The State Hermitage congratulates its colleagues on a remarkable event that took place during repair and restoration work on the Great and Small Mithradates Steps, a cultural heritage site of federal importance, – the discovery of the burial place of Ivan Alexeyevich Stempovsky, governor of Kerch and Yeni-kale in 1828–32, which had been considered lost.
Ivan Alexeyevich Stempovsky has gone down in Russian history not only as a talented administrator but also as an outstanding scholar and gifted archaeologist. He is rightly considered one of the founding-fathers of archaeology in this country, one of the first collectors of the antiquities of Kerch. One of Stempovsky’s initiatives led to the opening of the Kerch Museum of Antiquities, forerunner of today’s Eastern Crimean Museum-Preserve, which celebrates its 195 anniversary this year. Stempovsky’s name is associated with the brilliant discoveries that came from the excavation of the Kul-Oba burial mound. Those finds are one of the most famous archaeological complexes in the Hermitage’s Gold Rooms.
The monumental chapel above Stempovsky’s grave was an inseparable part of the integral ensemble of the Great Mithradates Steps, the creation of which involved the prominent architects Alexander Digby and Giorgio Torricelli. The chapel was an architectural focus of the city, shaping its unique appearance, while at the same time the Mithradates Steps symbolized the link between Russian Kerch spreading at the foot of Mount Mithridat and Panticapaeum, the capital of the ancient Bosporan Kingdom and centre of the earliest established state on Russian territory.
A significant role in the measures carried out to save the foundations of Stempkovsky’s chapel was played by members of the staff of the Eastern Crimean Museum-Preserve, thanks to whom not only the foundations of the chapel but also the actual burial complex has been preserved, and the implementation of a set of conservation measures and expert anthropological examination has been initiated.
