child is taught archery, until the last episode - when his mother, the goddess Thetis, clutching an urn with the ashes of her deceased son in her hands, mourns his.

The large size of the gorita gold plate, the beautifully executed chased reliefs, it would seem, indicate that such a precious thing can exist only in a single copy. But later finds allowed scientists to assume that a jewelry workshop in one of the Greek colonies of the Black Sea region made several gorites from one mold and sent them to their customers (Scythian kings) in different places.

The ancient Greeks also performed the world-famous golden comb from the Solokha burial mound - one of the rare unrooted Scythian burials. It was a huge embankment 18 meters high, which included two burials. The central grave was in the shape of a rectangular well with two chambers dug along its long sides.

The crest found in the mound belongs to the turn of the 5th-4th centuries BC - the heyday of ancient Greek art. The creators of the crest took into account the tastes of the customers, as they were well acquainted with the culture of Scythia. The upper part of the ridge is made in the form of a sculptural group depicting a battle between the Scythians. The decisive moment of the battle is captured, when the horseman and the footman collided with the enemy, who had just lost their horse. The details of the image are worked out so subtly that one can see every strand of hair on the head of one of the warriors, the segments of the armor on the rider, plaques sewn onto the clothes, the wound and the blood that flowed out of it on the neck of the fallen horse.

Due to the precisely calculated distance between the figures, the ancient masters achieved compositional unity, harmony and balance of bulk masses. Two horizontal stripes with figurines of five lions sandwiched between them serve as the basis for the main sculptural group and create a transition to the teeth of the ridge.

Very characteristically depicted on the crest are horses - small, with long tails and short-cropped manes. The rider sharply reined in his horse, and he stood on his hind legs, and the wounded horse lies on his back with his legs bent up.

And in 1853, during excavations near Feodosia, earrings, unique in their craftsmanship, were found. They showed the world samples of that kind of ancient Greek art, which is commonly called microtechnology. Each earring consists of a richly ornamented disc, the edges of which are covered with several rows of grains. On the inner surface of the discs there are eight graceful palmettos with rosettes at the bases, and the center of them is decorated with a lush multi-petaled flower.

The main decoration of each earring is a multi-figured composition made in microscopic forms. Shown here is a widespread sport in Athens. Four horses are racing at full speed, harnessed to a chariot, driven by the winged goddess Nike. To her right is a warrior with a large shield, ready to jump out of the chariot in order to finish the run himself to the finish line.

The ancient Greek master performed on the earrings such details as the pattern on the shield of the warrior hero, and even every feather on the wing of the goddess. In "Theodosia earrings" the grain is so small that it is impossible to see it without a magnifying glass. Only at high magnification can it be seen that the tiny grains are connected in four and arranged in rows. It is these details of the decoration that created the worldwide fame of "Feodosia earrings", especially since the grain technique invented by the ancient Greek masters was subsequently lost.

It is not surprising that after the Feodosia discovery, these earrings immediately attracted the attention of goldsmiths. Many jewelers of St. Petersburg and Paris tried to make a copy of the jewelry, but the task turned out to be impossible due to ignorance of the method of soldering and the composition of the solder used by ancient masters. Even the famous Carl Faberge, who tried to repeat Theodosia Earrings, failed. He could not complete the moon, completely covered with grain. Tiny, barely visible to the naked eye, golden balls in the antique monument were evenly distributed over the entire surface. When creating a copy of K. Faberge, it was not possible to combine even three grains - they merged and did not stay on the earring. But he used the achievements of modern technology, in particular, optics, which the ancient masters did not have. Subsequently, after long efforts, jewelers managed to combine only three grains instead of four, and the ancient technique of grain remains essentially unknown to this day.

Notes (edit)

1. The common name "Scythians" in science refers to the population of the Eurasian steppes, who lived from the Danube to the Yenisei in the 7th-3rd centuries BC. Moreover, it consisted of many related tribes that had their own names.

2. In the Vinnitsa region, and then in the region of Melitopol and near Rostov, archaeologists found exactly the same gorites.

Scythian gold from different collections














Pectoral - male breast jewelry, IV century BC

1. Peacock clock: In 1777, Prince Grigory Potemkin decided to surprise the Empress Catherine again. His choice fell on the work of the English mechanic James Cox. Why exactly on him is unknown. Perhaps the Russian count saw amazing things in the advertising catalogs that the master published. To send a gift to Russia, it had to be taken apart.

They disassembled something, but they could not assemble it - some of the parts turned out to be either broken or lost. The spectacular gift would have been gathering dust if in 1791 Potemkin had not instructed Ivan Kulibin to “revive the birds”. And the master of the highest class did the impossible: the clock went off, and the intricate mechanism began to move. As soon as the clock starts ringing, the owl in the cage "comes to life".

The cage starts to rotate to the ringing of bells. Then the peacock "wakes up": its tail rises, begins to bloom, the bird bows, draws in and throws back its head, opens its beak. At that moment, when the tail is fully opened, the peacock turns 180 degrees so that the audience can see it ... butt. Then the feathers come down and the peacock returns to its original position.

Today it is impossible to find out about the real reason for such impartial behavior of a peacock. According to one of the versions, Kulibin did not succeed in ensuring that the bird made a full turn. Another legend claims that the master deliberately forced the bird to perform such a "fouette", thereby demonstrating his attitude to the royal court, for which the "bird" was intended.

2. "Tomb of Homer"

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