The Golden Deer of Eurasia [Hardcover]

Joan Aruz (Editor), Ann Farkas (Editor), Andrei Alekseev (Editor), Elena Korolkova (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Metropolitan Museum of Art Series | Publication Date: October 2000

Spectacular works of art have recently been excavated in Filippovka, Russia. They were created from about the fifth to the fourth century B.C. by the nomadic people who lived on the steppes of the southern Ural Mountain region. The objects include wooden, deerlike creatures overlaid with sheets of gold and silver, as well as gold attachments, with representations of animals, for wooden vessels, leather, and fabric. These unique works of art are the focus of this stunning book.

The subjects represented in the Filippovka works are similar to those in the animal repertoire of contemporary Scythian art, but the exuberant and highly ornamental Filippovka style is unmatched in the area and resembles that of artworks found much farther east, in the frozen tombs of the Altai Mountains region of Siberia and in western China. An introductory overview by Ann Farkas and essays by Russian authorities explain the history and archaeology of the nomads of Eurasia, the Filippovka kurgans, cults and rituals of the steppe nomads, and conservation of the Filippovka finds. The volume also includes a catalogue of the more than two hundred objects, both Filippovka works from the collection of the Archaeological Museum in Ufa and related Scythian, Sarmatian, and Siberian art from The State Hermitage in Saint Petersburg.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Many of the world's most exciting archaeological discoveries are being made in the central steppes of Eurasia, the vast undulating grasslands that stretch from Hungary to the Pacific. For thousands of years, nomadic tribes sharing strong cultural affinities flourished here, producing artworks of great power and vitality of which the objects illustrated in this book are spectacular examples. The Golden Deer of Eurasia is the catalog of an exhibition jointly organized by the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. It presents objects dating from the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. unearthed from burial mounds near Filippovka at the foot of the Ural Mountains. Of the 212 catalog items, two-thirds are recent finds from Filippovka, including gold jewelry, golden plaques showing scenes of animal combat, and gold-plated sculptures of mythological deerlike creatures with predatory muzzles and wide-branching antlers. Other treasures in the exhibition, borrowed from the Hermitage's immensely rich collections of Scythian and related cultures, put the new discoveries in context. The significance of these unique objects is explained in short chapters by American and Russian scholars; subjects range from social customs of the vigorous and violent steppe-peoples to conservation techniques. In addition to objects demonstrating the raw exuberance of the nomads' production, there are exquisite gold drinking vessels that use nomadic decorative themes but were made by Iranian and Greek craftsmen for trade with the tribes--a fascinating example of trade influencing art. As expected from a Met publication, The Golden Deer of Eurasia offers both an art book produced to the highest standards and cutting-edge scholarship on an important and fashionable area of art-historical research. --John Stevenson

From the Inside Flap

The Golden Deer of Eurasia Scythian and Sarmatian Treasures from the Russian SteppesThe State Hermitage, Saint Petersburg, and the Archaeological Museum, UfaEdited by Joan Aruz, Ann Farkas, Andrei Alekseev, and Elena KorolkovaSpectacular works of art were excavated between 1986 and 1990 from burial mounds at Filippovka, in Russia, on the border of Europe and Asia. The objects were created from about the fifth to the fourth century b.c. by pastoral people who lived on the steppes near the southern Ural Mountains. The large funerary deposits include wooden, deerlike creatures with predatory mouths and elongated snouts and ears, overlaid with sheets of gold and silver, as well as gold attachments for wooden vessels and gold and silver luxury wares imported from Achaemenid Iran. These treasures are now in the collection of the Museum of Archaeology, Ufa, in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan.

The discoveries at Filippovka open a new chapter in the history of the material culture of the nomads who in the first millennium b.c. traversed the steppe corridor extending from the Black Sea region to China. Yet the information provided by the Filippovka excavations is complicated and ambiguous. The identity of the people represented by the finds remains uncertain, but the forms and ornamentation of many works from Filippovka, as well as the cemetery's location in the southern Urals, argue for the cultural-chronological designation of this material as Early Sarmatian. Stylistic features, however, point also to the arts of Siberia, Central Asia, and China in the east and to the art of the "Meotian- Scythians" in the west. Imported Achaemenid goods raise questions about their place of production and about the circumstances that brought them to be included in tombs on the southern Ural steppes. Finally, robbers penetrated the burials in antiquity, destroying much of the evidence necessary for understanding the Filippovka nomads' religious and funerary practices.These are among the issues addressed in this volume, the catalogue for an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art that brings together the remarkable new material from Filippovka and, from the incomparably rich collections of the State Hermitage, Saint Petersburg, related luxury objects found in graves of other Eurasian steppe tribes. Gold and silver objects from the Scythian Black Sea tombs; textiles and leather and wooden works from the Altai Mountains; and gold and bronze pieces from the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Siberia illustrate developments in the art of the steppes in the centuries preceding the Filippovka burials, in contemporary societies, and in later centuries, toward the turn of the first millennium b.c. These outstanding works not only place the Filippovka discoveries in their proper historical and cultural context but are themselves fascinating and enigmatic.The book is the catalogue for an exhibition that opens at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in October 2000 and runs until February 2001.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 350 pages
• Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art (October 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300085109
• ISBN-13: 978-0300085105
• Product Dimensions: 12.3 x 9.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #139,737 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Window on Interactions between Asia and Europe, June 10, 2009

By 

James A. Glazier "JAG" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Golden Deer of Eurasia (Hardcover)

The Golden Deer of Eurasia is the catalog of an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, focusing on recent excavations of a 4th-3rd c. BC Sarmatian grave mound from the eastern Black Sea. The exhibition also included a variety of earlier and later material from points east and west to provide both historical and geographical context. Some of this material (from the Hermitage collection) is very familiar and quite spectacular; some is from smaller provincial museums and has never before been published in English or with color photos. The brief essays by Russian (and a few American) archaeologists are especially valuable because most of the Russian material is available only in Russian and because they illustrate the widely diverging views of the dates, social and cultural context and meaning of the Sarmatian and Scythian material. Translations are excellent, photos generally attractive (though a few are lost in the gutter or show pieces upside down or from poorly chosen vantage points), captions range from excellent to perfunctory (and in a few cases, obviously incorrect). Overall a very worthwhile book providing access to fascinating and poorly documented material.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ably edited and with informative commentary, March 12, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Golden Deer of Eurasia (Hardcover)

Ably edited and with informative commentary by Joan Aruz, Ann Farkas, Andrei Alekseev, and Elena Korolkova, The Golden Deer Of Eurasia: Scythian And Sarmatian Treasures From The Russian Steppes is a showcase volume of spectacular artifacts crated from about the fifth to the fourth century B.C.E. by the nomadic people who lived on the steeps of the southern Ural Mountain region and uncovered by recent archaeology expeditions in Filippovka, Russia. The objects include wooden, deer-like creatures overlaid with sheets of gold and silver, as well as gold attachments for wooden vessels, leather, and fabric. Very highly recommended for art history, anthropology, and archaeology reference collections, The Golden Deer Of Eurasia is the catalogue for an exhibition presented by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and is a 320-page compendium of 335 illustrations (280 in color) and seven maps.