In the very distant past, on the territory of present-day Iraq, there developed, blossomed and finally declined the ancient cultures, successively replacing each other, of states which at one time wielded considerable power – Sumer, Akkadia, Babylon and Assyria. Continue reading
The relics of the ancient period of Egyptian culture in the museum include some Palaeolithic chisels of the fifth millennium B.C., and also earthenware vessels, flint tools and stone palettes for triturating paint dating back to the fourth millennium B. C. Continue reading
The items displayed in room 55 confirm the fact that the tribes of Transcaucasia, whose basic occupation was cattle-breeding and to some extent farming, underwent a period (between the eleventh and seventh centuries B.C.) in which the primitive system of communal relations broke up. Continue reading
The exhibitions presents the most important stages in the artistic and historical past of the Tadjik, Uzbek, Turkmen, Kazakh and Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republics. Continue reading
Preserved in the Hermitage are more than one hundred and forty thousand items pertaining to the culture and art of the various peoples of the East. This Eastern department was set up in 1920 upon the initiative of the distinguished Soviet scholar and orientalist J. Orbeli. Continue reading
The department of prehistoric culture was created in 1931 upon the basis of the vast amount of material collected by Soviet archaeologists, supplemented by groups of relics of the past (the Siberian collection, the Scythian antiquities, etc.) preserved in the Hermitage before the October Revolution. Continue reading
The Hermitage is rightly called the treasure house of Russian semi-precious stone. Numerous vases, bowls, candelabra and table-tops cut out of semi-precious stones from the Urals and Altai, and now housed in the museum, were created in the nineteenth century in the lapidary works of Peterhof, Kolyvan and Ekaterinburg. Continue reading
The first three rooms contain exhibits which give a general picture of the social history of Russia in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. There are portraits of the representatives of the main social classes of the Russian state, examples of costumes of that period, and also prints showing towns and villages. Continue reading
Room 163 contains material devoted to the work and activities of Mikhail Lomonosov (1711-1765). As a result of many experiments. Continue reading
Most of the items in the exhibition come from the memorial museum of Peter the Great (called Peter the Great’s Study) founded shortly after his death and attached to the Kunstkammer (Cabinet of Curios) of the Academy of Sciences. Continue reading