4, Langeronivska St., 65026, Odessa, Ukraine

The Odessa Archaeological Museum was founded in 1825 and is one of the oldest museums in Ukraine. Since 1971 the museum has been a NAS institution. It possesses the largest in Ukraine collection of archaeological materials in a broad chronological range from the Paleolithic era to the Middle Ages. Today its collection includes over 170,000 artifacts. The museum also has a major collection of antiquities from Greece, Italy, Cyprus and Egypt. The collection of antiquities made of precious metals includes unique jewelry from Scythian and Sarmatian barrows and over 50,000 ancient coins.

Every year, expeditions organized by the museum investigate three or four archaeological sites.

In addition to describing, attributing and conserving artifacts, researches of the museum conduct archaeological studies in two main areas:

– The studies of early farmers and cattle-breeders include excavations at Eneolithic sites (those of the Tripillia and Usatove cultures) and Bronze Age settlements and burial mounds.

– The research in Classical and Scythian archaeology focuses primarily on the relationships between Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast and local Scythian and Sarmatian populations. The results of this research have been presented in major monographs. Lately, the museum has published 54 academic writings, including 18 monographs, 22 collections of papers and several catalogues.

Among the latest significant publications one is to note the catalogue «Greek and Cyprus Antiquities in the Archaeological Museum of Odessa», Nicosia, 2001. It has 175 colour illustrations, a preface by NAS academician I.F.Kuras (editors-in-chief V.P.Vanchugov and V.Karageorghis). The catalogue, published in English, covers 200 artifacts of early cultures from the museum’s collection.

In the recent years, scholars of the museum have been involved in several international archaeological projects conducted jointly with research institutions and museums from Poland, Romania and France.