The antiquities of Old Ladoga in the Hermitage

     The Hermitage collection from Old Ladoga listing more than 40 thousand units is especially important for the study of Old Ladoga history not only because of the amount of the archeological finds but mainly because they take their origin from the 200 square meters area excavated in Ground Town. These finds illuminate the history of Old Ladoga since its foundation in the middle of VIII till XVI-XVII centuries.

     First accession of antiquities from Old Ladoga of Hermitage is attributed to the beginning of the XX century when the Russian archeological society consigned to the Hermitage 2 lead stamps and Scandinavian fibula found in Ladoga (collection 1005). |In 1931 and in 1932 due to organization of the department of pre-class society (today the department of archeology of Eastern Europe and Siberia) the research materials of Brandenburg dated to 1884-1885 came from the Russian archeological society and from the Artillery museum: to the Hermitage. There were the materials from the territory of the Stone Fortress (coll. 888), from the place of the destroyed burial hills (coll. 1480 murals), and the objets from the burial hills next to Ladoga (coll. 694)

     A systematic formation of this collection started in 1947 when G. Grozdilov, a permanent deputy of the leader of expedition to Old Ladoga Ravdonikas began to work after the war at the Hermitage. Together with him his colleagues joined him in the ground works and in the processing of the excavation materials…Since that time the Hermitage became the place where the materials form the expeditions of Ravdonikas of 1947-1950, 1957-1959 are kept. This part of the collection has a special value because all the archeological finds have precise passports and can be collated with the diaries, drafts and other archeological documents. Besides the ancient layers of Ground Town dated to the middle of VIII century were uncovered during these excavations.

     In 1952 the materials from the excavations of the burial hills in a place called “Plakun” (the band of Grodzilov, Navskaya expedition under the leadership of Grodzilov). The collection was considerably replenished in 1953 and in 1955. The materials of the pre-war excavations of Ravdonikas that had been kept before in the State Leningrad Museum were consigned to the Hermitage as well as the collection of the field works and excavations in Old Ladoga performed in 1909-1913 by N. I. Repnikov from the Museum of Ethnography of the nations of the USSR. Both collections preserved partially. As a matter of fact that the materials from Old Ladoga were kept in the building of the faculty of history of the university where in September of 1941 a hospital was established. The Old Ladoga materials were transferred in the boxes into the basement and had been kept there without care until the university returned from evacuation. Many objects disappeared, the materials transferred to the Hermitage demanded many efforts to put them to rights.

     The collection of Repnikov is also not complete because during the flood of 1924 the materials together with the field documents kept in the Russian Museum were messed and partially lost. Today it is possible to use the only old museum inventories in which the data concerning the places of finds and stratigraphy is missed. There are only references to the tiers of the constructions.

     Since 1960 till 1972 they haven’t being excavating in Old Ladoga, therefore the Hermitage acquired only the archeological evidences from the burial hill found in “Plakun” explored in 1968 by G. Korzuhina. In 1972 the expedition to Old Ladoga under the leadership of A. Kirpichnikov started its activity. They delivered all the troves to the museum of Old Ladoga instead of the Hermitage. The Hermitage acquired only the unique hoard of tools of the middle of the VIII century, some wooden products, fabrics form the excavations of Ryubinin at Ground Town in 1975 and the finds from nearby Nosov’s tuffet excavations.

     In the 50s the collections from the Ethnography museum and from the University had been transferred to the Hermitage therefore it acquired all available archeological materials related to the study of Old Ladoga discovered during the past 50 years. The finds from the lower layers of Ground Town (VIII-IX centuries) presenting artefactual culture of Ladoga of that time when the first capital of ancient Russia had been founded were the subjects of a special interest. This epoch is presented by the different categories of the archeological evidences from the horizon E. Besides thousands of clay jars fragments there are different bronze jewelry: 4 temporal rings, pendants, plaques, chains), 4 casting forms, 12 melting pots; objects made from iron: 3 spearheads, 6 arrowheads, bar bits, 3 axes, a share, pliers of a smith, about 2 dozens of knives; bone-ware: 14 combs, 4 playing checkers, cut figures, skates, pierces, wood-ware: a bar with a runic inscription, 3 anthropomorphous figures, more than 50 samples of wooden hollow-ware including those made with lathe, the parts of the ships, the fragments of sledges, the tools for linen processing, wooden swords and a spear, 4 skis and their fragments, dozens of scraps of wool, the silk and the linen fabrics; more than 50 pieces of leather (fragments of footwear); thousands of beads made from glass, rock crystal, cornelian; more than hundred finds made of amber (beads, pendants and unprocessed pieces).
The Old Ladoga collection of the Hermitage is a subject of well-deserved attention of many researchers. Not only Russian specialists but also foreign scientists turn to it.