Curiosities of antiquity sometimes pose such riddles to researchers that modern science hastens to declare unsolvable.
Everyone probably knows the famous exhibit of the Hermitage - gold earrings with gold grains, which can only be distinguished with magnification. The item dates from the 4th century. BC.

These “gold earrings of filigree work, found during excavations in 1853 in one of the mounds on the outskirts of Feodosia, are one of the brightest examples of the work of Greek jewelers of the 4th century BC. BC. and executed in the so-called microtechnique, which reached an unusually high level in Athens at that time. In the upper part of the earrings there are round disks with an elegant flower in the center, which are bordered with rows of the smallest grain and decorated with an ornament of filigree palmettes and rosettes ... Feodosian earrings became especially famous precisely because of the use of grain, when the smallest droplets of metal are arranged in groups of four and placed in regular rows.
No matter how much the jewelers tried to repeat this result, they failed. The smallest grain melted when heated. Attempts stopped, the art of the ancient Greeks was recognized as unsurpassed.

So how did they manage in the 4th century. BC. to accomplish what could not be repeated in the twentieth century?
In Altshuller's book "Algorithm of Invention" in case of problems with temperature regulation and control, it is advised to use a phase transition. A phase transition, like melting, is hardly acceptable here. But the metal can become liquid in one more case - in an amalgam, an alloy with mercury. Try to imagine this option: the smallest balls of gold (it is not difficult to obtain them, it is enough to melt a shortly cut thin wire on a non-wettable surface, such as charcoal) for a short time immersed in mercury. A thin layer of amalgam is formed on the surface. The substrate on which the grain is applied is also rubbed with mercury. The desired pattern is laid out with grains, after which the entire composition is heated to a temperature that is lower than the melting of gold, but sufficient to remove (evaporate) mercury from the amalgam. The gold grain is firmly connected to each other and to the substrate. A similar technology of evaporation of mercury from gold amalgam (fire gilding) is the most ancient gilding technique. The Eastern Slavs were familiar with the method of making gold amalgam "from an alloy of gold with mercury" and coating silver and bronze items with it. Working with amalgam requires strict adherence to safety measures, as severe poisoning can occur. So, during the gilding of the domes of St. Isaac's Cathedral in 1838-1841. 60 workers died from exposure to mercury vapor.

It is not surprising that the technology of the Athenian masters was lost for many centuries. After all, the masters strictly kept their secrets, and death overtook such craftsmen as inexorably as two thousand years later - St. Petersburg gilders.

Vladimir Repin

Treasures of the Hermitage.

// M.-L.: USSR Academy of Sciences and State. Hermitage. 1949. 352 p. (Popular science series.)

Feodosia earrings (M.I. Maksimova)

Gold. 8.8×2.5 cm (shield diameter). 4th century BC. Received in 1854

[ The book contains a black and white photo. See cat. 200 in Greek Gold. ]

Filigree gold earrings were found during excavations in 1853 in one of the burial mounds on the outskirts of the city of Feodosia in the Crimea. Together with a luxurious gold necklace, they made up the headdress of a woman buried there. Unfortunately, the incorrect method of conducting excavations did not make it possible to establish whether the deceased belonged to the local Hellenized nobility, or whether she was a representative of the wealthy strata of the Greek population of ancient Theodosia. Both the Scythians and the Greeks widely showed love for luxury in funeral rites.

As shown by images on coins and a few items related to Theodosian earrings, most of which were found in our south in dated burials, the earrings are a product of Greek jewelry art of the 4th century BC. BC. They can be called the most striking example of the exquisite works of Greek jewelers - works relating to the period when the culture of the Greek city-state reached its full flowering and already began to decline.

