Scientific Archive of the Tver State United Museum: museum archive in the study of archaeological collections

The article presents the results of studying the materials of the XIX – early XX century on archeology, stored in the Scientific Archive of the Tver State United Museum (TSOM). The loss of a significant proportion of the old collection in the twentieth century prompts a detailed study of archival documentation. The purpose of the study was to correlate archival materials with preserved archaeological objects from the TSU collections in order to attribute them, as well as to identify the pictorial material at TSU. The object of the study is books of receipts of objects to the museum fund, inventories, acts, statements reflecting the composition and movement of funds of the pre-revolutionary Tver Museum before the 1870s and 1910s, documents of the 1940s and 1950s, as well as items currently stored in the funds of the TSOM. The subject of the study is the composition of the archaeological collection of the Tver Museum of the pre–revolutionary period. The main research method was a comparative analysis of textual descriptions, museum numbers and ciphers, with archaeological objects of the XI–XVIII centuries available in the museum's collections, and the dating of objects based on chronological scales developed in Russian archeology. The result was a detailed characterization of a series of items based on museum descriptions, as well as their comparison with preserved objects, which made it possible to add additions to the attribution of objects: to clarify their origin and dating. The attribution was made for a collection of earrings from the XVI–XVIII centuries, individual linings and pendants from the Middle Ages and early Modern times. Of particular interest are the materials of the foundation of the founder of the Tver Museum, A.K. Zhiznevsky. The fund contains a valuable set of visual sources – drawings and photographs of museum objects, made to continue the work of A. K. Zhiznevsky according to the description of the Tver Museum, but not published. Among the images of objects from the Middle Ages are a cross and details of a belt set, metal beads of the XI century, linings and a ring of the XIV–XVII centuries. The images of the objects were compared with the records of their admission to the museum. The study showed the high potential of the preserved documentation of the Tver Museum, which significantly complements the ideas about the composition of the museum collection and the history of medieval culture of the Upper Volga region.