Romantics with shovels
Archaeological exhibit opens at Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University
After their summer vacation the conversations of some students at Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University focus only on one topic: archaeological digs, finds, and restoration work. The reason is simple: they are discussing their archaeological internship during their summer vacation. Every year the results of their work are presented at exhibits. This year the scholarly associates and students of the Faculty of Archaeology and Museum Studies presented their findings after they were analyzed, classified, restored, and studied in scientific laboratories.
The exhibit Expeditions 2007: Quests and Discoveries opened on Nov. 27 and will last for three months. The archaeologists and geologists who took part in this year’s digs amassed many interesting items after doing field work on several historic sites in various regions of Ukraine, including the Black Sea coast and the Central Dnipro region. Among the precious finds historians attach special importance to ceramic distaffs (the staff on which wool or flax is wound before spinning), knives, awls, arrowheads, fishing hooks, candlesticks, and amphorae. Volodymyr Kobets, a scholarly associate at Kyiv National University, says that a number of these precious discoveries were made on the site of an 18th-century shipwreck involving Russia’s battleship, the Saint Alexander, in the vicinity of Tarkhankut Peninsula, during a joint Greek-Ukrainian geological tourism project. Both Ukrainian and Greek student scuba divers explored the wreck. In addition to Tarkhankut Peninsula, explorations in the Crimea took place in the large village of Novy Svit, in the vicinity of the merchant port of Sudak. That was where some parts of the cargo that was transported by medieval merchants were discovered and sent to the exhibit: vessels and glass and metal items that were discovered on the site of an 18th-century Italian shipwreck.
During this archaeological investigation, the students and their professors photographed evidence of current geological processes as well as the changes that have taken place in the Kerch area. These photos and descriptions of the discoveries formed the nucleus of a recently published tourist guidebook for people who want to explore the Crimea.
Dr. Kobets said: “Since our university is actively collaborating with the Kyiv Sophia National Preserve, students majoring in history have an opportunity to do their practical work at the Sudak Fortress Museum. Here the main burden is shouldered by senior scholarly associates because this fortress is a unique archaeological site dating to the Crimea’s medieval period. That was why the students conducted excavations in the vicinity of the port and carried out work to protect the dig.”
The dig that took place at the Kaniv Nature Preserve was equally interesting. According to Yevhen Synytsia, the coordinator of the expedition, the students covered an area of 250 m? and unearthed the remains of three houses that contained stone stoves, as well as several outbuildings. All of these are part of a Slavic settlement dating to the 8th-9th centuries. In addition to materials dating to the end of the first millennium (crudely molded earthenware and early ceramic pieces), they discovered ceramic items from the Bronze Age. The potential of this dig has not been exhausted. Dr. Synytsia said that there is enough work on this site to last another year.
Most visitors are primarily interested in the historical value of every displayed item and its practical usage. The painstaking efforts of archaeologists and geologists — people who have to dig from dawn until dusk or dive to a depth of five or more meters — fade into the background. But these researchers do not complain because they think their profession is very romantic.