Feodosia earrings consist of a round shield with a hook and loop on the reverse side, and a crescent placed below it. These are two types of ear ornaments that existed independently in Greece, and here an attempt was made to combine them into a single whole by hanging the moon from the shield on two chains. To this complex form of earrings, more

three rows of various pendants on woven chains of various lengths, and, moreover, the whole product is decorated with an ornament completely covering and wrapping around it from all sides. In order to consider all the details of the various motives used by the master, it is necessary to look at his work for a long time and repeatedly, striking both with the richness of imagination and the accuracy in conveying the smallest details. So, the moons are covered with rows of grains so small that it is difficult to grasp with a simple eye, but upon closer examination it turns out that each grain is composite and is composed of four tiny grains. A floral ornament, arranged in the form of individual flowers and leaves, as well as bouquets, garlands and complex fantastic patterns (for example, on a shield), is made of thin wire, smooth, twisted or granulated, and strewn with grain, and openwork rosettes and palmettes are sometimes superimposed on each other. on top of each other, forming weaves like golden lace.

But the master was not satisfied with this. In the free space between the shield and the moon, he placed a multi-figured group - a sculptural monumental composition reduced to a minimum size. This is a chariot driven by four fast galloping horses and controlled by the goddess of victory - Nike. Next to the horses, showing them the way, winged Geniuses fly, and on the edge of the chariot stands a warrior with a large shield in his hand. This is the so-called apobat - a warrior-athlete, who, at full gallop, had to jump from the chariot to the ground, after which he continued the competition with his comrades already on foot. Apobate competition is one of the most difficult types of athletic exercises among the Greeks, originating from ancient times, when warriors fought each other from war chariots and the outcome of the battle often depended on the skill of the driver and the dexterity of the combatants. In the IV century. BC. this type of competition was still held only in a few Greek cities. He was especially popular in Athens, which allows us to suggest the Athenian origin of the master of Theodosian earrings. When considering what he

of the miniature group of the victorious chariot of the apobat, attention is drawn to the fact that, despite the tiny size of the figures, the master managed to model a naked body, transfer the feathers on Nike's wings with notches, and even decorate the shield of the apobat with grain and geometric patterns.

The Greeks, as you know, glorified the winners at the games by setting up statues of them. In accordance with this custom, sculptors developed the theme of the victorious chariot even in the archaic period. Parts of such monumental sculptural groups (for example, from Delphi) and their numerous images on reliefs and monuments of artistic craft have survived to this day.

Ancient literary sources tell of several Greek masters who were fond of overcoming the technical difficulties associated with the transfer of monumental forms in microscopically small sizes. This direction of art even had a special term in the Greek language and was called "microtechnology" - the art of small forms.

Strict connoisseurs of art treated this direction with some irony, and even contempt. Playing with words, they called it "matanotechnics", i.e. trivia art. However, even major Greek masters, such as those who worked in the 6th century BC. on the island of Samos, at the court of the tyrant Polycrates, the architect, sculptor and torevet Theodore, tried their hand at this genre. Ancient writers tell the story that Theodore cast his own statuary image from bronze: in one hand the statue had a file, and with the fingers of the other hand it supported a tiny image of a chariot drawn by four horses and driven by Nike. The viewer got a visual idea of ​​the size of the group also due to the fact that the master placed a figurine of a fly with open wings over it, and the fly completely covered the entire chariot with horses. They also talk about other achievements of microtechnologists made in precious metals, bronze or bone: about ships in full gear

bee-sized insects, which could only be seen when placed on a black cloth, about Homeric hexameters inscribed in golden letters on sesame seeds, etc.

These and similar stories could be mistaken for guild legends about ancient “left-handers” if the Feodosian earrings and related items did not show us with their own eyes to what extent the art of ancient Greek masters, inaccessible to modern jewelers, reached the limits of sophistication and refinement, although the latter did not possessed many of the improved devices of our time and did not even know magnifying glasses.

Scythian treasures from the Siberian collection of Peter I

In 1715, the Ural mining plant owner Nikita Demidov sent 100,000 gold rubles and several gold items from Siberian mounds as a gift to Catherine I (to the teeth of the newborn prince). These things were found by bugrovshchikov - people who traded in the search for ancient burial mounds and extracted valuables from there. Many merchants of Siberia and the Urals bought treasures obtained in this way and melted them down, profiting from the sale of gold.

