Scythians and Greeks : a survey of ancient history and archaeology on the north coast of the Euxine from the Danube to the Caucasus / by Ellis H. Minns.

  • Ellis Minns
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Scythians and Greeks : a survey of ancient history and archaeology on the north coast of the Euxine from the Danube to the Caucasus / by Ellis H. Minns. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Vlll Just these same limits were contemplated by K. Neumann in his Die Hellenen im Skythenlande (Berlin, 1855), but he only lived to publish the first volume and that is nearly sixty years ago. In the first three parts of Kondakov and Tolstoi’s Russian Antiquities in the Monuments of Art (St P. 1889- ) reissued by Reinach as Antiquitds de la Russie Mdridionale (Paris 1892, henceforward cited as KTR.) is provided a more recent summary. This, intended as an introduction to a more or less popular account of Christian art in Russia, leaves something to be desired in arrangement and in bibliographical indications of the sources for the facts presented, but I have no idea of superseding it, as its limits in time and space are much wider than mine, and, though I have been allowed to reproduce a great many of its illustrations, it remains the most accessible book in which to find many more. When the above work was compiled, the policy of publishing in Russian had just become dominant (from about 1889, v. p. xxv) and it was difficult for Europe to know of discoveries in Russia from then until 1904, when Pharmacovskij began contributing year by year to the Archaologischer Anzeiger his very full and well illustrated reports. It is just from the period before 1904 that the main bulk of my unfamiliar matter is taken, as the greater part of the illustrations (e.g. those borrowed from the Archaeological Commission) had been selected by then and the earlier part of the book drafted. Other obligations and work having nothing in common with this have made the writing, and also the printing, of the book a very slow business, further delayed by the continual flow of fresh material, the incorporation of which, especially at the later stages, has presented some difficulty : there have also resulted certain unavoidable inconsistencies. Important facts which I have learnt since the earlier sheets were printed off are briefly indicated in the Addenda, to which I would ask the reader’s attention, but these supplements, necessarily, have been kept down rather jealously. A great cause of delay has been the miscellaneous content of the work : its unity being merely geographical, the composition of the different chapters has meant incursions into different branches of knowledge, in each of which the specialist will find me wanting. He also may say that what interests him has not received sufficient space, but there is no denying that the book is big enough already. The notes give him chapter and verse for every fact mentioned and indications as to where further information may be found on any particular point: I believe that even Russians may find these con- venient. For readers requiring less detail, I have endeavoured to make such a representative selection of material as to supply a general account of each subject treated and thus to make the book intelligible without the necessity of
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