Registry of Real Estate Monuments of the Upper City of Olbia: Experience of Scientific Passportization

Abstract

The article covers the background to the creation of a generalized Register of immovable architectural and archaeological sites excavated in Olbia for more than a hundred years. Sporadic work aimed at repairing and partial preservation of individual structures since the early 1980-ies acquired a relatively regular nature and created the necessary base for systematic measures of the museumification of archaeological sites. The need to protect and further study of the archaeological sites of Olbia led to the need of creation a scientific register of all immovable objects excavated on the territory of the ancient settlement — in the Upper, Terraced and Lower cities. For this purpose, a unified methodology was developed, including the following characteristics: a brief history of archaeological research, restoration and conservation activities; assessment of the current state of each object; recommendations on its archaeological investigation, if necessary; detailed field measurements of the preserved structures and their parts; recommendations on the necessary archaeological investigations and the priority of selecting an object for exhibi­ting if, as a result of excavations, several objects of unequal conservation level were left. Using this technique, starting in 2010, scientific passports were created for more than 70 construction complexes located at 20 excavations in the Upper City. Given the universality of the proposed methodology and the successful testing at the Reserve “Olbia” of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, it can be used to certify architectural and archaeological sites in other archaeological museums and nature reserves of Ukraine.