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The "Sochi Treasure" Programme In 2004, the Laboratory for Scientific Restoration of Works of Applied Art (A.I. Bantikov, director) carried out the restoration of unique silver objects from the so-called "Sochi Treasure". This work was the first stage in the joint programme between the State Hermitage and the State Art Museum of the city of Sochi which includes full-scale restoration of exhibits, their publication and preparation for public showing. The Sochi Treasure was confiscated by the FSB from illegal "archaeologists" and was given to the museum in 1997. The materials consist of silver items, as well as articles of daily use made from iron and bronze, weapons and horse-riding gear. Cross-examination of those responsible indicated that the Treasure had been located in the hills on the left bank of the Mzyta River (Krasnodar Territory). In the opinion of O.L. Semionov, an employee of the Institute of History of Material Culture who was summoned to examine a monument destroyed by the plunderers, a hillside sanctuary could have been found in the inaccessible ledge of a cliff. The most significant part of the complex, and the part which was most damaged by time and by the plunderers, is three silver bowls, part of a beaker, two items from a harness worn on the horse"s chest, several pallets and cast handles of vessels with zoomorphic motifs. These items were selected for the first phase of the restoration work. All the bowls consisted of two parts - an outer part (with reliefs) and an inner part (made of smooth silver) with solid aureole - and they were seriously deformed, all of which led to the removal of the inside and external parts of the reliefs. The restoration was carried out by art restorers of the group specializing in archeological metal - S.G. Burshneva, N.A. Panchenko, M.G. Popova, O.L. Semionova, O.Yu. Senatorova and N.B. Yankovskaya. The restoration work was preceded by an investigation into the corrosion layers and the physical state of the objects using micro-cleaning techniques. As a result, it was determined that the density of the superficial layers was significantly greater than the density of the remaining metal. We can say with a great deal of certainty that a primitive annealing was performed in field conditions for the purpose of strengthening the fragile silver objects. The results of this annealing were, on the one hand, partial restoration of the plasticity of the silver and on the other hand, the appearance of a layer of deposited silver which covered the relief and smoothed out its details. Before beginning the restoration work, the objects were strengthened by applying a temporary backing of fiberglass and carrying out a sample electrochemical restoration of separate fragments. The positive results of this test allowed the Laboratory specialists to begin a two-stage restoration of the silver. In the restoration process they removed the softened products of corrosion as well as deformations and strenghtened the surface of the objects. The two-part bowls were disassembled and work was done on each part separately. Removal of the layer of deposited silver was an extremely labour-intensive operation. It was taken away millimetre by millimetre using needles, ophthalmologic scalpels and tweezers under a magnifying glass. In a number of cases it was impossible to remove this layer (for example, on the bowl with vegetable ornamentation), because the relief was preserved only on this layer. As a result of the restoration, it was possible to clean the details of the reliefs on the objects, to bring out their distinctive stylistic, subject-matter and production features. In the opinion of specialists, the full publication of the Sochi Treasure will put into scholarly circulation unique finds from the Northern Black Sea littoral dating from the 1st century B.C. to the 1st century A.D. |
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Hermitage Museum |
