Crimea: Feodosia earrings. Lost technologies of the past. Scythian treasures from the Siberian collection of Peter I. Feodosian earrings

Mountains of Crimea May 27, 2014

Cape St. Elijah is the easternmost tip of the Main Ridge Crimean mountains, further to the east the Feodosia Bay begins.

At the foot of the cape, on the shore, among stone blocks And steep cliffs lovers of mineralogy can find interesting examples of snow-white calcite, druses and brushes of the brown mineral ankerite, bluish strontianite.

The path to Cape Ilya leads past a destroyed bunker, the last witness of the past war, and rises to a green oasis where the lighthouse is located.

Above the lighthouse, to the southwest, on one of the plateau-like peaks of the cape, there was an ancient Greek church in memory of St. Ilya, where a solemn service was held annually on July 20 on the patronal feast day. According to legend, the church was dedicated to fishermen who miraculously escaped death during a storm off the coast of the cape.

There is also a Feodosian legend about how the merchant sailor Ilya Tamara was shipwrecked twice off the coast of Cape St. Ilya. Seeing his imminent death, Tamara prayed to the prophet Elijah to soften his anger and calm the storm. In his prayer, he promised, in case of a successful outcome, to build a temple on the cape.

A fiery lightning cut through the menacing sky, scorched the air, illuminated the ships and rocks, slid along the mast for the last time and lit up with a radiance in front of the ship, the storm subsided, the Kaffin lights lit up to the side...

Tamara kept his promise and built a temple on the mountain. How long it stood is unknown, but already in 1816, on the site of the wooden church, the chapel of St. Ilya. Nearby, at the edge of the cape, there was a cemetery of the Red Cross Society.

In September 1861, Emperor Alexander II visited Feodosia. After the liturgy in the St. Nicholas Cathedral Church, a tour of the military hospital, archaeological museum, the Armenian Khalib school and the antiquities of the city, Alexander II rode horseback to the top of the mountain and visited the chapel of St. Ilya.

In 1854 I.K. Aivazovsky, together with the prince-archaeologist of Siberia, during archaeological excavations at Cape Ilya not far from the chapel, when excavating a mound, among many household items, discovered women's gold earrings of amazing beauty (IV century BC).

This find entered world science under the name “Feodosia Earrings” (located in the Hermitage). These filigree earrings are a remarkable example of the artistic culture of Hellas, apparently imported work.

The diameter of the shield is 2.5 cm. It is impossible to see the details with the naked eye. And now, armed with a magnifying glass, a monumental composition opens to the eye: Nike, the goddess of victory, rules a chariot harnessed to four galloping horses.

The ancient artist showed his inspired imagination in creating a genuine work of art. This can be read both in the ornament of the earrings and in their entire composition. The way the master conveyed the rapid movement in the figures of tiny horses clearly speaks of his amazing “skill.”

The best modern jewelers were powerless to reproduce these earrings. Some secret of “microtechnology” has obviously been lost.

Among the finds in the mounds of Cape Ilya are various terracotta figurines, antique coins and amphorae, painted vases covered with gilding and multi-colored paints.

This is what the defensive fortifications at Cape St. Elijah in Feodosia look like in January 2014. It’s sad to watch how vandal builders systematically destroy historical monuments.

So, in 1853, the famous Feodosian artist - marine painter I. Aivazovsky received official permission from the Ministry of the Imperial Court and Estates to conduct archaeological work in the Feodosia region. The purpose of the archaeological research was supposedly to search for “old, ancient Feodosia.”In the mid-19th century, there were allegedly disputes between scientists around the world about the location of medieval Kafa-Feodosia. Someone placed it on the slopes of Tepe-Oba, in the area of Cape St. Elijah, someone at the foot of Karadag, in the area of today's Koktebel, and someone in all seriousness placed the ancient Kafa 70 km to the east, on Cape Opuk. But one day, the famous archaeologist of that time, A.A. Sibirsky. , while walking along the slopes of Tepe Oba, I discovered an ancient Greek coin, presumably from the 5th century BC. The archaeologist shared his find with the famous Feodosia artist I. Aivazovsky, expressing his opinion about the existence of " ancient city"in the area of Cape St. Elijah on the slopes of the Tepe-Oba ridge. The artist fully supported the ideas of Sibirsky A.A. and took direct part in organizing the archaeological expedition.

