With time, the golden hues of wheat have replaced the dusty gold of grasses scorched by the sun on the fertile Ukrainian plains. But the horizon has remained just as vast, broken only by the rounded hillocks dotting the plains here and there ¾ hillocks that are actually ancient burial mounds, or kurgans.

This rich earth and these tombs have yielded up priceless archaeological treasures. The Treasures from the Ukrainian Steppes exhibition, produced by Pointe-à-Callière, displays the most beautiful and significant pieces from the collection of the Institute of Archaeology of the National Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kiev. Most of them have never left Ukraine before, and some have been unearthed only recently.

There are mammoth bones transformed into musical instruments, vessels of intriguing shapes, galloping bronze stags, eternal gold that adorned Scythian warriors and their horses in death as in life, gods and goddesses captured in marble and terracotta and many other splendours. A captivating ride back through the turbulent history of the Ukrainian steppes awaits.