Peter I decided to put an end to this and issued a decree ordering all interesting and unusual finds to be handed over to the authorities. Soon Prince M.P. Gagarin, the governor of Siberia, sent to St. Petersburg many ancient gold items, which formed the basis of the world's first and only collection of golden Siberian items. At first, this collection was kept in the Petrovsky Kunstkamera, and in 1859 it was transferred to the Hermitage. Since that year, the Imperial Archaeological Commission was established, which was instructed to collect information about ancient monuments and search for antiquities related mainly to national history and the life of the peoples living in the vast expanses of Russia.

Over time, the collection has grown, and its constituent exhibits geographically went far beyond the Siberian mounds alone. Now it also houses the world-famous “Scythian gold”.

... A wide strip from the Danube to the Yenisei (and further to Transbaikalia and Mongolia) stretches a huge steppe, cut into pieces by full-flowing rivers. For a long time, kindred peoples settled in these endless expanses, like the sea, not constrained by any barriers. Homogeneous cultures flourished here and vast empires were created, often not very long-lived. Here lay the path of devastating conquests and great migrations of peoples.

The steppe, like the sea, was rarely calm: storms rose in one place, then in another, which often brought mounds (earth mounds) - these are characteristic features of the Eurasian landscape. Mounds stretched in all directions of the horizon, wherever you looked. Some of them barely rise above the steppe, others rise as a cone-shaped or hemispherical mountain. Often such mountains reached a height of 20-25 meters and hundreds of meters in circumference.

Mounds with burials of Scythian leaders are distinguished by especially large size and complexity of the grave device. The vast majority of the Scythian burial mounds were plundered by their contemporaries, but not only ... So, for example, the rich Kelermes mounds in 1903 were excavated not by specialists, but by one treasure hunter - a certain technician D.G. Schultz. He unearthed four unplundered mounds in the Kuban region, in which he found many expensive things - the clothes and weapons of the buried.

Although the Kelermes kurgans were plundered, later scientists found here a beautiful silver mirror, decorated with an engraving on the back and overlaid with a thin gold leaf, on which wonderful drawings were imprinted.

The back side of the mirror is divided by radii in the form of a rope into eight sectors, the sharp corners of which are filled with two petals. In the center of the mirror, these petals form a large rosette, and the rest of each sector is filled with images of animals and mythological scenes, both of which alternate with each other in the correct order. So, for example, in one of the sectors in full growth in long (up to toe) clothes, Cybele is represented - a winged eastern goddess, mistress of animals. She holds two lions by their front paws, cowardly tucking their tails. In the next sector, a fight between a bull and a lion is depicted, and under this scene is a figure of a wild boar.

One of the most interesting exhibits of the Scythian collection were items discovered in 1862-1863 in the Chertomlyk mound (north of the city of Nikopol), and among them a magnificent golden lit - a quiver for arrows and at the same time a case for a bow. This lit was made by a Greek master jeweler, he also decorated it with reliefs on the subjects of ancient mythology. In two tiers, for example, it depicts scenes telling about the life and exploits of Achilles - from the moment when his child is taught archery to the last episode - when his mother, the goddess Thetis, clutching the urn with the ashes of her dead son, mourns his.

The large size of the gold lining is lit, the beautifully executed chased reliefs, it would seem, indicate that such a precious thing can exist only in a single copy. But more recent finds allowed scientists to assume that a jewelry workshop in some of the Greek colonies of the Black Sea region made several gorites from one form and sent them to their customers (Scythian kings) in different places.

The ancient Hellenes also made the world-famous golden comb from the Solokha burial mound - one of the rare unrobbed Scythian burials. It was a huge mound 18 meters high, which included two burials. The central grave was in the form of a rectangular well with two chambers dug along its long sides.

