The Crimean peninsula juts into the Black Sea and connects to the mainland by a narrow strip of land. Dry steppes cover more than two-thirds of the peninsula, and the Crimean mountains in the south rise up to 1,500 m. (5,000 ft.) before they drop down sharply to the Black Sea. The southern coast, protected by the mountains, has a mild climate. The Arabat Spit, which is a sand bar (110 km long) that extends northeast from the Kerch peninsula, separates the marshy Sivash Sea from the Sea of Azov. The Crimea covers an area of 27,000 square kilometers.
Ancient region comprising the Crimea and, often, the city of Chersonesus. The city, founded on the Heracleotic Chersonese (or Chersonesos Micra [Small Chersonese]) by Ionian Greeks in the 6th century BC, probably as a trading factory, was refounded in the 5th century by Megarian Greeks from Heraclea Pontica and became a Dorian city. Prosperous from the 4th century BC, it maintained a free constitution of the Greek type and fought for its continued independence against the Scythians of southern Russia, against the native Tauri of the southern Crimea, and against the kings of Bosporus in the west. It traded with Athens and cities on the Pontic coast in the early period and with Delos, Rhodes, and Delphi in the Hellenistic Age. About 110 BC it turned to Pontus for protection against the Scythians and was subsequently incorporated into the Pontic Empire of Mithradates VI. Under the Roman Empire, Chersonese was treated as a free city protected by the Bosporan client king; a Roman military station guarded its considerable grain trade. The city continued to flourish in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD and again under the Byzantine Empire.
TauriEarliest known inhabitants of the mountainous south coast of what is now the Crimea, which itself was known in ancient times as the Tauric Chersonese. The Tauri were famous in the ancient world for their virgin goddess who was identified by the Greeks with Artemis Tauropolos or with Iphigeneia. The Tauric custom of sacrificing shipwrecked strangers to the goddess was the basis for the Greek story of Iphigeneia and Orestes among the Taurians, which became the subject of plays by Euripides (Iphigenia Among the Taurians). The Tauri often pirated on the Black Sea, and toward the end of the 2nd century BC they were dependent allies of the Scythian king Scilurus, who from their harbor of Symbolon (Balaklava) harassed the Chersonese. Their later history is unknown |
(SIVASH, OR SIVAS), Russian GNILOYE MORE ("Putrid Sea"), system of shallow inlets of the Sea of Azov that penetrate the northern and eastern coasts of the Crimean Peninsula, Ukraine. Syvash is an area of marshy inlets and coves on the western margin of the Sea of Azov, from which it is separated by the Arabat Spit, a sandbar measuring from 900 feet to 5 miles (270 m to 8 km) in width. Syvash covers an area of approximately 990 square miles (2,560 square km) and is covered with mineral salts during the summer months. The salts are used in the local chemical industries of Krasnoperekopsk, a city in northwestern Crimea.
Also called Suroz and Sudak, a city and port in eastern Crimea, between Alouston and Kaffa, first mentioned by the Cosmographer of Ravenna in the 7th century. The 9th-century hagiographer Epiphanios describing the travels of the apostle Andrew, locates Upper Sougdaia in a different region, between Zichia and Cimmerian Bosporos on the eastern shore of the Azov Sea, in the land of the Alans. The hagiographer of Constantine the Philosopher mentioned the people of Sougdoi, whom he situated between the Iberoi and the (Crimean) Goths. By the mid-11th century, Sougdaia was in the hands of the Byzantines.; in 1059 Leo Aliates was strategos of Cherson and Sougdaia. Later, the Cumans, Venetians, Genoese, and Tatars appear as successive masters of Sougdaia, although the city preserved a certain degree of independence.
The site was especially active in the 10th through 14th centuries. The city plays an important role in Black Sea trade, Ibn Battuta compares its port with that of Alexandria. Its cathedral church is St. Sophia, the foundation of which is dated to 793.
