Chersonesos who carried out the excavations. Olbia, Chersonesos - archeology
There is no more striking and mysterious representative of the era of antiquity than this ancient city on the Black Sea coast, in the western part of Sevastopol. If you are planning a vacation in the city of Anapa, think about an excursion to Tauride Chersonesos.
The ruins of Chersonese Tauride are considered the most studied among the Crimean ruins - archaeological excavations have been going on here for more than 170 years. Thanks to them, today we can at least imagine what Chersonesos was like more than 2000 years ago.
Prosperity and glory
Over the two thousand years of its existence, Chersonesos has known many ups and downs. And the most significant milestones in its history are associated with the names of the Scythian king Skilur, the Pontic ruler Mithridates, the Roman emperor Gaius Julius Caesar, the Kyiv prince Vladimir and the Mongol khan Edigei. Translated from Greek, “Chersonese” means “cape”, “peninsula”, as it is located between two bays - the winding Karantinnaya and the small round Pesochnaya. The first to populate this land were Greek settlers from Hellas. And the second name of the city - Tauride - was given by local tribes - Taurians. Then, in the 5th century BC, Chersonesos was a typical city-state with a democratic form of government. He took an active part in pan-Greek holidays and competitions and pursued an active foreign policy. Second half of the 4th - first half of the 3rd centuries. BC. called the century of the heyday of Chersonesos. The city's population exceeded five thousand people; the city's territory (26 hectares) was surrounded by a powerful defensive wall with high towers that protected the city from land and sea.
Hellenic estates
In its layout, Chersonesus was a typical Hellenistic city. The plan was based on a grid of rectangular blocks, each of which had from 2 to 5 city estates. The squares were strictly subject to the regular urban layout; they fit into a rectangular network of streets. In the center were the acropolis and agora - the main square. Here were the most important public buildings: a mint (the lower part has been preserved), a theater with 3,000 seats (arched ledges that served as seats for spectators have been preserved), temples and other buildings that have not survived to this day. The city center was decorated with statues of deities and prominent public figures. A characteristic feature of urban estates was a narrow corridor that connected the street with the courtyard. As a rule, estates had a storage room carved into the rock, a cistern or a well in the yard. Richer houses were built with two floors, painted plaster, and a bathroom. The bathroom floors were a mosaic of colored pebbles.
Submission to Rome
In the I-IV centuries. Chersonesus begins to lose its former freedom. Due to the increasing frequency of Scythian raids, the Chersonesos are forced to seek support from the powers that be. At first, this was the Pontic king Mithridates Eupator for the Taurians, and later Julius Caesar. Sending troops to defend Chersonese, both Eupator and Caesar demanded only one thing - submission. Guided by the principle of “divide and conquer,” the Roman emperors either subjugated the city to their allies or granted it freedom. Dependence on Rome could not but affect the architecture of Chersonesos. The sizes of neighborhoods are increasing, and houses are being built with more massive walls and reaching 10-12 meters in height. Defensive structures are being actively built. Imported white marble and local limestone are often used to decorate buildings. The city is installing water supply using ceramic pipes. The theater is being rebuilt, which began to serve as a circus for gladiator fights.
"Under the Sign of the Cross"
After the fall of the Roman Empire, Chersonese came under the rule of Byzantium and served as its intermediary in sea and land trade with the Northern Black Sea region and Russia. It also receives two new names: in Rus' - Korsun, and in Byzantine documents - Kherson.
At the turn of the 3rd - 4th centuries. The first followers of Christianity appear in Chersonesos, but the formation of a new religion took a long and painful time here. Only after Prince Vladimir’s troops besieged the city and took it by force was the issue of Christianization resolved radically. Soon after this, Vladimir Krasno Solnyshko was baptized and married the Byzantine princess Anna. Chersonesus has henceforth become the cradle of Christianity, in which there is no longer a place for the ancient gods. Therefore, ancient religious buildings and sculptures are being destroyed en masse in the city. Instead, a powerful city defense system is created. The main bastion was the round antique tower of Zeno, the diameter of which is 19.2 m. But in general, Chersonesus retained its regular antique layout in the Middle Ages. The city was well supplied with water. In the most elevated part there was a reservoir with a constant supply of water in case of a long siege or drought. Street drains carried dirty and storm water outside the city. Residential buildings were not just free-standing buildings. As a rule, these were estates, which were a closed residential and economic complex, which included one or two houses, industrial premises, a courtyard, and in some cases two courtyards, around which auxiliary buildings were grouped. The architecture of Chersonesus reflected the picture of social inequality of its inhabitants, usual for a feudal city: the contrast between wealth and poverty.
