On July 5, 2024, the exhibition “Treasures of Crimea. Return” will open in the Treasury of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine. The exposition will feature more than 500 artifacts, known as “Scythian gold”, which were returned from the Netherlands after almost ten years of legal proceedings.
This was reported by the press service of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy.
Visitors of the exhibition will be able to see 565 unique objects, including ancient Greek, ancient Roman, late Scythian, Sarmatian, Hunnic and Gothic things found during archaeological excavations in Crimea from the 19th to the 21st century.
This exposition will be permanently located in the National Museum of the History of Ukraine until the full return of Crimea under the control of Ukraine, after which the collection will be moved to the peninsula.
“Treasures of Crimea. Return” – this is a powerful victory in the struggle for the cultural heritage of Ukraine, evidence of our thousand-year history, revealed through the cultures of many peoples, and confirmation of the rule of law,
– the Ministry of Culture noted.
The exhibition “Treasures of Crimea. Return” will be open in the Treasury of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine from July 5 (10:00 – 18:00) at the address: Kyiv, str. Lavrska, 9.
What is “Scythian gold”
On February 6, 2014, the Allard Pearson Museum in the Netherlands opened the exhibition “Crimea. The Golden Island in the Black Sea”, dedicated to the Goths, Sarmatians and Scythians. It was organized by five Ukrainian museums:
- Museum of Historical Jewelry of Ukraine (branch of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine, Kyiv)
- Tavrida Central Museum (Simferopol)
- Bakhchisarai Historical and Cultural Reserve
- Kerchen Historical and Archaeological Reserve
- National reserve “Khersones Tavriyskyi”
The exhibition consisted of 584 exhibits with a total insurance value of about 13 million euros (11.4 million euros – Kyiv part, 1.4 million euros – the Crimean part). Due to the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, only exhibits from the Kyiv museum returned to Ukraine, while items from the Crimean museums remained in the Netherlands.