2023 Author: Bryan Walter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 22:24
For almost two hundred years, the ruins of Mirmekia, a small Greek town that arose in the 6th century BC and existed until the 4th century AD, have been unearthed on the Cape of Quarantine near Kerch. This year's season has brought curious new finds, and a large marble statue from the Hellenistic period stands prominently among them. A participant in the expedition, Yuli Uletova, tells more about her, about other finds of this summer and about the history of Mirmekia.
Marble statue
A small (about 7-8 hectares) antique town, the ruins of which are located on the Cape of Quarantine of present Kerch, originates from a Greek settlement of the second quarter of the 6th century BC. Throughout its history, Mirmeki has never been an independent policy, at least from the beginning of the 5th century BC it was part of the points subordinate to Panticapaeus - the future capital of the Bosporus state, stretching on both sides of the Cimmerian Bosporus - the current Kerch Strait.
Bosporus Cimmerian
Some of the earliest - the middle of the 6th century BC - ancient fortifications in the Northern Black Sea region were discovered here. They were walls made of adobe bricks on a stone plinth 1 meter thick, erected to protect the natural elevation of the cape - the rock on which the acropolis of Myrmekia was located. It is interesting that for almost a century this fortification was the only stone structure of the settlement, because its inhabitants used dugouts and semi-dugouts with awnings on wooden posts for living.
View of the rock of the Cape Quarantine and the excavation of the TS
In the 5th century BC, the settlement of the Greek colonists began to acquire an urban appearance: in place of the filled-in dugouts, Greek-type ground houses with adobe floors, adobe roofs and a cobbled courtyard appeared. In the central part and on the acropolis of the city, there are sanctuaries. However, the beginning of the century was not easy for Myrmekias - around 480 BC, the city suffered from an attack, probably by the Scythians. The data of excavations in the western part of the settlement well illustrate what happened, recording the destruction. Part of the city's territory was abandoned by the population and desolate.
In the second half of the 5th century BC, relations with the barbarians of the steppes that surrounded the Bosporan cities stabilized, a new dynasty, the Spartokids, ascended the throne, and the life of the kingdom as a whole, and Myrmekia in particular, began to flow peacefully.
Houses from this period in Mirmekia are already being tiled. Several fires recorded by excavations have preserved this evidence. And the city sanctuary in the center turns into a dump - the so-called ash pan I.
In the 5th century BC, the city reached its maximum size, and at the beginning of the 4th century BC, a defensive wall was built around its perimeter. There is almost no new construction in the city, only on the western outskirts traces of severe fires of the second quarter of the 4th century BC were found, as a result of which the areas under the buildings that died in the fire were rebuilt. Fragments of rich architectural decoration found during excavations indicate that along with ordinary houses in the city there were public and private buildings that stood out for their decoration.
At the beginning of the 4th century AD, the surface of ash pan I on the site of the sanctuary was leveled, and a new building was built here ("the sanctuary of Demeter"), which existed for half a century and perished in a fire. Then it was dismantled, and the site (from the beginning of the 3rd century BC) again began to serve as a landfill for the city. This time it is cult: ash (which was considered sacred) from all the hearths of the city is taken down here, sacrifices are made here and donations are left, here they throw out worn-out cult objects and household rubbish.
Another ash-pan appeared at the turn of the 4th-3rd centuries BC from the western side of the cape cliff. Judging by the results of the excavations, the dump was formed spontaneously in the unfinished monumental crypt. Both ash pits produced a large number of interesting finds.
In 2003, in an ash-pan in the center of the settlement, archaeologists found a small bronze jug - an olpa, containing 99 electrified kizikins. Obviously, it was founded before the middle of the 4th century BC.
Kizikin treasure at the time of discovery
Made of electra - an alloy of gold and silver - the coins of the city of Kyzikos (hence their name) are very diverse, and the treasure itself is unique for the entire region in terms of their quantity and preservation.
III century BC - the heyday of Myrmekia. Its territory is being built up more densely. And in the industrial sphere of the city a new direction appears - winemaking. To date, archaeologists have discovered and investigated about a dozen wine-making complexes (of which six are from Roman times). The remains of one of them are located under a modern pavilion in the center of the settlement.
The pavilion above the winery
The second treasure, also discovered by an expedition led by A. M. Butyagin. In 2002, a treasure of 723 bronze coins of Panticapaeum was discovered in the crevice of the rock of the Quarantine Cape near the already mentioned ash pan, at the time of concealment, probably packed in a leather or linen bag. This is the largest coin treasure in the collection of the East Crimean Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve.
