Photography and archaeology

Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a successor of the Imperial Archaeological Commission, follows traditions and continues work of the first state Russian institution in the field of archaeology, which was founded by Alexander II of Russia in 1859. Photo archives of the Institute for the History of Material Culture count over 100 000 prints and negatives, which chronicle work of the IAC.

The photo archives of the Imperial Archaeological Commission date back to the time of its foundation. New medium with a wide range of its possibilities was in first place employed as a way to collect information about objects of cultural heritage. As a new method to study archaeological artifacts, photography was used to record different stages of excavation, restoration of finds and to document results of the work. Images that formed part of the IAC archives were whether made during expeditions and archaeological excavations by photographers of the Archaeological Commission (M. Romanovich, S. Dudin-Martsinkevich, I. Chistyakov and others) or acquired from photographers that shot landscapes and architecture independently (I. Barschevsky, D. Ermakov). Researchers who were staff members of the IAC very often brought photographs from trips they made across Russia and abroad.

Anniversary exhibition “Photography and archaeology” presents about 200 highly interesting and valuable photographs dating 19^th – beginning of the 20^th cc. from the collection of the Imperial Archaeological Commission.