Boris Borisovich Piotrovsky was a Soviet Russian academician, historian-orientalist and archaeologist who studied the ancient civilizations of Urartu, Scythia, and Nubia. He is best known as a key figure in the study of the Urartian civilization of the southern Caucasus. From 1964 until his death, Piotrovsky was also Director of the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad.