Nikolai Ivanovich Veselovsky (, November 1848 - 30 March 1918) was a

Russian archaeologist Russian archaeology begins in the Russian Empire in the 1850s and becomes Soviet archaeology in the early 20th century. The journal ''Sovetskaya arkheologiya'' is published from 1957. Archaeologists Sites major archaeological cultures and s ...

and orientalist. Born in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, Veselovsky went to school in

Vologda Vologda ( rus, Вологда, p=ˈvoləɡdə) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Vologda Oblast, Russia, located on the river Vologda (river), Vologda within the watershed of the Northern Dvina. ...

, and then studied at

Saint Petersburg State University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBU; russian: Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the G ...

. Reader in 1877, extraordinarius in 1884, ordinarius from 1890. Veselovsky was the first to excavate

Afrasiab Afrasiab ( fa, ''afrāsiyāb''; ae, Fraŋrasyan; Middle-Persian: ''Frāsiyāv, Frāsiyāk'') is the name of the mythical king and hero of Turan. He is the main antagonist of the Persian epic Shahnameh, written by Ferdowsi. The mythical king ...

, the oldest part of

Samarkand fa, سمرقند , native_name_lang = , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from the top:Registan square, Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, Bibi-Khanym Mosque, view inside Shah-i-Zinda, ...

, as well as several notable

kurgan A kurgan is a type of tumulus constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons and horses. Originally in use on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, kurgans spread into much of Central Asi ...

s in Southern Russia and Ukraine, notably the

Solokha :''Solokha is also the name of a witch in Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Christmas Eve (opera), Christmas Eve.'' :''Solokha is also a hamlet at .'' The Solokha () kurgan is on the left bank of the Dnieper, 18 km from Kamianka-Dniprovska, opposite N ...

, Kostromskaya and

Maikop kurgan The Maikop kurgan (), excavated by Nikolay Veselovsky in 1897 near Maikop, Southern Russia, is the eponym of the Early Bronze Age Maikop culture of the Northern Caucasus. The kurgan had a height of about 10 m and a circumference of about 200 m. I ...

s. Some of the finest examples of

Scythian art Scythian art is the art associated with Scythian cultures, primarily decorative objects, such as jewellery, produced by the nomadic tribes of the area known as Scythia, which encompassed Central Asia, parts of Eastern Europe east of the Vistula Ri ...

, including the Solokha comb, were discovered by Veselovsky and his team.

References

*Konovalov, Panov, Uvarov
Vologda, xxii - nachalo xx veka
(1993),

* Piotrovsky, Boris, et al. "Excavations and Discoveries in Scythian Lands", in ''From the Lands of the Scythians: Ancient Treasures from the Museums of the U.S.S.R., 3000 B.C.–100 B.C.'' The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 32, no. 5 (1974)
available online as a series of PDFs
(bottom of the page). *Cловарь профессоров и преподавателей имп. СПб. ун-та. 1869- 1894, vol. 1, 1896, p. 151-152. Russian archaeologists Russian orientalists Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences 1848 births 1918 deaths {{russia-bio-stub