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

Encouraged by the incredible find, I. Aivazovsky continued his archaeological search with triple energy, 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 jewelry found was counted, described and sent to St. Petersburg, where it was put on public display in the Hermitage.
Based on the results of the archaeological expedition led by I. Aivazovsky, approximately 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 tour guides or read on numerous “historical” sites. The reality, however, is much harsher and dirtier.

In fact, the number of so-called “antique jewelry” that cannot be copied is quite large and numbers hundreds and thousands of pieces. Naturally, this group also includes the so-called “Scythian gold”, jewelry found in Scythian burial mounds. The geography of finds of "Scythian gold" is very extensive - from Altai to the Danube from east to west, and from White Sea before North Africa from North to South. Many of the “Scythian jewelry” are truly unique and technologies unknown even today were used to create them. The photographs below (“Feodosian earrings on the first”) show a small part of the “golden women’s earrings” discovered during excavations of Scythian burial mounds in completely different places: Southern Siberia, Tavria, Taman, the Dnieper region, the Volga region. These unique products have one thing in common - they are truly unique, they are extremely difficult, and often impossible, to counterfeit, and they are works of art of ancient Greek jewelry craftsmen, whose technologies are irretrievably lost.

Exactly - in Scythian burial mounds lay "ancient Greek gold"!!! Including Siberian and Altai! How it got there is absolutely not of interest to modern “historical science” - but you never know - it was bought at the market, on sale!

The only arguments of these "fighters for ancient greece"is the statement that the Scythians are nomads, and nomads are not capable of creating unique masterpieces.
But let’s return 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, discovered about 30 objects of the medieval hydraulic system of Feodosia, as well as a significant number of ceramic water pipes. Naturally, ceramic water supply was created not in the 4th century BC, but much later, in the 15-16th centuries.

It turns out to be a very interesting picture - a medieval hydraulic system was built right on an ancient Greek necropolis! There is one of two things here - 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 built a hydraulic system in the middle of burial mounds, so it’s something else!

By the way, it is known that the Sibirsky-Aivazovsky expedition revealed the order 90 burial mounds on the Tepe-Oba ridge, but where are they, and why haven’t they survived to this day? And as a rule, all burial mounds where something worthwhile was discovered have their own name (Kul-Oba Mound, Solokha Mound, Tsarsky Mound, etc.) What is the name of the mound in which “Feodosian earrings” were discovered? "? No way.

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

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

But I. Aivazovsky, allegedly born in 1817 in Feodosia, must have probably known about certain ruins on Tepe-Oba, which at that time could have had a completely different appearance.

In the painting by K. Bossoli, who captured 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 - you cannot find another perspective like this. The question is - what happened to these buildings after 15 years? Disappeared without a trace or turned into burial mounds?

It must be admitted that no Greek Necropolis, consisting of Scythian burial mounds, NEVER EXISTED on the Tepe-Oba ridge; on the ridge there were structures of a completely 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 Sibirsky-Aivazovsky carried out?

Indeed, in the vicinity of Feodosia there are quite a lot of incomprehensible hills that can be identified as burial mounds, only they are located mostly in the north and northeast of Feodosia, i.e. in the opposite direction from Tepe Oba. Several hills similar to mounds are located 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 in the mid-19th century there were quite a lot interesting monuments antiquities that, I would venture to guess, have not yet been plundered and desecrated.

Undoubtedly, a very rich profit awaited the treasure-hunting archaeologists.

