Nikolai Ivanovich Veselovsky (

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

: ; November 1848 – 30 March 1918) was a Russian archaeologist and orientalist who, in the space of 23 years, excavated about 500

kurgan A kurgan is a type of tumulus (burial mound) constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons, and horses. Originally in use on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, kurgans spread into mu ...

s in the Kuban Region. Born in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, Veselovsky went to school in

Vologda Vologda (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Vologda Oblast, Russia, located on the river Vologda (river), Vologda within the watershed of the Northern Dvina. Population: The city serves as ...

. He studied and then read lectures at the St Petersburg Imperial University (reader in 1877, extraordinarius in 1884, ordinarius from 1890). As a young man, Veselovsky was the first to excavate

Afrasiab Afrasiyab ( ''afrāsiyāb''; ; Middle-Persian: ''Frāsiyāv, Frāsiyāk'') is the name of the mythical king and hero of Turan. He is the main antagonist of the Persian epic ''Shahnameh'', written by Ferdowsi. Name and origin ''Afrā'' is the po ...

, the oldest part of

Samarkand Samarkand ( ; Uzbek language, Uzbek and Tajik language, Tajik: Самарқанд / Samarqand, ) is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan and among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central As ...

. In Samarkand he met and became friends with the local historian, collector and merchant Mirza Bukhari, and acquired over 1,000 valuable artifacts from him. He then turned his attention to Tamerlane's mausoleum and some other gems of Timurid architecture to stave off a threat of collapse after a series of earthquakes. Veselovsky is best known today for a series of notable kurgans that he explored in Southern Russia: Maikop kurgan (which lends its name to the Maikop culture), Kostromskaya (1897), Ulyap kurgans (1898), Kelermes kurgans (1903), Semikolenny kurgan, and (in what turned out to be his final field work) the Yelizavetinskaya kurgans. In 1912, Veselovsky moved to New Russia (present-day

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

) to explore the Solokha grave of a Scythian king. Many of his digs were emergency excavations at sites threatened or partly destroyed by looting. In a single season, he had to oversee numerous digs at distant locations. As a result, some excavations were hastily conducted by underqualified assistants, prompting later Soviet archaeologists to explore these sites again. Nevertheless, it was Veselovsky (and his team) that discovered some of the finest examples of

Scythian art Scytho-Siberian art is the art associated with the cultures of the Scytho-Siberian world, primarily consisting of decorative objects such as jewellery, produced by the nomadic tribes of the Eurasian Steppe, with the western edges of the region vag ...

, including the Solokha comb. Veselovsky also unearthed notable examples of medieval art, particularly the jewellery and textiles from the

Golden Horde The Golden Horde, self-designated as ''Ulug Ulus'' ( in Turkic) was originally a Mongols, Mongol and later Turkicized khanate established in the 13th century and originating as the northwestern sector of the Mongol Empire. With the division of ...

during his exploration of the Belorechensky kurgans in 1906 and 1907.

References

*Konovalov, Panov, Uvarov
Vologda, xxii - nachalo xx veka
(1993),

* Piotrovsky, Boris, et al. "Excavations and Discoveries in Scythian Lands", in ''From the Lands of the Scythians: Ancient Treasures from the Museums of the U.S.S.R., 3000 B.C.–100 B.C.'' The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 32, no. 5 (1974)
available online as a series of PDFs
(bottom of the page). {{DEFAULTSORT:Veselovsky, Nikolay Archaeologists from the Russian Empire Orientalists from the Russian Empire Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Caucasologists from the Russian Empire 1848 births 1918 deaths