Valentina Mordvintseva

Archaeological excavations of the expedition conducted by the Centre of Classical and Oriental Archaeology at the Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies, HSE University, were held in the city of Agrigento, on Sicily. The Second Archaeological School, which was based on that expedition, took place from the 4^th to the 25^th of September, 2021.

This year’s field season is over, and despite the difficulties caused by the pandemic, archaeologists from the Centre of Classical and Oriental Archaeology at the Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies (IOCS) were able to undertake their scheduled expeditions to Italy, Turkey, and Abkhazia. The Centre is the only Russian institution that conducts regular archaeological research in the Mediterranean region—the heart of ancient civilization, where neither Soviet nor Russian classical archaeologists have ever worked before.

On the 5th of December 2020 took place the International online seminar “Bosporus and the Northern Colchis. Greek colonies in a non‑Greek surrounding: dynamics of interaction of differently organized societies”, which was attended by participants from Russia, Georgia and Romania. The project was carried out under the direction of A.I. Ivantchik with financial support from the Russian Science Foundation.

On the 23rd of October 2020, Valentina Mordvintseva and Jean‑Paul Demoule delivered lectures during the discussion «Les Migrations en discussion» («Migrations in a discussion») in the series of online‑seminars «Géographie historique et géoarchéologie» («Historical Geography and Geo‑archaeology») of the l’École normale supérieure, Paris organized by Prof. Anca Dan.

Dr. Valentina Mordvintseva gave a lecture ‘The Sarmatian Archaeological Culture: The Network Model vs. Speculative’ in a series of on‑line lectures of the Eurasian Department of German Archaeological Institute.

The conference “Archaeology of classical Bosporus and Pontus” dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Dmitry Borisovich Shelov was held in Rostov‑on‑Don, on October 28 — November 1, 2019. Head of the Centre of Classical and Oriental Archaeology Askold Ivantchik, Associate Professor Valentina Mordvintseva and students of the program “Classical and Oriental Archaeology” Alexey Devayev, Vladimir Lysenko and Pavel Nikulin presented there their lectures. The conference was very representative and brought together about a hundred experts on the archaeology of ancient Black Sea area from a dozen countries. It was held in a warm atmosphere thanks to the staff of the Tanais Archaeological Museum‑Reserve, the Southern Federal University and the Azov Museum of Local Lore, where meetings of scientific sections took place.

The volume ‘Advances in Ancient Black Sea Studies: Historiography, Archaeology and Religion’ reflects a tradition of fruitful collaboration between the Institute of Archaeology of Iaşi and many academic institutions from Romania and abroad. This volume is once again in line with their efforts to bridge the large gap between two scholarly traditions of the West with those of the East in order to integrate the constant flow of new information about the Black Sea region into western classical scholarship.

In 2019, for the first time, the Master’s Programme ‘Classical and Oriental Archaeology’ has successfully begun.

From the 1st to the 12th of May, 2019 an Archaeological School took place in the city of Agrigento on the Sicily, Italy. It was organized by the Centre of Classical and Oriental Archaeology, IOCS HSE (Prof. Dr.hab. Askold Ivantchik, Prof. Dr. Valentina Mordvintseva, Yuri Svoyski, Engineer). The School was conducted in the frame of an international archaeological expedition (University of Bordeaux-Montaigne, France and HSE, Russia, with the participation of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, USA).

On the 13^th of March, Valentina Mordvintseva, the associate professor at IOCS HSE, lecturer in the Master’s program “Classical and Oriental Archeology” gave a lecture on “Historical Sarmatians and the Sarmatian archaeological culture” at the Institute of History of the University of Rzeszow, Poland.

On November the 22nd, Associate Professor (IOCS HSE) and lecturer in the Master’s program in Classical and Oriental Archeology delivered a lecture on elite burials in antiquity.

On November the 21st, a presentation of a new collective monograph “Crimean Scythia in a system of cultural relations between East and West (3rd century BC – 7th century AD)” prepared under the editorship of Askold Ivantchik and Valentina Mordvintseva (Master’s Programme ‘Classical and Oriental Archaeology’ at IOCS HSE) took place at the Department of Comparative Studies of Ancient Civilizations of the Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

From the 20th to the 24th of August, 2018, took place the International Conference “Advances in Ancient Black Sea Studies: Scholarly Traditions & Preservation of Cultural Heritage” organized by the Institute of Archaeology in Jasi and the Museum of National History and Archaeology of Constance (Romania).

On the 29th of Jule, 2018, a workshop “Power, status and symbols in the Black Sea area in antiquity” was hold at the University of Wroclaw being organized by the Institute of History of Wroclaw University (Poland) and University of Waterloo (Canada).