Archaeological Museum (Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky)

In 1957, a special pavilion was built over the remains of the Spassky Church, built in the 11th century ^[3] .

In it, in 1960, the archaeological museum was opened. The walls of the pavilion are decorated with colored stained glass windows depicting historical motifs: important events and famous figures who are relevant to this area. The size of the foundation and walls of the tomb church is 15.3 x 8 meters. The foundation and walls are one of the key exhibits of the museum. They preserved the remains of frescoes, a ceramic floor, brick and marble sarcophagi ^[1] .

The exhibits of the museum are dated to different periods - here objects of old times coexist with exhibits of the middle of the 13th century. There are separate exhibits from the Left Bank and Right Bank of the Middle Dnieper, objects found in the Mesolithic and Neolithic sites near the Dnieper and Trubezh valleys, ceramic and stone products, tools, jewelry that date back to the 3rd — 2nd millennium BC. e. There are exhibits of Scythian times, which were found in the mounds, on the territory of ancient settlements and villages of the forest-steppe Scythia . The museum presents glass and ceramic dishes dated to the 3rd – 5th centuries, glass jewelry, buckles ^[1] .

Part of the museum exposition relates to the life of the Slavs of the pre-state period and the grand ducal period. The exhibits are presented from the settlements of Kiev culture dated to the 3rd – 5th centuries, Ants and glades of the 6th – 9th centuries, from ancient Russian settlements, from the city of Pereyaslav of the 10th – 13th centuries. There are ceramic dishes, building ceramics, handicrafts, tools, jewelry. There are fragments from wall murals, wall mosaics, tiles, glazed tiles. The museum contains pieces of the altar lamp, part of the interior of the temples ^[1] .

Among the exhibits of the museum are voluminous blanks of flint found during excavations that were used by hunters in antiquity to create knives, incisors, punctures, spearheads and other implements. Here are samples of tools that were found on Neolithic settlements and ceramic dishes dated to the 5th-4th millennium BC. e. In the windows of the museum you can see a sickle, a hoe, a knife, an ax, which was used by Tripoli communities in everyday life to till the left bank of the soil ^[1] . Here you can see an eye-catching copper ax dating from the first half to the middle of the second millennium BC. e., bronze daggers, a plate bracelet with hammered ornaments, dated XIV-XII centuries BC. e. The museum has many stone products - a rod, knives, sickles, polished eye axes. Some axes and wands from the exhibits in the museum were once symbols of the power of tribal leaders ^[1] .

Some jewelry, a spindle-wheel, weaving sinkers, ceramic vessels that are exhibited in the museum belong to the Scythian period. Numerous Greek amphorae are also exhibited, in which they carried wine, bronze dishes, and gold jewelry. There are amphoras from the Trakhtemirovsky settlement , dummies of gold jewelry from the barrows. Presented are two unique helmets that were made in Greek workshops. There is an iron helmet, which consists of individual plates, which was found at the burial place of a nomad warrior in the mound of the steppe Left Bank of the VI – V centuries BC. e. A Scythian bronze cauldron was also found there. The second helmet, made of golden bronze, was discovered in peat deposits and was made in the 5th century BC. e. masters from Greece or in the cities of the Northern Black Sea region ^[1] .

An important exhibit of the museum is a map of the "fight against the Polovtsy" ^[1] .