About Two Gems from the Excavations of 1837 near Anapa

Abstract

The fund of Baron G. V. Rosen, which today is included in the collection of the Department of Written Sources of the State Historical Museum interesting for archaeologists and historians of the antiquity of the Northern Black Sea region, as it contains information about the first archaeological research in the vicinity of the city of Anapa. In 1837 were carried out excavations of the mounds under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Boguslav Greenfield. Information about this excavations was preserved in his letters and reports to G. V. Rosen.  Despite the unprofessional nature of the excavations, the lieutenant colonel tried to preserve and transmit information about the structure of burial mounds and the context of the finds. In some cases descriptions of items are given.Thus, the documents not only contain extremely important information for studying the history of archaeological research, but also provide an opportunity to partially study those finds that have been lost over time. So, in the burial mound 7, among other items of grave goods were found two gold rings with images of Cupids on red inserts. The location of glyptic items is currently unknown, however, in our opinion, the lack of the possibility of a detailed description of objects should not become an obstacle to introducing them into scientific circulation.