The houses of the rich were two-story, sometimes with verandas. External or internal staircases made of stone and wood led upstairs. The upper floors were allocated for housing and storerooms; the lower floors and extensions housed kitchens, bakeries, workshops, trading shops, and livestock. Fish stocks, household equipment, containers, etc. were stored in the basements. The main building material was stone; in some houses the second floor was wooden. The roofs were covered with tiles.
Fall of Chersonesos
In the 10th century, Chersonesos was a kind of connecting link between Russia and Byzantium. In 944, Prince Igor concluded an agreement with Byzantium, to which Kherson (Chersonese) belonged, according to which Kyiv undertook to defend the “Korsun land” from the attack of the black Bulgarians who roamed the Azov region.
But in the XI-XII centuries. There is some weakening of the trade and economic positions of Chersonesus. But it still remained a stronghold of the Byzantine Empire in Taurica. However, after the fall of Byzantium, dark times came for Chersonesos. In 1299, southern and southwestern Taurica was ravaged by the horde of the Tatar Khan Nogai. Chersonesus could not resist either. In the middle of the 14th century. The Genoese exercised control over the city, but they failed to restore the former greatness of Chersonesos. And in 1399, Khan Edigei set it on fire. In the middle of the 15th century, life here came to a complete standstill, and the last inhabitants left the city. When Crimea was conquered by the Turks in 1475, Chersonese no longer existed. The Turks took out the magnificent columns of his temples to decorate their cities, and the remaining ruins were overgrown with steppe grasses.
First excavations
The date of the beginning of archaeological excavations in Chersonesus is considered to be 1827, when, by order of the governor of Sevastopol, searches for Christian churches were carried out. The work was supervised by Black Sea Fleet officer Kruse. According to some reports, the excavations were not of a scientific nature. And they were connected with the desire of the Russian Emperor Nicholas I to erect an obelisk in Chersonesos in memory of the place of baptism of Prince Vladimir. Soon the emperor's desire was transformed into a project to build a cathedral. It was with the aim of determining the location for the construction of the temple that the expedition of Lieutenant Kruse began. As a result, the location and contours of the foundations of the temple complex in the area of the central square of Chersonesos were determined. They decided to consider the largest temple located there to be the very place where the baptism of Prince Vladimir took place.
In 1829, a museum was founded on the basis of the archaeological excavations of Chersonesos. During the construction of the cathedral and the complex of monastic buildings next to it, many archaeological sites were destroyed or damaged. Since until 1876 only the monastery carried out excavations in Chersonesus, only objects from the Byzantine period of history were preserved, from the artifacts of which the “Christian Museum” was created at the monastery.
Fight with the monastery
In 1888, on the recommendation of the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities Lovers, Sevastopol resident Karl Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich was appointed official head of the excavations and site. Over the course of 20 years, he has done a lot - never before has work been carried out with such enthusiasm, scope and perseverance. Several thousand graves and crypts were excavated. It was they who found the world-famous text of the oath of a citizen of Chersonesos, carved on a stone slab, and a number of other written monuments telling about the life of the Chersonesos. Unfortunately, he was often distracted from the specific tasks of archeology by the struggle that lasted all these years with the Chersonesos monastery, whose authorities continuously sent denunciations against him to St. Petersburg with accusations of political and religious crimes. But Karl Kazemirovich also had his own defenders in St. Petersburg. Counter-Admiral Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich personally took part in the excavations of Chersonesos and often financed them himself or sought government subsidies. Karl Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich became the founder of the Chersonese Museum in 1892. True, it was called the “Warehouse of the Imperial Archaeological Commission.” And until 1925 he was in a one-story barracks. The Khersones Museum acquired its current state in 1925, when all the premises of the Khesones Monastery, which was closed in 1921, were transferred to it. And in 1925, archaeological excavations resumed, interrupted only during times of war. After the Great Patriotic War it was called the Chersonesos State Historical and Archaeological Museum. In 1978, a reserve was organized in Sevastopol with branches “Chembalo Fortress”, “Kalamita Fortress” and a department “Heraclean Clairs”, which included the ancient settlement of Chersonesos and the museum. However, half of ancient Chersonesus is still under many-meter layers of earth and conceals many secrets.
