Tyritáke () was an

ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

town of the

Bosporan Kingdom The Bosporan Kingdom, also known as the Kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus (; ), was an ancient Greco-Scythians, Scythian state located in eastern Crimea and the Taman Peninsula on the shores of the Cimmerian Bosporus, centered in the present-day ...

, situated in the eastern part of

Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...

, about 11 km to the south from

Panticapaeum Pantikapaion ( , from Scythian 'fish-path'; ) was an ancient Greek city on the eastern shore of Crimea, which the Greeks called Taurica. The city lay on the western side of the Cimmerian Bosporus, and was founded by Milesians in the late 7t ...

. There are only few short mentions about Tyritake in ancient literary sources (

Stephanus of Byzantium Stephanus or Stephen of Byzantium (; , ''Stéphanos Byzántios''; centuryAD) was a Byzantine grammarian and the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled ''Ethnica'' (). Only meagre fragments of the dictionary survive, but the epit ...

, Ethnika 642, 12; Pseudo -

Aelius Herodianus Aelius Herodianus () or Herodian (fl. 2nd century CE) was one of the most celebrated grammarians of Greco-Roman antiquity. He is usually known as Herodian except when there is a danger of confusion with the historian also named Herodian. Herodian ...

, De prosodia catholica 315.12;

Claudius Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine, Islamic, and ...

, Geography 3.6.3.2; Ps. Arrian, Periplous Ponti Euxini 50,9 and

Gaius Plinius Secundus Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...

, NH 4, 86-87 who names the city as Dia). The first serious excavations of the town started in 1932 (headed by J. Marti) and have been followed in 1946-1957 by great Bosporan Expedition headed by prof. V. Gaidukievich. In 70s and 80s the territory of Tyritake was excavated by an expedition from the Kerch Museum headed by D. Kirilin and O. Shevelev and since 2000 the project "Bosporan City Tyritake" directed by prof. V. Zin'ko. In 2008 the Polish Archaeological Mission Tyritake of

National Museum in Warsaw The National Museum in Warsaw (, MNW) is a national museum in Warsaw, one of the largest museums in Poland and the largest in the capital. It comprises a rich collection of ancient art ( Egyptian, Greek, Roman), counting about 11,000 pieces, an ...

, with Alfred Twardecki as director, joined the project. All these archaeological projects were able to establish that the colony, founded about the mid-6th century BC, specialized in crafts and viticulture. In the first centuries AD, fishing and wine production became the economical mainstay of the town. Tyritake was sacked by the

Goths The Goths were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe. They were first reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 3rd century AD, living north of the Danube in what is ...

in the 3rd century AD and again in the 4th century by the

Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was par ...

, but a settlement on the site continued into the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

References

Bibliography

*
- Tyritake, Antique Site at Cimmerian Bosporus, ed. A. Twardecki, Warsaw 2014
{{Authority control Greek colonies in Crimea Populated places established in the 6th century BC Former populated places in Eastern Europe Cultural heritage monuments of federal significance in Crimea Archaeological sites in Ukraine Kerch

See also

References

Bibliography