Recent Investigations of the Ulski Kurgans

The area of the Ulski kurgans is a key site of the Scythian epoch in southern Russia. Their chronological position is very important: the earlier kurgans border the Kelermes kurgans, the later ones the Semibratnee kurgans. Investigation of this site began in 1898, when Professor Nikolai Veselovsky of the St Petersburg University excavated two of the Ulski kurgans. 1 He returned to the site in 1908 and 1909. Veselovsky excavated a total of nine Ulski kurgans.2 Only one of the kurgans, occupied at the time by a Cherkassian cemetery, was excavated over 70 years later by Alexander Leskov.3 Another small mound (kurgan 11) was destroyed during road construction in those same years. At present, the material from the Ulski kurgans is located in three museums in Russia. The finds from Veselovsky’s excavations were divided between two museums: the State Historical Museum in Moscow and the State Hermitage in St Petersburg. The finds from Leskov’s excavations are kept in the State Museum of Oriental Art in Moscow. Currently, the collections from the Ulski kurgans are being prepared for publication and these will hopefully appear soon. Of course, the work of the collective authors, one of them myself, does not mark the scientific conclusion of this incredible site, but rather serves as a stimulus for further study by future generations of specialists. In this contribution, I will only be touching upon three key questions related to this monument: its chronology, its function and the question of metallurgical workshops of the early Achaemenid period.