The comb found in the mound dates back to the turn of the 5th-4th centuries BC, the heyday of ancient Greek art. The creators of the crest took into account the tastes of customers, as they were well acquainted with the culture of Scythia. The upper part of the crest is made in the form of a sculptural group depicting a battle between the Scythians. The decisive moment of the battle is captured, when the rider and footman collided with the enemy, who had just lost his horse. The details of the image are worked out so finely that every strand of hair on the head of one of the warriors, segments of the shell on the rider, plaques-decorations sewn onto clothes, a wound and blood flowing from it on the neck of a fallen horse are visible.

Due to the precisely calculated distance between the figures, the ancient masters achieved compositional unity, harmony and balance of volumetric masses. Two horizontal stripes with figures of five lions sandwiched between them serve as the basis for the main sculptural group and create a transition to the teeth of the comb.

Horses are very characteristically depicted on the crest - small, with long tails and short-cropped manes. The rider sharply reined in his horse, and he stood on his hind legs, and the wounded horse lies on his back with his legs raised up bent.

And in 1853, during excavations near Feodosia, earrings unique in craftsmanship were found. They showed the world examples of that peculiar type of ancient Greek art, which is commonly called microtechnology. Each earring consists of a richly ornamented disk, the edges of which are covered with several rows of grains. On the inner surface of the discs there are eight graceful palmettes with rosettes at the bases, and their center is decorated with a lush multi-petal flower.

The main decoration of each earring is a multi-figure composition made in microscopic forms. Here is a type of sports that is widespread in Athens. Four horses harnessed to a chariot, driven by the winged goddess Nike, rush at full speed. To her right stands a warrior with a large shield, ready to jump out of the chariot to finish the run himself to the finish line.

The ancient Greek craftsman performed on the earrings such details as the pattern on the shield of the warrior hero, and even every feather on the wing of the goddess. In Theodosian Earrings, the grain is so small that it is impossible to see it without a magnifying glass. Only at high magnification can one see that the tiny grains are connected in fours and placed in rows. It was these finishing details that created the worldwide fame of the “Feodosia Earrings”, especially since the granulation technique invented by the ancient Greek masters was subsequently lost.

It is not surprising that after the discovery in Feodosia, these earrings immediately attracted the attention of goldsmiths. Many jewelers in St. Petersburg and Paris tried to make a copy of the jewelry, but the task turned out to be impossible due to ignorance of the soldering method and composition of the solder, which were used by ancient masters. Even the famous Carl Faberge, who tried to repeat the Feodosia Earrings, failed. He could not complete the lunnitsa, completely covered with grain. Tiny, barely visible to the naked eye, gold balls in an ancient monument were evenly distributed over the entire surface. When creating a copy of K. Faberge, it was not possible to connect even three grains - they merged and did not stay on the earring. But he used the achievements of contemporary technology, in particular, optics, which the ancient masters did not have. Subsequently, after much effort, jewelers managed to combine only three grains instead of four, and the ancient technique of graining in essence remains unknown to this day.

Notes

1. The common name "Scythians" in science is the population of the Eurasian steppes, who lived from the Danube to the Yenisei in the 7th-3rd centuries BC. Moreover, it consisted of many related tribes, which had their own names.

2. In the Vinnitsa region, and then in the Melitopol region and near Rostov, archaeologists found exactly the same gorites.

Scythian gold from various collections














Pectoral - breast decoration for men, 4th century BC

So, in 1853 the famous Feodosian artist - marine painter I. Aivazovsky received official permission from the Ministry of the Imperial Court and the Udelov to carry out archaeological work in the area of ​​Feodosia. The purpose of the archaeological research was allegedly to search for "old, ancient Feodosia."In the middle of the 19th century, scientists from all over the world were allegedly arguing about the location of the medieval Kafa-Feodosia. Someone placed it on the slopes of Tepe-Oba, in the area of ​​​​Cape St. Elijah, someone at the foot of Karadag, in the area of ​​\u200b\u200btoday's Koktebel, but someone in all seriousness attributed ancient Kafa 70 km to the east, to Cape Opuk. But once the famous archaeologist of that time Siberian A.A. , walking along the slopes of Tepe - Oba, discovered an ancient Greek coin, presumably from the 5th century BC. The archaeologist shared his find with the famous Feodosian artist I. Aivazovsky, expressing his opinion about the existence of an "ancient city" in the area of ​​Cape St. Elijah on the slopes of the Tepe-Oba ridge. The artist fully supported the ideas of Sibirsky A.A. and took a direct part in the organization of the archaeological expedition.