The Chairman of the Imperial Archaeological Commission, Count Alexei Alexandrovich Bobrinsky, highly valued the achievements of science and technology and was one of the first in Russia to become the owner of a daguerreotype apparatus, having ordered it from Paris.
By the time the institution he headed began systematic excavations of Tauride Chersonesos, photography had quite advanced cameras and lenses at its disposal, photo printing technology had developed, and portrait, artistic, and reportage photography occupied a strong position.
In 1888, respected Sevastopol citizen, member of the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities K.K. Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich.
An extremely neat man, accustomed to working with documentation, Karl Kazimirovich carefully recorded the results of the excavations - he made casts of the inscriptions, the so-called. prints, sketched finds, drew plans.
For particularly important drawings and plans, he turned to professional artists and draftsmen, but he did not immediately manage to establish permanent photographic recording of his archaeological discoveries.
The first mention of a photograph taken for the report dates back to February 1889 - some photographer not named in the financial statement was paid 6 rubles for two photographs of wax casts (these were casts of terracotta heads found in 1888 in the workshop of an ancient sculptor).
In Chersonesos, then three miles distant from Sevastopol, the photographer was brought and taken away in a cab.
Another Sevastopol photographer and artist with whom K.K. worked closely. Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich, there was the famous Mikhail Nikolaevich Protopopov. His photographs adorned many of Karl Kazimirovich’s reports and were published in publications of the Imperial Archaeological Commission. His studio called “Crimean Photography” was located on Bolshaya Morskaya, 18.
More than 80 thousand negatives, which record the entire history of archaeological research in Chersonesos - filming of the excavation process, views of open monuments and numerous images of finds; materials on the history of the creation, formation and development of museum exhibitions; portraits of Chersonese explorers, figures of the Imperial Archaeological Commission and the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities are stored in the scientific archive of the National Reserve "Tauric Chersonese".
The most interesting, but also the most problematic part of the negatek are the glass-based negatives. There are more than 10 thousand such negatives. The negatives record the process of archaeological excavations, objects found during excavations, and the exposition of the first museum called “Warehouse of Local Antiquities”
The period of their creation is the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries.
Unfortunately, perhaps due to unsatisfactory storage conditions in previous years, perhaps as a result of transportation difficulties during the period of evacuation and re-evacuation (1914, 1918, 1941, 1944), many negatives have defects, peeling and physical damage to the emulsion, Some of the negatives are broken into fragments.
Excavation worker so-called Strabonov Chersonese (Mayachny Peninsula). 1912
Guests: 13,044
CHERSONESES TAURIDE: ANCIENT CITY AND RESERVE
The ancient city of Chersonese Tauride is the most majestic archaeological monument in the south of Russia. Its size, preservation and location attract the attention of scientists and travelers, local historians and simply lovers of antiquities. Its history is closely connected with the great civilizations of antiquity and the Middle Ages, of which it was an integral part for two thousand years.
Founded by the Greeks in the 5th century. BC, the city survived both Roman presence and Byzantine rule. After a series of destructions in the 13th – 14th centuries. the city falls into disrepair, the last inhabitants leave it, and Chersonesus finds its rebirth as an archaeological monument.
