“Leskov’s Maikop Treasure is not just a beautifully compiled catalogue of a significant group of items from various periods offering a study of Northern Caucasian art but also the successful attempt of an experienced scientist to compile in a few pages the history and context of a culture little known so far to international scholarship.

The author, Aleksandr M. Leskov, is a Research Associate in the Program for the Archaeology of Ukraine, University of Pennsylvania. His field of specialty is the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age of Eastern Europe. He has led several expeditions to the south of Ukraine and to the Northern Caucasus. Previously, he was also appointed Head of the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Art at the Museum of Oriental Art in Moscow.

What makes a publication of the Maikop treasure so important, even to scholars with no previous engagement with the subject? Maikop is the name given to the culture that extended throughout the Northern Caucasus, from the Caspian to the Black Sea, after the location of a barrow. Discovered in 1897, the barrow was one of the richest in Europe and dated from the end of the 4th to the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. The contacts between the bearers of the Maikop culture and the nomadic tribes of the Eastern European steppes, where Balkan imports are known, made possible the comparison of the two most investigated chronological systems, the Near Eastern and the Balkan. Based on that comparison, it has been possible to synchronize the principal archaeological cultures of south Eurasia from the 4th to the 3rd millennium BC with the antiquities of the Near East and of the Balkan Peninsula.” Bryn  Mawr Classical Review

“This book details 18 years of research and conservation work on the wooden furniture and small objects excavated at the site of Gordion, Turkey, by the University of Pennsylvania Museum between 1950 and 1973, uncovering what is now considered to be the most important collection of well-preserved wooden objects surviving from the ancient Near East. Forty-seven pieces of fine furniture and more than 70 wooden sculptures and household objects were recovered from the three largest tombs at Gordion, once considered to be the tombs of King Midas, who ruled the kingdom of Phrygia from Gordion in the eighth century B.C. ” GoodReads

“The site of Dún Ailinne is one of four major ritual sites from the Irish Iron Age, each said to form the center of a political kingdom and thus described as “royal.” Excavation has produced artifacts ranging from the Neolithic (about 5,000 years ago) through the later Iron Age (fourth century CE), when the site was the focus of repeated rituals, probably related to the creation and maintenance of political hegemony. A series of timber structures were built and replaced as each group of leaders sought to claim ancient descent from a deep past and still create something unique and lasting. Pam J. Crabtree and Ronald Hicks provide analyses on, respectively, biological remains and Dún Ailinne’s role in folklore, myth, and the sacred landscape, while Katherine Moreau examines bronze and iron artifacts and Elizabeth Hamilton, slag.”  University Museum Monograph, 129