"From Bronze to Iron: Economy of the Inhabitants of the Inkerman Valley" (Monograph)
Evelina Antonivna Kravchenko. Candidate of Historical Sciences, Senior Researcher of the Department of Early Iron Age Archaeology of the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
Evelina Antonivna Kravchenko. Candidate of Historical Sciences, Senior Researcher of the Department of Early Iron Age Archaeology of the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
The book is dedicated to Oleksandr Kuzmych Takhtai – a Ukrainian museum professional, archaeologist, and preservationist, who worked most of his life in the Kherson region and in Sevastopol. The Inkerman Valley is one of the places most densely packed with archaeological sites in Southwestern Crimea. One of the most significant sites is the Late Bronze - Early Iron Age settlement of Uch-Bash (first name - Chortove Horodyshche), located on a plateau on the left bank of the Chorna River, which cuts through the valley.
One of the first researchers of the Inkerman Valley was Oleksandr Kuzmych Takhtai (October 23, 1890 - July 25, 1963) – a Ukrainian archaeologist, museum professional, and savior of Chersonesos, who did not abandon the museum during World War II, for which he was repressed. He was the first to draw attention to the typological identity of the cultures of Crimea and the Lower Dnipro region in the pre-Scythian period. O.K. Takhtai was born in the town of Romny, Poltava Governorate. In 1911, he entered St. Petersburg University and transferred to the St. Petersburg Archaeological Institute. After graduating from the university, he returned to Poltava, where he worked as a clerk.
He went through World War I, and after the October Revolution of 1917, he served in the Red Army. In 1920, he worked as the head of the Mykilske village library of the Poltava district, and since 1921 — as an instructor of the Poltava Committee for the Protection of Monuments. From 1925 to 1929, he worked as a keeper in the archaeological department of the Poltava Museum. In 1929, O.K. Takhtai was accused of anti-Soviet agitation and arrested, but due to insufficiency of evidence, he was released on June 26, 1930. He was no longer accepted back to work at the museum.
At the request of the head of the All-Ukrainian Archaeological Committee, M.Ya. Rudynskyi, O.K. Takhtai began working in the Dniprelstan archaeological expedition under the leadership of one of the leading archaeologists and museum professionals, D.I. Yavornytskyi. In the autumn of 1930, he was appointed head of the archaeology department of the Kherson Museum. On March 20, 1934, O.K. Takhtai was arrested again, but on June 4 of the same year, the case was closed.
After his release, Oleksandr Kuzmych worked for some time in the Tsiurupynsk Museum, and in 1935, he moved to Sevastopol and began working at the Chersonesos Museum, where he started to create the department of feudalism. On July 30, 1936, after an article in the Sevastopol newspaper "Mayak Kommuny" accusing O.K. Takhtai of a non-Marxist approach to archaeological material, so-called explanatory work was carried out with him, after which the scientist "took criticism into account" for the guidebook he was preparing and added quotes from the "History of the CPSU(b)". At the beginning of World War II, he conducted archaeological excavations in Chersonesos and its surroundings, which allowed him to raise the question of the circumstances of Volodymyr's capture of Chersones-Korsun in connection with the finds of Old Rus items in the settlement and in the necropolis of Chersonesos.
With the approach of the front line, O.K. Takhtai refused to evacuate along with other employees and collections of Chersonesos, citing the age and illness of his wife, saying: "every hell must have its own Cerberus, and I will remain such a Cerberus near these holy stones." After the closure of the museum, Oleksandr Kuzmych, along with his excavation worker, buried, as far as he had time, the non-evacuated exhibits and mosaics, constantly inspected the excavations, and recorded the finds.
After the end of the tragic defense of Sevastopol, O.K. Takhtai ended up in a prisoner-of-war camp, after which the occupying authorities appointed him professor-keeper of the Chersonesos Museum. On the territory of the museum, systematic cleanups were organized, and excavations were carried out at the open chapel near the Kruze Basilica. Based on the results of these works, O.K. Takhtai prepared scientific reports, which are still preserved in Chersonesos today. The scientist and museum professional — Oleksandr Kuzmych Takhtai did not allow the Germans to take valuable exhibits from the museum, conducted tours for them, explaining the significance of this monument for world culture.
After the end of the war, V. Shevchenko and O. Bergholz declared to the whole country the merits of O.K. Takhtai — the savior of Chersonesos and his loyalty to his professional duty. He continued to work on the materials obtained during the war and prepared to work on his candidate's dissertation "Cultural and Ethnic Community of Crimea and the Lower Dnipro region in the Pre-Scythian Era." Probably, the prospect of his rapid defense did not please S.F. Strzheletskyi, who had evacuated the exhibits of Chersonesos and felt passed over by glory.
In January 1949, he wrote a devastating article "Under the Wing of Irresponsible Comrades from Leningrad", where he accused O.K. Takhtai of collaborating with the fascists. In May 1949, he was fired from his job, and after testifying on August 27, he was arrested. On November 11, he was sentenced to 25 years in corrective labor camps under the article "treason to the Motherland" (Articles 58-3 and 58-10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR) with subsequent deprivation of rights. Until October 29, 1955, O.K. Takhtai served his sentence in the Uglich camp, from which he was released under amnesty. From the spring of 1956, he worked at the Donetsk Museum and lectured at Donetsk University.
O.K. Takhtai died on July 25, 1963, in Donetsk, where he is buried. Until recently, his new, never realized museum concept was kept in the Donetsk Museum. According to his design, the medieval hall was to open with an exhibited Mongol skull so that everyone entering could look into its black holes... Takhtai has not yet been rehabilitated... His case and archive are still kept in Simferopol in the archive of the department of the former SBU, now the FSB...
But his plan to explore the Inkerman Valley and compare its monuments with the monuments of the Lower Dnipro region, which the scientist also knew perfectly well, was continued. In 2006, first by the Inkerman squad of the Sevastopol Archaeological Expedition, and then by the dedicated Inkerman Expedition of the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the study of the Uch-Bash settlement was begun. Based on the results of these studies, a monograph was published – "From Bronze to Iron: Economy of the Inhabitants of the Inkerman Valley" (based on the materials of studies of the Uch-Bash and Sakharna Holovka settlements) / E.A. Kravchenko, S.A. Horbanenko, L.V. Horobets, R.V. Kroitor, S.M. Razumov, M.S. Serheieva, E.Yu. Yanish. Kyiv: IA NAS of Ukraine, 2016, 318 p., fig., tab., ISBN 978-966-02-7802-8.
Studies confirmed that this large and rich fortified settlement was founded by newcomers from the west – carriers of the Thracian Hallstatt cultures; later, a steppe component was added to its population – carriers of the Bilozerka culture of the Lower Dnipro region. It survived several periods of destruction associated with attacks by early Cimmerian nomads and ceased to exist at the beginning of the Scythian era. The settlement was one of the earliest centers of iron metallurgy in the Pontic region, the technology of which the Uch-Bash inhabitants probably received from the Caucasus.
All aspects of the life of the tribe of the Inkerman Valley at the turn of ancient historical epochs are described in the thematic chapters of the book. The monograph ends with a short historical excursion – a reconstruction of historical processes and the emergence of new social processes in Crimea associated already with the new era – the Iron Age, at the end of which we live.