Already in the spring of 1853, prospecting work was in full swing on the slopes of the ridge, almost immediately 5 barrows- burial grounds. Four barrows turned out to be completely empty, but in the fifth...! In the fifth, a burial of a woman was discovered, presumably from the 4th-5th centuries BC, a lot of exquisite ceramic items, as well as a whole galaxy of interesting jewelry, including the unique FEODOSIAN EARRINGS. The news of the unique Theodosian find spread all over the world, attracting the attention of numismatists, antiquarians and goldsmiths. Jewelers from all over the world tried to copy the jewelry, but to no avail - the technologies of ancient Greek masters were irretrievably lost. Even famous Carl Faberge, who tried to repeat the "Feodosian earrings", suffered a complete fiasco.

Encouraged by the incredible find, I. Aivazovsky continued his archaeological searches with tripled energy, and during the summer-autumn of 1853. opened more than 80 mounds in the vicinity of Feodosia, and luck again smiled at the artist - one of the burial grounds on the Tepe-Oba ridge was also full of jewelry. Naturally, all the jewelry found was counted, described and sent to St. Petersburg, where they were put on public display in the Hermitage.
According to the results of an archaeological expedition led by I. Aivazovsky, the following conclusion was made - on the slopes of the Tepe-Oba ridge there was a Greek Necropolis, approximately 4-5 centuries BC.

This beautiful tale about "Feodosia earrings" can be heard from Feodosia guides or read on numerous "historical" sites. The reality, however, is much harsher and dirtier.

In fact, the number of so-called "antique jewelry" that cannot be copied is quite large and includes hundreds and thousands of jewelry. Naturally, this group also includes the so-called "Scythian gold", jewelry found in Scythian burial mounds. The geography of the finds of "Scythian gold" is very extensive - from Altai to the Danube from east to west, and from the White Sea to North Africa from north to south. Many of the "Scythian ornaments" are truly unique, and technologies that are unknown even at the present time were used to create them. The photographs below ("Feodosia earrings on the first") show a small part of the "gold female earrings" discovered during excavations of Scythian burial mounds in completely different places: Southern Siberia, Tavria, Taman, Dnieper, Volga. These unique products will be united by one thing - they are really unique, it is extremely difficult, and often impossible, to fake them, and they are works of art of ancient Greek antique jewelry masters, whose technologies are irretrievably lost.

Exactly - in the Scythian mounds lay "ancient Greek gold" !!! Including in Siberian and Altai! How it got there, modern "historical science" is absolutely not interested - but you never know - they bought it at the market, at a sale!

The only argument of these "fighters for ancient Greece" is the assertion that the Scythians are nomads, and nomads are not able to create unique masterpieces.
But back to the "Feodosia earrings". So, on the slopes of the Tepe-Oba ridge, an archaeological expedition led by I. Aivazovsky discovered some burial mounds in the amount of about 90 pieces, which were identified as the Greek Necropolis of the 4th century BC. However, 50 years later, some German forester F. Siebold, on the same slopes of the Tepe-Oba ridge, discovered about 30 objects of the medieval hydraulic system of Feodosia, as well as a significant number of ceramic water pipes. Naturally, ceramic plumbing was not created in the 4th century BC, but much later, in the 15th-16th centuries.

It turns out a very interesting picture - a medieval hydraulic system was built right on the ancient Greek necropolis! There is one of two things - either our ancestors, who built ceramic plumbing, had no idea about hygiene and sanitation, or someone is frankly and blatantly lying. But I don’t think that our ancestors would have built a hydraulic system in the middle of burial mounds, so it’s something else!

