The Köhler Report
His report divided the monuments of Crimea into two classes:
- those beyond repair but worthy of preservation, such as kurgans, graves, and the foundations of ancient buildings, and
- those that could be restored through “relatively small expenditures” of time and money.
The dividends, he promised, would be political, as well as academic. For while the French and English “have shown great enthusiasm for the antiquities of their respective fatherlands,” the antiquities of those countries were nowhere near as numerous or as ancient as the “priceless monuments in Crimea.”
The Russian Empire, by annexing Crimea, suddenly stood on ancient foundations.