Nikolay Przhevalsky's contribution to archaeological investigation of Central Asia in late XIX century

Purpose. The author analyzes N. Przhevalsky’s expedition reports dealing with the archaeology of Central Asia. The motivation of the expeditions and their political prehistory become the focus of attention. Results. The second half of the XIX century witnessed a clash of interests of Chinese, Russian and British Empires in Asia. Russia needed an insight into the complicated political situation in China. Nikolay Przhevalsky’s expeditions turned to provide such an opportunity with the researcher and traveler paying attention to quite a number of minor details including information about the archaeological sites. The scientific data became a source of getting topographical and political information. It helped to locate the sites on the map and provided unique information about the mythological consciousness of the ethnical minorities of the Qing Empire, who did not differentiate legends and political ideology. Nikolay Przhevalsky explored a few categories of archaeological sites: different kinds of burials like burial mounds dated from the Bronze Age to the Medieval time and burials with natural mummified bodies; ruins of the ancient settlements including medieval Mongolian cities and ancient cities full of golden and silver stuff, ceramic and old coins; and cave temples with complicated architecture and plenty of different ceramic and stone statues, buried treasures like golden and silver ingots and statues. The sites were explored during four expeditions: one Mongolian expedition, one Lop-Nor Expedition, and two Tibetan expeditions. Archaeological results of the Mongolian expedition were not really great, but during this expedition Nikolay Przhevalsky created his own methods of fixing archaeological data. During the Lop-Nor expedition he collected no archaeological data at all, but reported some valuable ethnographic material which is useful for contemporary archaeological investigation of the Lop-Nor region. The most significant archeological data gathered during the first Tibetan expedition relates to Mogao Caves in Dunhuang. The researcher described this Buddhist temple complex in details. The report about his second Tibetan expedition describes Tarim Mummies, ancient settlements of Taklamakan desert and some burials of the Bronze Age and the Middle Ages. This information is of particular significance as most of the archeological sites described were later destroyed by treasure hunters. Conclusion. Nikolay Przhevalsky’s archaeological explorations, which are described in his reports in the second half of XIX century, are of particular interest for the scientific community. The researcher’s experience of a traveler and an explorer, which started as military scouting, turned archaeological scouting which was quite extensive rather than intensive. Though he did not demonstrate complicated data interpretation, his reports gave a valuable archaeological review of Eastern Asia and inspired many specialists to further archaeological investigations of this region.