The tomb described in this inscription was no ordinary tomb. In fact, the burial place of Haci Giray Khan, who died in 1466 having founded the Giray dynasty, is one of precious few surviving examples of sixteenth century Crimean architecture.
Its significance was clear to members of the Odessa Society, and it was likewise clear to Count Aleksei Sergeevich Uvarov (1828-1884), a famous archaeologist and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. At precisely the same time that the Odessa Society was preparing its inscription translations, Uvarov was conducting an archaeological expedition of the antiquities of the Black Sea region commissioned by the newly-established Imperial Archaeological Society in St. Petersburg. He published his work in 1848 (the French translation came in 1855), following it three years later with a companion collection of maps and drawings.
The sixty-nine plates in the latter volume testify to the strikingly inclusive scholarly gaze of Uvarov and the community of archaeologists (and imperial officials) he represented. The maps, views, and illustrations of artifacts bring Tatar mosques, Karaim cave dwellings, stashes of Greek amphorae, and Genoese fortifications, all in various stages of preservation or ruin, together in one elegant articulation of the particularly Russian understanding of what constituted "the Orient". They celebrate both the sedimentation of civilizations along the Black Sea's northern littoral, and Russia's territorial and cultural possession of those legacies, all with a tastefully subdued palate of beige, blue, and gray.
Uvarov included a color lithograph of the mausoleum at Salaçık. Executed by François Joseph Dupressoir, it allows us some sense of the changes wrought over time to the tomb, its surrounding landscape, and to the imperial approach to defining and preserving antiquities.
Use the link below to navigate the annotated image in fullscreen mode (recommended).