Hoard of Panticapaean coins at the time of discovery
At the end of the 2nd century BC, power over the Bosporus state passed into the hands of the king of Pontus Mithridates VI Eupator, and throughout the first half of the 1st century BC, the Bosporus experienced the negative consequences of the change of power and foreign policy of the new sovereign. Found in Mirmekia, two small hoards of coins, the latest of which date back to 80-70 BC, indicate that the city still existed. True, in 63 BC it was badly damaged by an earthquake, as evidenced by the serious destruction of the central and eastern parts of the city's buildings. In the same year, Mithridates VI Eupator perishes in Panticapaeum, and the Bosporus state is again shaken by political cataclysms. As a result, around the middle of the 1st century BC, the city was completely abandoned by the inhabitants and has never been revived as an urban center.
The new heyday of the Bosporus falls on the end of the 1st century BC. At the same time, Mirmeki was rebuilt. Winemaking is reviving, and also fish and salting industry appears.
In Roman times - the first centuries of our era - the urban landscape of the city was very different from the Hellenistic one. The dense building of houses is being replaced by large households, which, in addition to residential buildings, had economic and craft complexes.
The most famous find for the entire period of the study of the settlement - the Mirmeki sarcophagus - dates back to the 2nd century AD.
Mirmeki sarcophagus
The sarcophagus was found in 1834 in the dromos (passage) of a large two-chambered crypt. At the same time, a sarcophagus was also found in a smaller chamber - small and without decorations, and the large chamber remained empty due to the discrepancy between its size and the sarcophagus. As a result, he was left standing at the entrance.
The crypt itself was built in the second half of the 2nd century AD on the top of the rock of the Quarantine Cape and, apparently, was intended for members of the Bosporan royal dynasty. The sarcophagus was ordered from a large Attic workshop and brought to Mirmeki by sea, which at that time was a complex and expensive enterprise.
Until now, the Mirmeki sarcophagus remains the largest marble sarcophagus of all found in the Northern Black Sea region, as well as the only one with multi-figured relief compositions found in our country.
A remarkable find from this season of excavation also dates back to Roman times - it was made in a lost estate of the 2nd century AD.
Marble statue in the excavation
It is a large marble statue, probably from the Hellenistic period, depicting a man with an open torso, draped in robes. Judging by the position of the body and the slightly bent left leg at the knee, he was leaning on something with his left hand. The statue could depict both a god and a specific person in a certain image used by sculptors from the classical time. Unfortunately, the support, as well as the head, arms and feet of the statue, were knocked off in antiquity.
Nevertheless, such a statue is the first such find in Mirmekia for almost 200 years of its archaeological study, and it is quite rare for the entire region.
Another sculptural find of the season is a fragment of a marble male torso.
Marble torso
The builders of estates of the Roman period often used building materials from buildings of an earlier period, even tombstones from the Mirmek necropolis were used. Therefore, the discovery of a fragment of a tombstone with a relief in a Roman pit is not surprising. However, the tombstone itself - apparently large, belonging to the classical time (5th century BC) - for the Northern Black Sea region and for Mirmekia, especially, cannot be considered an ordinary find either. The fragment depicts the head in profile to the right of a boy or girl and, unfortunately, does not contain any inscriptions.
Fragment of a gravestone relief
Returning to the history of the city, it should be mentioned that, despite the existence of rich country estates here, possibly belonging to the inhabitants of Panticapaeum, on the whole the territory was practically not protected in any way, and in the second half or the end of the 3rd century AD, Mirmekiy, apparently, became the object of interest is the ready and the victim of their hikes. In this connection, residents gradually began to leave the city, and in the IV century AD, life here practically stopped. New settlers on Cape Quarantine appear only in the 8th-9th centuries AD.
The study of the settlement began, as mentioned above, almost 200 years ago, in 1834, with the accidental discovery of a crypt with sarcophagi on Cape Karantinniy. However, the first hundred years, these studies were of an episodic nature, and only the organization of the Bosporus expedition of the Leningrad Institute for the History of Material Culture in 1934 under the leadership of V. F. Gaidukevich allowed to begin systematic scientific excavations of the settlement. He excavated here until his death in 1966. In 1982-94. an expedition led by Yu. A. Vinogradov.
The current head, Alexander Mikhailovich Butyagin, is already in charge of the Mirmeki Expedition of the State Hermitage, and the season of 2018 for him in this status is the 20th anniversary. It was under his leadership that all the loudest finds in Mirmekia were made, excluding only the Mirmek sarcophagus.
By the way, everything found by Russian archaeologists during the excavations of the settlements of the Crimean peninsula remains in the museums of the region. In particular, finds from Mirmekiya are sent to the collection of the East Crimean Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve in Kerch.
