Our friend and Moscow native Dmitri told us that he passed many an afternoon at the Pushkin Museum when he was a student. So, we had to make a visit. In fact, we made two. The Pushkin’s collections are housed in several buildings. The first ones we saw were located in the main building and included ancient Greece, the Black Sea region, the Near East, Roman Egypt and Troy. I never get tired of looking at ancient beads and metalwork although those items comprise only a small portion of what we saw:
Little Greek Cupids.
Beads (glass, pottery, rock crystal, carnelian, chalcedony and jet) from what we know today as Greece, Turkey and the Near East. Dates vary from 1st century BCE to 7th century CE.
Phanagoria, includes beads of lapis.
We jumped at the chance to see the exhibit on Ancient Troy and Schliemann’s excavations. Schliemann has always fascinated me because he came from humble origins, had a successful business career and used his money to excavate the site where he determined the Trojan War had taken place. Before he found archaeological evident that Troy had actually existed, most people considered Troy “a matter of myth and not reality.”
When Schliemann found the treasure pictured below, he dressed his wife up in the jewelry and took her picture. I did not take the pictures below because my cell phone battery had decided to overheat and die. If you click on the pictures, however, you will be taken to a link with information on the photographers.
These are ceremonial hammers. They are oversized, maybe about a foot long and are very impressive in person.
We returned to the Pushkin to see the 19th and 20th Century European Art collections. If I had only seen the Matisses, I would have been happy. An incredible collection you must see if you ever make it to Moscow. Thanks Dmitri!
Ornamento 
