Sallea Antiques, Inc., New Canaan, Conn.

The Golden Deer:

NEW YORK CITY – Between 1986 and 1990, hundreds of objects – ornately carved and decorated in a unique style and covered in gold – were excavated from an archaeological site outside the village of Filippovka, located in Bashkortostan on southern Russia’s open steppes. Representing one of the most important caches of early nomadic Eurasian art, these treasures date from the first millennium BC and are characterized by the extensive use of animal imagery – most notably that of a deer.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is presenting nearly 100 of these works – none of which has ever been shown anywhere – in “the Golden Deer of Eurasia: ,” through February 4, 2001.

The State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg (Russia) has lent an additional 85 spectacular objects from its fabled Gold Room, joining with Archaeological Museum in Bashkortostan’s capital city of Ufa in this unprecedented international exchange. A dozen impressive wooden stags from the new find – almost two feet in height and covered with gold and silver – are the centerpiece of the exhibition.

Some two dozen kurgans (burial mounds) at the archaeological site at Filippovka were excavated over a period of four years in the late 1980s. Although many of the kurgans had been partially plundered in antiquity, exquisitely worked in gold and silver artifacts in large numbers were left behind, indicating the burial of nobles or chieftains. In addition to several dozen magnificent deer, almost two feet in height and some with curving antlers rising above their richly patterned bodies, the excavation yielded several hundred elaborate gold appliques, chased with figures of animals both natural and fantastic, which once adorned wooden bowls and drinking cups. Many of these are on view.

Scholars believe that the people whose stylistically unique works were recently unearthed at Filippovka were a nomadic tribe that occupied the area in the late fifth to early fourth century BC and were associated with Sarmatian people. The art found here resembles that of other early Eurasian nomadic cultures – specifically the multitude and variety of animal forms used to adorn every manner of object. Although the people whose works were discovered at Filippovka favored the deer, various animals – including leopards, birds of prey, boars, camels, elk, fish, rams, and griffins (a mythological animal with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle) – are also found. Stylistic affinities lie to the east, where there was a similar use of spiral-shaped ornament on the surface of animal bodies.

Certain other characteristics, however, demonstrate cultural connections with the Scythians, who occupied the shores of the Black Sea to the West. The rdf_Descriptions excavated at Filippovka exhibit the same abundant use of gold as the well-documented Scythian discoveries, although the techniques used to create the objects differ greatly. Finally, objects of foreign origin also unearthed in the tombs link the people of Filippovka with other cultures, as well. Among these remarkable works are gold and silver rdf_Descriptions that resemble art from ancient Iran. To suggest the complex relationship that appears to have existed among these neighboring cultures in the first millennium BC, the presentation of the Metropolitan include gold objects from the Scythian tombs near the Black Sea; textiles, leather, and wooden works of art from Siberia; and gold and bronze pieces from the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Among the most significant works of art coming from the State Hermitage Museum are the golden comb excavated in 1913 in the Solokha kurgan (in the Dnepropetrovsk region, Russia) and the golden vessel discovered in 1830 in the Kul’ Oba kurgan (near Kerch, Crimea, Ukraine).

The museum, 1000 Fifth Avenue, is open Fridays & Saturdays, 9:30 am to 9 pm and Sundays, Tuesdays through Thursdays 9:30 am to 5:30 pm. 212/535-7710.