About Michael Goldelman

Michael Goldelman is an art dealer and an academic researcher in the fields of history, archaeology and ancient art. He is particularly interested in the ancient civilization of the Eurasian Nomadic tribes, including Scythians, Sarmatians and Khazars, the semi-nomadic people, who established the vast empire in the Western Eurasian steppes in the 7th-11th centuries and converted to the Jewish religion during the early middle Ages period. Being involved in the art dealing business, he has an access to many museum and private collections of ancient art, in particularly these related to the ancient Eurasian nomads. He strongly believes that the information on the important objects of ancient art those are currently kept in a private collections and remains largely unpublished until today must become an integral part of the modern research of ancient civilizations, and that the scholars as well as the public should have a direct access to this database. He enjoys sharing his research and knowledge online with history and archaeology enthusiasts.

Achievements in Education

As an eternal scholar, Michael Goldelman has continued his education throughout his career and has studied for three degrees. He pursued his Bachelor’s at the Moscow State Pedagogical University from 1990, specializing on the History of the Khazars and the Old Rus', and then in 1994 enrolled at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he accomplished his Master’s degree in the special program on the Medieval History of Eastern Europe in 1997. His MA thesis was dedicated to the problem of emergence of Diarchy in the early medieval Eastern Europe, and in particular dealt with the Khazars' influence on the formation of the structure of supreme power in the Old Rus' state. He continued his studies at the PHD program in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the Department of Jewish History until 2002, while researching the history and culture of the Crimean Jews, the Krymchaks.

Professional Career

From 1994 Goldelman served as a researcher on the Israeli Television’s documentary series about the Khazars, for a period of three years. He then went on to work for the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, as a researcher in the Karaites Project, and later on the Khazars Bibliography Project for the Ben-Zvi Institute. Michael Goldelman published a numerous articles on the Khazars history and archaeology.

He also teaches courses on the Medieval Jewish history in the project of The Hebrew University in Jerusalem on promoting the Judaica studies in Russian language in the Universities of the former USSR, in the Belorussian State University and the Moscow State University, during the late-1990s.

In 2003 he relocated to London: he initially joined University College London (UCL) for a year as honorary research assistant in the faculty of Jewish History. He participated in many scientific conferences on the Jewish studies all over the world, since 1998, where he presented his recent findings related to the subjects of the Khazars and also the Crimean Jewish history. In 2010, Goldelman was invited to lecture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on the topic of the new discoveries in the Khazar art. In 2015, he lectured on the history of the Crimean Jewish communities during the late-medieval period in the International conference of the Jewish history in Moscow, Russia. He has spent several years doing research into the problem of origin of the Khazar Judaism, and currently preparing a series of publications on this subject.

Since 2004 Michael Goldelman took up the role of a company director at art dealing company Eurasian Art Ltd., based in London, UK, and dedicated most of his time to the research of the objects of ancient art of metalwork belonging to the Eurasian nomads.