Elena Abramovna Davidovich
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Elena Davidovich | |
|---|---|
Елена Абрамовна Давидович | |
 | |
| Born | 24 December 1922 Krasnoyarsk |
| Died | 5 December 2013 (aged 90) |
| Citizenship | Russian |
| Occupation(s) | Numismatist; archaeologist |
| Spouse | Boris Anatolyevich Litvinsky |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Central Asian University |
| Thesis | On Money Circulation in the State of Shaybanids (1965) |
Elena Abramovna Davidovich (Russian: Елена Абрамовна Давидович; 24 December 1922 - 5 December 2013) was a Russian archaeologist and numismatist, who specialised in the coinages of Central Asia. A founder of the discipline of archaeology in Tajikistan, Davidovich also argued that numismatics was a discipline equal to archaeology as a historical science.
Davidovich was born on 24 December 1922 in Krasnoyarsk.[1] Her family moved to Tashkent and Davidovich attended middle school there. During the Second World War she studied history at the Central Asian University in Tashkent. At the same time she worked as a nurse in the hospital there.[2]
Career
After completing her studies in 1945, Davidovich stayed at the university, specialized in archaeology and taught with Mikhail Masson. During the 1948 excavation campaign in Nisa, she discovered a hoard of Parthian rhyta, whilst she was responsible for excavations at the 'Square House' there.[2][3] She married her fellow student Boris Anatolyevich Litvinsky. When the orientalist Alexander Semenov founded the Ahmad Donisch Institute for History and Archaeology in Dushanbe in the late 1940s, he hired Davidovich and Litvinsky as research assistants. Davidovich was awarded her doctorate in history in 1965.[1] Her thesis was entitled 'On Money Circulation in the State of Shaybanids'.[3] In 1969 she was appointed professor.[1]
In the early 1970s Davidovich and Litvinsky moved to Moscow to the Institute for History, Russian Academy of Sciences at the invitation of its director Bobodschon Ghafurow.[1] Davidovich and her husband collaborated on a number of research projects, including the South Tajikistan Archaeological Research Expedition.[4] From 1973 she was appointed Head of the Department of Sources at the Institute of Oriental Studies; a post she held until 1988.[3] A prolific writer, she published nine monographs and over three hundred articles.[2] Davidovich was also an exponent of the idea that numismatics was a discipline of historical science equal to archaeology.[5]
She died on 5 December 2013, after a long period of illness.[2]