By the way, it is known that the Siberian-Aivazovsky expedition uncovered about 90 burial mounds on the Tepe-Oba ridge, that's just where they are, and why haven't they survived to this day? And as a rule, all burial mounds, where something worthwhile was found, has its own name (Kul-Oba Mound, Solokha Mound, Tsarsky Mound, etc.) What is the name of the mound in which "Feodosian earrings" were found? "? No way.

The same F. Siebold, describing the Tepe-Oba ridge in 1900, mentions, in addition to hydraulic structures, numerous stone ruins of other structures, but these were definitely not burial grounds.

By the way, the big question is why the gentlemen historians of the mid-19th century, who allegedly talked about the location of "old Feodosia", did not see these ruins and hydraulic structures, as if they did not exist? Were they struck by sudden blindness?

But after all, I. Aivazovsky, who was allegedly born in 1817 in Feodosia, must have known for sure about some ruins on Tepe-Oba, which at that time could have had a completely different look.

In the picture of C. Bossoli, depicting Feodosia in 1842, we can observe a rather interesting landscape - fortifications and structures of unknown purpose in the foreground and the city itself in the background, in the valley. It is quite obvious that the Italian artist painted the picture while on the slopes of the Ridge - you will not find another similar angle. The question is - what happened to these structures after 15 years? Disappeared without a trace or turned into burial mounds?

It must be admitted that no Greek Necropolis, consisting of Scythian burial mounds, NEVER EXISTED on the Tepe-Oba ridge, there were constructions on the ridge of a different nature, absolutely incompatible in their purpose with the City of the Dead.

But where in this case and when exactly was the archaeological expedition of Sibirsky-Aivazovsky carried out?

Indeed, in the vicinity of Feodosia there are a lot of incomprehensible hills that can be easily identified as burial mounds, but they are mostly located in the north and northeast of Feodosia, i.e. in the opposite direction from Tepe-Oba. There are several mound-like hills to the south of the ridge, in the valley of Dvuyakornaya Bay, but these may well be the remains of fortifications.

In any case, in the vicinity of Feodosia for the period of the middle of the 19th century, there were quite a lot of interesting monuments of antiquity, which, I would venture to suggest, had not yet been plundered and desecrated.

Undoubtedly, the archaeologists-treasure hunters were waiting for a very rich profit.

And here comes a very interesting point. The age of many Crimean mounds in the Crimea is about 2000 years or more. According to the official history, during these 2000 years, dozens of tribes and peoples passed through the Crimea, but for some reason no one had a desire to see what was stored in these very pyramid mounds until the 19th century, when research and development of ancient monuments began . Therefore, it should be recognized that from time immemorial only one people lived on the Crimean Peninsula - the descendant of the Tauro-Scythians - Russians, in any other case, all burial grounds and barrows would have been destroyed long before the 19th century. In the 19th century, the owner of the peninsula changed - it became part of the Russian Empire, which, despite its name, did not at all represent the interests of the Russian people, rather the opposite. Therefore, without exception, all archaeological expeditions on the Crimean Peninsula pursued, by and large, only two goals - to destroy the monuments of the past of the Great People and, if possible, enrich themselves as much as possible, tearing apart and appropriating the wealth accumulated for thousands of years in the territories of the Tauride Peninsula.

Aivazovsky's Archaeological Expedition is no exception. It is enough to take a closer look at the personality of the chief archaeologist of the expedition, and part-time antiquary and numismatist - Sibirsky A.A., as well as the personalities of his patron friends J. Reichel, B. Kene, I. Bartolomey, P.-Yu. Sabatier. All these gentlemen clearly not of Russian origin stand at the origins of the creation of the Imperial Archaeological Society, the curator of which was directly the House of the Romanovs. Naturally, all these people had the largest collections of jewelry and old gold coins in Europe. I think it is not worth proving where this wealth fell on their heads from. This happened in the order of things - most of the stolen jewelry and antiques simply remained in the hands of the people who led the "archaeological search" and then settled in numerous private collections, a smaller part went to museums.

