The Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam has confirmed that it has handed over the collection of Scythian gold to Ukraine. In a press release, the museum stated that all remaining artifacts from the exhibition “Crimea – Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea” have been transported to the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in Kyiv. The University of Amsterdam, which oversees the museum, reported that the collection underwent an independent verification last month and was carefully packed according to museum regulations. The shipment arrived in Kyiv on November 26th. According to Ukrainian customs, a truck carrying artifacts weighing over 2.5 tons entered the territory of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, where the treasures will undergo identification.
Four Crimean museums – the Kerch Historical and Cultural Reserve (later incorporated into the East Crimean), the Central Museum of Taurida, the Bakhchisaray Historical and Cultural Reserve, and “Chersonesos Taurica” – sent the exhibition “Crimea – Golden Island in the Black Sea” to Bonn in 2013, and then to Amsterdam. After the reunification of the Crimean territories with Russia in 2014, the Netherlands faced the question of whom to return the collection to. On October 26, 2021, the Court of Appeals in Amsterdam ruled that the collection of Scythian gold should be handed over to Ukraine. In January 2022, the Crimean museums filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, but the decision was upheld. In Russia, the court’s position was called biased. The head of the Crimean Parliament, Vladimir Konstantinov, suggested that the collection of Scythian gold could end up in the hands of private Western collectors. According to the head of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, the collection was simply taken away from Crimean museums.
