Archaeological museums may appear at Moscow churches
August 2014
In Moscow archaeological museums may appear attached to churches. This was announced on Thursday at a press conference by Leonid Belyayev, head of the sector of the Moscow archaeology of the Institute of Archaeology at the Russian Academy of Sciences, reports ITAR-TASS.
“Such museums should be formed, and churches will be their centers in many cases as they are the natural places for cultural growth,” he said.
In the expert’s view, these museums should contain exhibits discovered on the territory of one or another church during archaeological excavation work.
“A good necropolis of the 16th-17th centuries has survived at the Church of the Wonder-Workers of Chernigov (the Holy Prince Michael and his Boyar Theodore) on Pyatnitskaya Street. Here a part of it would be turned into a museum so that we will have a small, but attractive museum attached to the church,” explained the archaeologist.
He has noted that architectural and archaeological museums could be founded at the Moscow Novodevichy Convent, where complex restoration and archaeological research is being carried out and discoveries are expected, as well as at the Theophany Cathedral on Nikolskaya Street, where remains of the church refectory and the sarcophagi have survived.
One such museum has already been founded at the Convent of the Conception of St. Anne in Moscow, though it is not yet open. “We have not completed the formalities for it yet. There is a fine church-archaeological museum of the (former) St. Alexis and Conception Convents there, with remains of the foundations, with an excellent collection of Moscow tableware from the 15th-16th centuries as well as many other good exhibits,” related Belyayev.
He expects small archaeological museums to appear in many municipal districts of Moscow after the research work is carried out.