By the way, I. Aivazovsky also had a fairly large jewelry collection, which, after the death of the artist in 1900, was left to his widow - A. Burnazyan - Sarkisova. After the October Revolution, the collection of the widow was arranged the real hunt, and since power in Crimea changed several times a year, literally everyone hunted for Aivazovsky's jewelry collection - both the occupying Karaite-German government of Solomon Solomonovich Crimea, a former friend of I. Aivazovsky, and the White Guard "black baron" Wrangel, and Dzerzhinsky's Chekists . The latter, it must be said, have succeeded the most. A. Burnazyan was arrested by the Cheka and spent at least half a year in prison, from which she left only after handing over her jewelry collection to the new authorities.

It is possible that A. Burnazyan managed to save some part of the collection, since it is known that during the Great Patriotic War, some jewelry from the artist's collection somehow ended up with the Germans who occupied Feodosia. The further fate of I. Aivazovsky's jewelry collection is unknown, because it came from the darkness, it went into the darkness.

big story of a small cape

Mountains of Crimea May 27, 2014

Cape St. Elijah is the easternmost tip of the Main Range of the Crimean Mountains; further east, the Feodosia Bay begins.

At the foot of the cape, on the shore, among boulders and sheer cliffs, lovers of mineralogy can find interesting samples of snow-white calcite, druses and brushes of the brown mineral ankerite, bluish strontianite.

The path to Cape Ilya leads past the destroyed bunker, the last witness of the past war, and rises to the green oasis where the lighthouse is located.

Above the lighthouse, to the southwest, on one of the plateau-like peaks of the cape, there was an ancient Greek church in memory of St. Elijah, where every year on July 20, a solemn service was performed on the patronal feast. According to legend, the church was dedicated to fishermen who miraculously escaped death during a storm off the coast of the cape.

There is also a Theodosian legend about how the sailor-merchant Ilya Tamara was shipwrecked twice off the coast of Cape St. Ilya. Seeing the imminent death, Tamara prayed to the prophet Elijah to soften his anger, to calm the storm. In his prayer, he promised in the event of a successful outcome to build a temple on the cape.

The fiery lightning split the formidable sky, scorched the air, illuminated the ships and rocks, glided for the last time along the mast and lit up with a radiance in front of the ship, the storm subsided, Caffin fires lit up aside ...

Tamara kept his promise and built a temple on the mountain. It is not known how long he stood, but already in 1816, on the site of a wooden church, the chapel of St. Ilya. Nearby, at the edge of the cape, there was a cemetery of the Red Cross Society.

In September 1861 Emperor Alexander II visited Feodosia. After the liturgy in the St. Nicholas Cathedral Church, a tour of the military hospital, the archaeological museum, the Armenian Khalibov School and the antiquities of the city, Alexander II mounted a horse to the top of the mountain and visited the chapel of St. Ilya.

In 1854 I.K. Aivazovsky, together with the prince-archaeologist of Siberia, during archaeological excavations at Cape Ilya, not far from the chapel, during the excavation of a barrow, among many household items, discovered amazingly beautiful women's gold earrings (4th century BC).

This find was included in world science under the name "Feodosia Earrings" (located in the Hermitage). These filigree earrings are a wonderful example of the artistic culture of Hellas, apparently imported work.

The diameter of the shield is 2.5 cm. It is impossible to see the details with the naked eye. And now, armed with a magnifying glass, a monumental composition opens up to the eye: Nike, the goddess of victory, rules a chariot, which is harnessed by four galloping horses.

The ancient artist showed, inspired by inspiration, fantasy when creating a genuine work of art. This is read both in the ornament of the earrings and in their entire composition. The way the master conveyed the swift movement in the figurines of tiny horses clearly speaks of his amazing "dexterity".

Powerless to reproduce these earrings were the best modern jewelers. Some secret of "microtechnics" is obviously lost.

Among the finds in the burial mounds of Cape Ilya are various terracotta figurines, antique coins and amphoras, painted vases covered with gilding and multi-colored paints.

This is how the defensive fortifications on Cape St. Elijah in Feodosia look like in January 2014. It is sad to watch how vandals-builders systematically destroy historical monuments.