ScythianA nomadic people originally of Iranian stock who migrated from central Asia to southern Russia in the 8th and 7th centuries bc. Centered on what is now the Crimea, the Scythians founded a rich, powerful empire that survived for several centuries before succumbing to the Sarmatians during the 4th century BC to the 2nd century AD. Much of what is known of the history of the Scythians comes from the account of them by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who visited their territory. The Scythians were feared and admired for their prowess in war and, in particular, for their horsemanship. They were among the earliest people to master the art of riding, and their mobility astonished their neighbors. The migration of the Scythians from Asia eventually brought them into the territory of the Cimmerians, who had traditionally controlled the Caucasus and the plains north of the Black Sea. In a war that lasted 30 years, the Scythians destroyed the Cimmerians and set themselves up as rulers of an empire stretching from west Persia through Syria and Judaea to the borders of Egypt. The Medes, who ruled Persia, attacked them and drove them out of Anatolia, leaving them finally in control of lands that stretched from the Persian border north through the Kuban and into southern Russia. The Scythians were remarkable not only for their fighting ability but also for the civilization they produced. They developed a class of wealthy aristocrats who left elaborate graves filled with richly worked articles of gold and other precious materials. This class of chieftains, the Royal Scyths, finally established themselves as rulers of the southern Russian and Crimean territories. It is there that the richest and most numerous relics of Scythian civilization have been found. Their power was sufficient to repel an invasion by the Persian king Darius I in about 513 BC. A sovereign whose authority was transmitted headed the Royal Scyths to his son. Eventually, around the time of Herodotus, the royal family intermarried with Greeks. In 339 the ruler Ateas was killed at the age of 90 while fighting Philip II of Macedonia. The community was eventually destroyed in the 2nd century BC, Palakus being the last sovereign whose name is preserved in history. The Scythian army was made up of freemen who received no wage other than food and clothing, but who could share in booty on presentation of the head of a slain enemy. Many warriors wore Greek-style bronze helmets and chain-mail jerkins. Their principal weapon was a double-curved bow and trefoil-shaped arrows; their swords were of the Persian type. Every Scythian had at least one personal mount, but the wealthy owned large herds of horses, chiefly Mongolian ponies. Burial customs were elaborate and called for the sacrifice of members of the dead man's household, including wife, servants, and a number of horses. |
Ancient Theodosia, a strategic post on the southeastern coast of Crimea along the passage from the Black Sea to the Azov Sea. Founded by Miletan Greeks in the 7th-6th century BC, Feodosiya became part of the kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus. Taken by the Huns in 380, it was ruled by the Alans in the 5th to 6th centuries; by the Khazars in the 7th to 10th centuries; and then came under Cuman and after 1223 Tatar rule.
Feodosiya was a customs point and a center trading in commodities such as slaves, grain, hides, furs, silk, and fish. Its mixed population included Greeks (there were Greek churches and two Greek monasteries in Kaffa), Armenians, Rus', Muslims, and Jews.
A Genoese factory (trading station) was established there in the 13th century (1266) under the name Kaffa.
Also called Doros, a region in the mountainous southwestern part of Crimea where, according to Prokopios (Buildings 3.7.13), those Goths settled who did not follow Theodoric to Italy. The kastron or phrourion of Doros was situated in Crimean Gothia; Justinian II sought refuge there in 695. A bishopric was founded in Dory either by the end of the 7th or in the 8th centuries.
The name Dory disappears after the 9th century, probably surviving in the form Thendoro; the name Mangup for this region is first attested in a letter of the Khazar king Joseph (ca.960): the Goths of Dory were at this time vassals of the Khazars. There is vague evidence that ca.1223 the towns of Gothia paid tribute to the emperor of Trebizond.
Also Tmutarakan, city on the east side of the Crimean strait of Ker…, succeeding the ancient Greek colony of Hermonassa. Located apart from the main barbarian routes in the 4th century, Hermonassa suffered less than Tanais or the cities of the Crimea. The history of medieval Tmutorokan can be divided into six periods: post-Hunnic (5th-7th C.), Khazar (8th-mid-10th centuries), Run' (mid-10th-11th centuries), Cuman (12th-mid-13th centuries), Tatar (mid- 13th-beginning of 14th centuries), and Genoese (14th-15th centuries). The city flourished under Khazar rule, with its famous Saltovo ceramic workshops. The city was governed by a municipal system, the head of which was appointed by the Khazars
Raided by the Rus' ca.925, Tmutorokan became a part of the Kievan realm after 965. At that time ceramic imports decreased and dozens of Saltovo workshops were destroyed. A Greek element was active in 11th-century Tmutorokan, and "Cuman Tmutorokan" was under Byzantine administrative control. By the treaties of 1169 and 1192, Byantium forbade the Genoese to use the Tmutorokan harbor. Byzantium’s special interest in Tmutorokan can be explained by the oil wells in the area that provided Byzantium with the raw materials for Greek Fire.
From the end of the 10th century onwards, the autocephalous archbishopric of Tmutorokan and Zichia is recorded, and as late as the 1230s the Hungarian missionary Julian observed in Tmutorokan a population that "had Greek books and priests.
City on the Kalamit Bay on the west coast of the Crimean Peninsula. Founded in the 6th century BC as a Greek colony and later renamed for Mithradates VI Eupator, sixth king of Pontus, the city has known many masters.
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