The first descriptions of the ruins of Chersonesus belong to the pen of Martin Bronevsky, the ambassador of the King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Stefan Batory to the Tatar Khan Muhammad - Giray II. What he saw made a great impression on the Polish diplomat. With the start of construction of the Sevastopol fortress, different times began for nearby Chersonesos. Unfortunately, initially the ruins of the ancient city served only as building material for the growing young city. P.I. Sumarokov wrote about this in his “Notes of a Crimean Judge”, and academician P.S. Pallas, who visited Crimea in 1793-1794 on behalf of the Russian government.
A. De Paldo. Ruins of the second Chersonese and quarantine. From the work of P.I. Sumarokova
The first excavations of Chersonese were carried out in 1827 by Lieutenant K. Kruse on the orders of the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral A.S. Greig. In general, the middle of the 19th century. characterized as a period of unsystematic excavations of Chersonesos. The young archaeological science was just taking its first steps.
C. Bossoli. View of the ruins of ancient Chersonesos. Ser. XIX century
Among the studies of this time, the works of the founders of the Moscow Archaeological Society, Count and Countess Uvarov, and the excavations of the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities stand out. In 1852, on the territory of the Chersonesos settlement, the monastery of St. Vladimir was opened, which in 1861 received first-class status. In addition to liturgical and economic activities, the monastery also carried out excavations of the ancient city.
K.K. Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich at the Warehouse of Local Antiquities
L.A. Moiseev
Enlightened minds of the 19th century. realized the need to organize systematic research of the monument. Thus, on the initiative of the Imperial Archaeological Commission, the head of the excavations of Chersonesos was appointed. He became Karl Kazimirovich Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich, a Sevastopol bank employee, who from 1888 until the day of his death (1907) selflessly served the idea of researching and preserving the ancient city. Under his leadership, large-scale studies of Chersonesus and its surroundings were carried out; For the first time, excavations began to be accompanied by a description of the finds and plans of the excavated areas. His reports on excavations were published in scientific publications. Through the efforts of Karl Kazimirovich, the first museum of Chersonesos, the so-called “Warehouse of Local Antiquities”, was created in 1892, which laid down the principles for exhibiting archaeological finds. Succeeded by K.K. Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich, R.Kh. became the head of the excavations. Leper. He continued excavations at Chersonesus until the outbreak of World War I.
In connection with the military threat, the Imperial Archaeological Commission accepted the arguments of the new head of excavations L.A. Moiseev and agreed to the evacuation of the Chersonesos collection to Kharkov, where it was kept for a long time in the library of Kharkov University. In difficult times of war and revolution, L.A. Moiseev tried to preserve the excavated territory and was engaged in organizational work. After the establishment of Soviet power in Crimea in 1920, he became director of the Chersonesos Museum.
K.E. Grinevich at the excavation site
The year 1925 was an important milestone in the reorganization of the museum. The exhibition was moved to former monastery buildings, and the staff was increased from 3 to 16 people. On the initiative of the new director, K.E. Grinevich, the stock collections were systematized, a new museum exhibition was created, and excavations of the site and surrounding area continued. In 1926, the publication of the “Chersonese Collection” began, the main scientific publication of the museum. The 30s of the 20th century brought many discoveries, both on the territory of the settlement (in particular, systematic excavations of the Northern region began) and in the “chora” - the agricultural district of the ancient city.
During the Great Patriotic War, the collection of the Chersonesos Museum was evacuated to the Urals, and the territory of the ancient settlement and the choir turned into a fortified area with numerous military structures. Many archaeological sites were damaged and the archaeological layer was disturbed. In the short post-war period, the museum staff not only restored the buildings destroyed by the war, but also created a new museum exhibition.
Since 1947, regular excavations continued, the publication of the “Chersonese Collection” was resumed, and in 1952 new museum halls were opened - ancient and medieval exhibitions. In-depth scientific research carried out in Chersonesos under the leadership of S.F. Strzheletsky, led to the appearance of such landmark publications as “Claires of Tauride Chersonesos”, and thanks to the excavations of O.I. Dombrovsky, the first ancient theater in the Northern Black Sea region was opened. Created by S.F. Strzheletsky
The joint expedition to excavate the Port area of the settlement marked the beginning of a new stage in the study of the city. Research of Chersonesus in the 50s - 70s. XX century reflected in the works of such prominent scientists as V.F. Gaidukevich, G.D. Belov, A.L. Yakobson, A.N. Shcheglov, V.I. Kadeev and many others.