And here a very interesting moment arises. The age of many Crimean mounds in Crimea is about 2000 years or more. According to official history, over these 2000 years, dozens of tribes and peoples passed through Crimea, but for some reason no one had the desire to see what was stored in these very pyramid mounds until the 19th century, when research and development of ancient monuments began . Therefore, it should be recognized that from time immemorial only one people lived on the Crimean Peninsula - the descendants of the Tauro-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, there was a change in the owner of the peninsula - it became part of the Russian Empire, which, despite its name, did not at all represent the interests of the Russian people, rather the opposite. Therefore, all archaeological expeditions on the Crimean Peninsula, without exception, 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 by tearing apart and appropriating the wealth that had been 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 part-time antiquarian and numismatist - Siberian A.A., as well as the personalities of his friends-patrons J. Reichel, B. Kene, I. Bartolomei, P.-Yu. Sabatier. All these gentlemen obviously 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 ancient gold coins in Europe. I think there is no need to prove where this wealth fell on their heads. This happened in the order of things - most of the looted jewelry and antiquities simply remained in the hands of the people who led the “archaeological searches” and then ended up 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 artist’s death in 1900 was left to his widow, A. Burnazyan - Sarkisova. After the October Revolution, the widow's collection was taken over the real hunt, and since the power in Crimea changed several times a year, literally everyone was hunting for Aivazovsky’s jewelry collection - the occupying Karaite-German government of Solomon Solomonovich Crimea, a former friend of I. Aivazovsky, and the White Guard “black baron” Wrangel, and Dzerzhinsky’s security officers . The latter, it must be said, succeeded the most. A. Burnazyan was arrested by the Cheka and spent at least six months in prison, from which she was released only after handing over her jewelry collection 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 with the Germans who occupied Feodosia. Further fate I. Aivazovsky’s jewelry collection is unknown, because it came from darkness and went into darkness.

So, in 1853, the famous Feodosian artist - marine painter I. Aivazovsky received official permission from the Ministry of the Imperial Court and Estates to conduct archaeological work in the Feodosia region. The purpose of the archaeological research was supposedly to search for “old, ancient Feodosia.”In the mid-19th century, there were allegedly disputes between scientists around the world about the location of medieval Kafa-Feodosia. Someone placed it on the slopes of Tepe-Oba, in the area of Cape St. Elijah, someone at the foot of Karadag, in the area of today's Koktebel, and someone in all seriousness placed the ancient Kafa 70 km to the east, on Cape Opuk. But one day, the famous archaeologist of that time, A.A. Sibirsky. , while walking along the slopes of Tepe Oba, I discovered an ancient Greek coin, presumably from the 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. Elijah on the slopes of the Tepe-Oba ridge. The artist fully supported the ideas of A.A. Sibirsky. and took direct part in organizing the archaeological expedition.

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

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

In fact, the number of so-called “antique jewelry” that cannot be copied is quite large and numbers hundreds and thousands of pieces. Naturally, this group also includes the so-called “Scythian gold”, jewelry found in Scythian burial mounds. The geography of 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 truly unique and technologies unknown even today were used to create them. The photographs below (“Feodosian earrings on the first”) show a small part of the “golden women’s earrings” discovered during excavations of Scythian burial mounds in completely different places: Southern Siberia, Tavria, Taman, the Dnieper region, the Volga region. These unique products have one thing in common - they are truly unique, they are extremely difficult, and often impossible, to counterfeit, and they are works of art of ancient Greek jewelry craftsmen, whose technologies are irretrievably lost.

The only argument of these “fighters for ancient Greece” is the assertion that the Scythians are nomads, and nomads are not capable of creating unique masterpieces.
But let’s return 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, discovered about 30 objects of the medieval hydraulic system of Feodosia, as well as a significant number of ceramic water pipes. Naturally, ceramic water supply was created not in the 4th century BC, but much later, in the 15-16th centuries.

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

But I. Aivazovsky, allegedly born in 1817 in Feodosia, must have probably known about certain ruins on Tepe-Oba, which at that time could have had a completely different appearance.

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

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

Undoubtedly, a very rich profit awaited the treasure-hunting archaeologists.

And here a very interesting moment arises. The age of many Crimean mounds in Crimea is about 2000 years or more. According to official history, over these 2000 years, dozens of tribes and peoples passed through Crimea, but for some reason no one had the desire to see what was stored in these very pyramid mounds until the 19th century, when research and development of ancient monuments began . Therefore, it should be recognized that from time immemorial only one people lived on the Crimean Peninsula - the descendants of the Tauro-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, there was a change of ownership of the peninsula - it became part of the Russian Empire, which, despite its name, did not at all represent the interests of the Russian people, rather the opposite. Therefore, all archaeological expeditions on the Crimean Peninsula, without exception, 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 by tearing apart and appropriating the wealth that had been accumulating for thousands of years in the territories of the Tauride Peninsula.

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 with the Germans who occupied Feodosia. The further fate of I. Aivazovsky’s jewelry collection is unknown, because it came from darkness, and went into darkness.

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