This Scythian kurgan was stumbled upon by the Voronezh Infantry detachment quarrying rock for building in 1830. Known as Царский курган, or the Royal Kurgan, it was one of the most important examples of architecture, mixing a Scythian exterior with a Greek interior. The great size of the tomb led to the assumption that someone of stature had found his place of eternal peace, as Anton Ashik, another who excavated it in the 1830s, romanticized the kurgan. Unfortunately, the kurgan was not well guarded and much of the wealth was looted.