Museum after re-evacuation
I.A. Antonova
The heyday of the Chersonesos Museum was associated with the activities of I.A. Antonova, who headed it from 1955 to 1985.
She was not only an administrator, but also an archaeological scientist. Under her leadership, in 1978, Chersonesos received the status of a nature reserve. The new exhibition of the department of medieval (Byzantine) history, opened in 1981, became a major museum event.
A successful practice of recent Soviet decades was the creation of joint archaeological expeditions. The monuments of Chersonese were studied in collaboration with such organizations as the Institutes of Archeology of Kyiv and Moscow, Kharkov, Sverdlovsk and Moscow Universities, the State Historical Museum, and the State Hermitage. During these years, the northern, northeastern, western and Port areas of the ancient settlement were explored in Chersonesus, and studies were carried out on the defensive walls, necropolis and choir; its own school of restoration was created; Museum and archaeological practices among students are becoming traditional for many universities.
After Ukraine gained independence, the Chersonesos Nature Reserve received National status in 1994. In connection with the development of the city of Sevastopol and the development of new lands, the reserve acquired many responsibilities related to the protection of monuments. Security excavations were carried out not only at the site and the choir, but also in the far outskirts of the city. For the first time, there was an opportunity to explore the monuments of Balaklava, a once closed military territory. The results of excavations of the Roman camp with the Temple of Jupiter Dolichen turned out to be sensational. The excavations of the Genoese fortress of Chembalo brought completely new materials. The beginning of the second millennium was marked by large-scale restoration work that affected the site’s monuments and choirs.
Chersonesos began to open up more and more to the world. Western researchers also began to show interest in the monument. Long-term cooperation connects the reserve with the Institute of Classical Archeology at the University of Texas at Austin, which, with the support of the Packard Institute for Humane Research (USA), has carried out many scientific and museum projects in Chersonesos. Polish scientists from Warsaw and Poznan University. A. Mitskevich continues to study Chersonesos antiquities. The final stage includes the preparation of a new exhibition of the antiquity department, the financial and methodological support of which is provided by the Cyprus Anastasios Leventis Foundation.
The Chersonesos reserve today is a large research and museum institution, owning 418 hectares of archaeological territory. Its museum collection includes more than 214 thousand exhibits, and archival storage amounts to about 90 thousand documents; The scientific library contains more than 30 thousand books, including unique ones.
On June 26, 2013, during the 37th session of UNESCO, the site “The Ancient City of Tauride Chersonesos and its Chora” (No. 1411) was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Basilica 1935. Photo by A. Kornilova
On December 7, 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree “On classifying the federal state budgetary cultural institution “State Historical and Archaeological Museum-Reserve “Chersonese Tauride” as a particularly valuable object of cultural heritage of the peoples of the Russian Federation.”
