The collection at the Tobolsk Provincial Museum contains a rare integral exhibit - a bottle with a copper coin and a note. On thin, yellowed, checkered paper, an entry can be seen made in faded blue ink, slightly blurred from dampness: ‘29 May 1915. Tob. Prov. Museum. The excavations were done by T. Zhokhovskiy, V. Kuminov, and V.N. Pignatti’.
Bottle with a coin and a note
Creation period
1915 year
Place of сreation
outskirts of the city of Tobolsk (archaeological excavations of ancient settlement of Isker), Russia
Dimensions
29.5х7 cm
Technique
blown glass, paper, handwriting
Collection
Exhibition
1
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Pignatti Vasiliy
Bottle with a coin and a note
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The note
This four-line entry was made by the hand of the scientist Vasiliy Pignatti, who in 1915 conducted archaeological excavations at Isker, the former capital of the Siberian Khanate. These were the first official archaeological excavations done on the ancient settlement of Isker with permission granted by the Imperial Archaeological Commission. In a report given at a general meeting of museum members on October 14, 1915, Vasiliy Pignatti defined the purpose of the excavation: ‘to save from destruction those objects that could still be contained up to the present day in the layers of ground at the Isker site’. Following those excavations, Pignatti published an essay called Isker (Kuchumovo settlement) in the Tobolsk Museum Yearbook.
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A bottle with a rolled-up note and a coin was discovered only in 1992 during the excavations done by an archaeological expedition from Ural State University, under the leadership of Alexei Zykov. It was closed up with sealing wax, and lay in a pit filled with animal bones and stones from the excavations done by Vasiliy Pignatti on Isker in 1915. The material collected from Isker made up one of the richest collections in the archaeological fund at Tobolsk Museum.
The bottle
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Vasiliy Pignatti (1862-1920) was a Russian public and political figure in Siberia, a nobleman, scientist, Tobolsk provincial commissar for the Provisional Government, and the governor of Tobolsk province. Starting in 1908, he was treasurer and secretary of the administrative committee for the Tobolsk Provincial Museum. While working at the museum, Vasiliy Pignatti organized several scientific expeditions, including a trip to the Kondu River in 1910, together with A.N. Uvarov and B.N. Gorodkov, and in 1915 to the ancient settlement of Kuchumov at the place where the city of Isker disappeared, as well as to the Barabinskaya Steppe. He collected an herbarium from plants that grow in Tobolsk Province. From January 1, 1908 to 1917, he served as a conservator at the Tobolsk Museum.
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Tyumen Province State Autonomous Cultural Institution “Tyumen Museum and Educational Association”, Structural Division “Tobolsk Historical and Architectural Museum Reserve”
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Bottle with a coin and a note
Creation period
1915 year
Place of сreation
outskirts of the city of Tobolsk (archaeological excavations of ancient settlement of Isker), Russia
Dimensions
29.5х7 cm
Technique
blown glass, paper, handwriting
Collection
Exhibition
1
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