TUVA.- Russian senator Sergei Pugachev helped unveil a unique exhibition of artefacts from the Scythian epoch on Sunday, November 2, in the city of Tuva, Siberia, and Christie's board chairman Viscount Linley was among several VIP guests in attendance. The collection, hailed by Hermitage museum director Mikhail Piotrovsky as "the main archaeological find of the 21st century," was discovered during a 2001 excavation of the graves of Scythian kings in the Tuvin republic. The first exhibition of these 2,700-year-old artefacts in their homeland was made possible through sponsorship from Senator Pugachev, a prominent Russian businessman who represents the Tuvin republic in the higher chamber of the Russian Parliament.
The artefacts, excavated by members of a joint Russian-German expedition, came from two ancient barrows in the Scythian Valley of Kings, Arjaan-1 and Arjaan-2. Treasures from the second site, the tomb of a wealthy married couple, include golden adornments, copper and amber jewelry, iron weapons, armor, tableware and the wife's burial costume woven from 5,000 tiny golden pendants. Unearthed in 2001, the artefacts were transported to a restoration laboratory at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, where they were first exhibited 2004. The collection toured Germany in 2007 with the title "Under the Sign of the Golden Gryphon: Graves of the Scythian Tsars."
But when the treasures were finally returned to the Tuvin republic in July 2008, the public was unable to see them for three months. Regional authorities were unwilling to finance the security system needed to display and preserve the collection, which is insured for USD 44 million. In the end, Pugachev provided the funds himself. The subsequent exhibition was an unprecedented event for the remote Siberian republic, which rarely attracts visitors of Viscount Linley's stature. In addition to chairing Christie's, the world's largest auction house, Linley is a noted art history expert who has lectured at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Other high-profile guests at the event included Princess Salimah, peace ambassador for the humanitarian non-governmental organization SOS Children's Villages, and Lord Bruce Dundas, son of the Marquis of Shetland and managing director of luxury goods seller Asprey.