L.V. Sedikova
ANTIQUE CHERSONESOS. POLIS AND CHORA
Ancient Greek civilization gave the world great names and achievements of mankind. The lack of land and natural resources, rapid population growth and intense political struggle in the Greek states forced inquisitive and active Greeks to explore the distant Oecumene, settling along the shores of the Mediterranean and, subsequently, the Black Sea. More than two and a half thousand years ago, the distant Northern Black Sea region began to be actively populated by the Greeks. One after another, over the course of two centuries, Olbia, Phanogria, Hermonassa, Keppa, Panticapaeum, Myrmekium, Tiritaka, Theodosia, Kerkinitis appeared, and according to Plato, “the Hellenines settled around the sea, like ants or frogs around a swamp.” The founding of Chersonesos was the final stage of the colonization of the distant Oikumene, where “heroes performed feats and the souls of the dead lived.” The city was founded “according to some prophecy” by immigrants from Heraclea Pontic and from Fr. Delos, and became the only Dorian center among all the ancient cities of the Northern Black Sea region. The exact date of its founding remains controversial, but archaeological artifacts today allow us to say that Greek settlers appeared here as early as the 5th century. BC. The “early” city was located on the Heraclean Peninsula (the western part of the modern city of Sevastopol), inhabited at that time by carriers of Early Iron Age cultures, who received the name “formidable Tauri” in the ancient literary tradition. It was they who became the main heroes of Euripides’ tragedy “Iphigenia in Tauris” (5th century BC); the ancient historian Herodotus mentions them as a cruel and savage people. Barbarian cultures of the 1st millennium BC. archaeologically recorded in different parts of the Heraclean Peninsula. The largest settlement of the 8th-7th centuries. BC. known in the modern Inkerman Valley. Next to it was one of the most ancient centers of metallurgy, although in their lives the local tribes widely used stone tools, and they sculpted their dishes without using a potter's wheel, firing them over a fire. The first settlers found themselves surrounded by such barbarian tribes. Initially, the territory of the “early” city (5th century BC) was concentrated on a small promontory at the entrance to modern Quarantine Bay. At that time, the city did not yet have regular development, its area did not exceed 4 hectares, but it was already surrounded by the first defensive wall, outside of which the early necropolis was located. The remains of this wall can still be seen among the excavations of residential areas that were later rebuilt. At this stage of existence, the first settlers focused on trade relations with Heraclea Pontic, the Mediterranean islands, and Attica. During this period, imported products from many Greek cities arrived here - amphoras, expensive various dishes (red-figure and black-glazed vessels), marble sculptural reliefs.
By the second quarter of the 4th century BC. The process of forming the polis is completed and Tauride Chersonesus is a slave-owning republic with a democratic form of government, with elected collegial bodies of legislative and executive power. The main language was the Dorian dialect of the ubiquitous Greek. The democratic system of polis management, with minor changes, existed until the end of the ancient period. All decrees were issued on behalf of the Council and the People. People's Assembly, was the main legislative body of ancient Chersonesus, decrees were adopted here, and the main issues of domestic and foreign policy were resolved. Advice, which could include any citizen of the polis, became the highest body of executive power, it included various boards responsible for the life of the polis (archons, nomophilacs, astynoma, agoranoma, treasurer, gymnasiarchs, simmnamons, epimiletes). Only the first settlers and their descendants had civil rights. Only a few foreigners were awarded proxenia (rights and privileges) for their services to the Chersonesos. Religion was an integral part of Greek society. In Chersonesus, as in any other Greek city, there were official and private cults. At the head of the Chersonesos official pantheon were Zeus, Gaia, Helios, Parthenos (Virgo). Chersonas, as well as Hercules, were held in high esteem. They symbolized the unity of the civil community of Chersonesos. But Parthenos played a special role; her chastity and belligerence personified the inaccessibility of the city and its independence. Temples were dedicated to the Virgin Parthenos, and she was depicted on the coins of the city. Privately, the Chersonesos worshiped Hera, Athena, Artemis, Apollo, Dionysus, Aphrodite and other gods for centuries. With the formation of the Chersonese state in the second quarter-mid 4th century BC. Active reconstruction of the city begins - the early settlement expands to the west, deep into the Heraclean Peninsula, the area of the city territory becomes about 40 hectares. The construction of the policy is carried out according to the Mediterranean principle - the simultaneous creation of a city and the development of an agricultural territory - chora. When creating the polis of Tauride Chersonese, the Greeks used the regular urban planning system of Hippodamus of Miletus, known in Asia Minor; in which a single principle of organizing internal space was applied. The urban planning grid consisted of parallel transverse streets intersected at right angles, forming blocks with standard residential buildings. A similar principle of regular planning was used to demarcate the choir.
