OBJECTS FROM ALEXANDROPOL KURGAN IN THE COLLECTION OF THE ARCHEOLOGICAL MUSEUM OF KHARKIV KARAZIN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Abstract

As known the collection of finds from Alexandropol Kurgan was stored in the Commission for the Study of Antiquities (St. Petersburg) which was reorganized in the Imperial Archaeological Commission in 1859, and at the same time collection was given to the Hermitage. In 1932 by decision of the Parity Commission items from this barrow were transferred to the Ukrainian History Museum (now the M. F. Sumtsov Kharkiv Historical Museum). The small part of collection was left in the Hermitage for electroplating. During World War II, the Kharkiv’s part of collection became almost negligible, so from more than 4000 finds more than 100 items were survived. After the war part of the collection (about 400 items) kept in the collections of the Archeological Museum of Kharkiv University. All past documentation was lost during the war. In the new inventory books, compiled after the war, the items were marked as numbers 74—88 under the year of receipt 1945. Any notes on the possible reasons for transferring things to university storage are absent.
 The collection of Alexandropol kurgan stored in the 
 Archeological Museum of Kharkiv Karazin national university consists of the 165 round six-petal plaques, 120 seven-petal plaques, 19 round plaques with four holes along the edge, one (and one fragment) round plaque with six holes, 9 bronze crescent pendants, 12 bronze fragments of the ends of crescent and 19 small fragments from them, 64 tubular pierces (intact and in fragments), 7 silver plaques depicting the griffin and the fragment of silver typeset belt.
 Full publication of Alexandropol artifacts from the Kharkiv collection would make this complex appropriate to recreate the complete picture of the burial of Scythian chieftain and increase the further development of Scythian studies.