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Hardcover. Condition: Gut. Typographical title-leaf, 8 mounted original photographs various sizes mainly around 450 x 370 mm in excellent rich and dark contrasting tonality. All photographs captioned on mounts in Russian, German, French and English. (4), 16 pages (text in variant size: 405 x 300 mm). Publisher s halfcloth folder with printed covers. Imp.-folio. (800 x 580 mm). Covers slightly spotted and rubbed, flaps with tiny traces of worming Exceedingly rare publication on the Nikopol amphora now preserved in the Eremitage with six photographs of the amphora and two photographs of other archaeological artefacts in gold found with the silver vase. The large photographs of the vase are in excellent dark and contrasting tonality. Dedication copy to Otto von Bismarck: Zur Erinnerung an den Aufenthalt in St. Petersburg, April 1873. Editor was the curator of antiques at the Hermitage Ludolf Stephani (1816-1887). He had been a councillor of state and a full member of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg since 1850, where he represented classical studies, a position which brought with it to be the head of the department of antiquities at the Hermitage Museum, where Stephani worked already as a conservator since the autumn of 1850. From 1859 the academy carried out excavations on the Black Sea coast to secure the ancient remains of the Greek colonies and the Bosporan empire. Stephani was concerned with the scientific description and interpretation of the finds until his death. The Scythian amphora was among the most important finds of this excavation campaign. The egg-shaped body of it found in the Dnieper Region near Nikopol consists of two parts. The surface is entirely covered with relief and flattened representations making up three friezes. The upper frieze depicts griffins tearing at stags. The middle one has the cast figures of Scythians and horses which join together to create different scenes, with the sacrifice of a horse in the centre. The lower frieze bears elements of floral ornamentation and is decorated by birds and rosettes. The lower part of the vessel has three pouring lips. The representations on the amphora are assumed to reflect Indo-Iranian cosmological belief. Taken as a whole, the vessel could have been perceived as a World Tree prototype. One of the key motifs of the whole set of representations is that of sacrifice, as is further evidenced by the scenes of beasts being torn apart, where death is perceived as a sacrifice for the sake of the continuation of life. Of particular significance is the protoma of a winged horse on the body of the amphora, which may personify the Scythian deity Thagimasad - Poseidon, the patron of horses. KVK: Mainz, Berlin, Kiel, Marburg, Dresden; COPAC: National Art Library (Le vase d'argent de Nicopol ā l'Ermitage imperial); OCLC: no copy.