Chersonese Tauride during this period was strengthened by a new line of defense, it was strengthened by powerful towers; the thickness of the defensive walls was 3.5 - 4 m, their height reached 8-10 m, and the towers 10-12 m. There were several gates in the city. Some of them, the most important ones, which led to the port facilities, are located in the southeastern section of the defensive walls. The width of their passage is about 4 m, on the sides of which there are pylons preserved, on one of them there are steps leading to the top, to the defensive wall; and on both sides of the gate passage are visible vertical gutters along which the cataract (metal grating) was raised and lowered. A number of main streets crossed the city from southwest to northeast. One of them (Main Plataea) is 900 m long and 6.5 m wide; forms the main axis of the city, passes through the agora and ends in the north-eastern part - the sacred site - the temenos, with the main altars and temples, including the temple to the goddess Parthenos, the divine patron of the city. The city agora became the venue for holding People's Assemblies, the functioning of city government bodies, and trade operations. There were probably several temples here (Dionysus, Athena), as well as the main altar dedicated to the goddess Parthenos. It was here that, more than 100 years ago, one of the main monuments of Greek culture in the Black Sea region was found - the Oath of Citizens of Chersonesos. Carved on a marble slab, in the Greek language of the Dorian dialect, it begins with an appeal to the supreme gods - Zeus, Gaia, Helios and the main patroness of the city - Parthenos, and tells us about the inviolability of the democratic system in the polis. In the southern part of the city, near the defensive walls, on the site of the nymphaeum, the only traditional Greek theater in the Northern Black Sea region was built, which existed until the 4th century AD, the official adoption of Christianity. It was designed after perestroika in the first century. AD, for 1800-2000 spectators. The city blocks of the Hellenistic polis are built up with residential buildings with porticoes, basement floors, corridors and courtyards, and home sanctuaries. There were 2-4 residential buildings in each block. The Greeks built a city from local limestone: huge blocks were very carefully fitted to each other and placed in a sling without a binding solution, forming a strong and “eternal” masonry. During its 2000 years of life, Chersonesos was rebuilt more than once, but it retains the regular layout inherited from antiquity until the end of its existence. Necropolises stretched along the defensive walls in a long, narrow strip, with family plots where the dead were buried in graves and crypts carved into the rock. A limestone stele was installed at the burial, with the name of the deceased, and later with his age; These monuments were decorated with painted or relief images of the deceased; Anthropomorphic tombstones are often found, and, less commonly, funerary sculptures made of marble. The burials were accompanied by things that the deceased might need in the afterlife - jewelry, vessels for drinking and food, children's toys, etc. Several roads went from the city to the agricultural district, the remains of which are still preserved among the buildings of modern Sevastopol. By the middle of the 4th century. BC e. The entire Heraclean Peninsula was demarcated by Greek colonists into plots of land, which were distributed among the citizens of the Chersonesos state. This became one of the most ambitious projects undertaken by the policy. The plots themselves (15-17 and 26-30 hectares in size, consisted of 4 or 6 plots) were located in a checkerboard pattern and were separated by roads and stone fences. The planning of the city and the choir was a one-time event during the formation of the polis structure. At the same time, the lands of the South-Western Crimea were annexed to Chersonesos, forming the distant Chora of the Chersonesos polis. The rocky soil of the Heraclean Peninsula necessitated the creation of a special planting system. Taking into account the terrain, natural and climatic conditions and the location of the site, plantation walls were laid out, which also served as supports for the main crop - the grapevine, which with this method of planting did not need watering. The development of viticulture and winemaking is becoming the main one in the agricultural activities of the nearby chora of the Chersonesos polis. Various tools are used in the work, including grape knives. On many estates, as a result of excavations, small portable tarpans (wine presses) for pressing small quantities of grapes, or stationary tarpans for processing large batches of the harvest were found. Along the boundaries of the demarcated areas there were Greek rural sanctuaries, one of them, dedicated to Dionysus, was opened on the West Bank of modern Cossack Bay. Estate construction in suburban areas occurs simultaneously with urban construction - the Greeks adapt typical Mediterranean agricultural complexes to local reality. Their sizes vary from small modest buildings and houses to huge rural buildings, which included residential and utility rooms, a courtyard, carrying the principle of a city block. On many of them there are powerful tower houses and tower complexes that have both residential, economic and defensive purposes. The estates excavated in Yukharinaya Balka can be considered typical of the local Chora - they included residential and utility buildings united around a courtyard; the complex also included domestic sanctuaries. The plains of distant Chora, located in the North-Western Crimea and demarcated in the second quarter - in the middle of the 4th century BC, supplied Tauride Chersonesos primarily with wheat and barley, which made it a strategically important granary that supplied grain to the entire Black Sea region. Active modern urbanization throughout almost the entire Mediterranean has destroyed the agricultural lands of the ancient Greek city-states. This makes the chora of the Chersonese polis on the Heraclean Peninsula a unique standard of ancient Greek agriculture, which today can be seen not only from a bird’s eye view, but also touch the archaeologically explored monuments of this cultural world heritage.
