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Indepth Arts News:
"Gold of the Nomads: Scythian Treasures from Ancient Ukraine"
2000-10-13 until 2001-01-21
Brooklyn Museum of Art
Brooklyn, NY,
USA
The first major exhibition of Scythian art in the United States in more than a quarter century, the exhibition includes more than 170 crafted pieces, many of them excavated in the last decade from lavishly provisioned tombs. Among them are articles of personal adornment, ceremony, and battle created by Scythian artists and by superb Greek goldsmiths.
All of the objects in the exhibition are on loan from the Museum of Historical Treasures of Ukraine, The Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and the State Historical Archaeological Preserve of Ukraine. Many of these remarkable objects have never traveled outside Ukraine.
A fierce nomadic tribe, the Scythians flourished more than 2,500 years ago for a few brief centuries before mysteriously vanishing. They originated in the central Asian steppes sometime in the early first millennium B. C. After migrating to what is now Ukraine, in about the seventh century B.,C., they; dominated the vast expanse of the steppes that stretched from the Danube, east across what is modern Ukraine and east of the Black Sea Into Russia. For nearly three centuries they swept across the steppes with a military skill and ferocity that made them nearly invincible. The Scythians and their elaborately ornamented god objects also reveal a tale of interaction with the Greek world with whom they traded.
Modern knowledge of the Scythians is based on archaeological excavations of their burial mounds known as kurhans. Ongoing explorations continue to recover an astonishing wealth of gold and silver objects.
IMAGE:
Cup with Horses
5th Century
Gold, amber, glass
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