The economic basis for the development of the Chersonesos polis in the middle of the 4th - first half of the 3rd centuries. BC. agriculture is becoming developed. Economic growth in the agricultural production of grain and wine strengthens the role of maritime trade contacts of Chersonese, primarily with the ancient centers of the Southern Black Sea region (Hercules Pontic, Sinope), where grain was sent, as well as the North-Western Crimea, the Lower Dnieper and the Lower Don region, which consumed Chersonese wine. In exchange, the polis received ceremonial dishes, luxury items, fabrics, weapons, expensive wines, works of art, leather, livestock products, etc. It was during this period that Chersonesus began to flourish in its entirety. The population of the city grows to 10,000 people. Temples are being built in the city, and its streets are decorated with marble and limestone statues. Chersonesos takes on the appearance of a real ancient Greek polis. His own coin also appeared, on which Parthenos, Hercules and his attributes, Zeus, Athena, Helios, Hermes were depicted. The rise of Kherson craft production begins. Pottery is particularly flourishing. The workshops were located outside the defensive walls, closer to sources of clay and water. The main products of Chersonesos potters were amphoras, two-handled vessels used for transporting various cargoes by sea - wine, olive oil, fish sauces. The production of amphorae and their standardization was under the strict control of government officials; the handle was stamped with the name of an astynome or agronomist, officials who monitored the production of amphorae. Active development of the polis territory required the production of roofing tiles and decorative architectural details (antefixes). The workshops produced large quantities of household utensils (dishes, lamps), fishing and weaving weights, terracotta figurines and children's toys, and, of course, religious objects (altars, figurines of gods). One of the important industries for the seaside city remained fishing. Artifacts from excavations of city houses and estates along the coastal strip of Chora are often accompanied by finds of sinkers, fishhooks, and needles for weaving nets. There was a blacksmith and bronze casting craft production in the city.
The cultural life of ancient Chersonesos followed Hellenic traditions. When building temples, the Chersonisites adhered to the Doric and Ionic orders, decorated them with sculptural compositions, and painted details with colored paints. Chersonese sculptors, coroplasts, and painters created works that were not inferior to the works of masters of mainland Greece and Asia Minor. Among them are figurines of Aphrodite and Pan, Hercules and Dionysus. A masterpiece of monumental early Hellenistic art is the surviving fragment of a tombstone depicting the “head of a young man” (late 4th century BC), made using the encaustic technique. In terms of its artistic characteristics, the remarkable floor mosaic, made of multi-colored sea pebbles, is not inferior to the “portrait”, and decorated the floor of one of the rooms of a large early Hellenistic house, which depicts two naked women standing on the sides of a luterium (a shallow vessel on a high stand.
An integral part of the cultural life of the polis was the theater, where the works of Greek playwrights were staged. Votive masks of actors and religious objects were found during excavations. The Chersonesites paid great attention to education and upbringing, were literate, revered science, and were fond of poetry. A striking example of a reverent attitude towards history is the surviving fragment of an honorary decree (second half of the 3rd century BC) in honor of the awarding of a golden wreath to the historian Siriscus.
In Chersonesos, attention was paid to the physical training of young men, and various sports competitions were held. During excavations, strigili and aryballas, integral companions of athletes, were found. And the Chersonese athletes themselves participated in pan-Greek competitions, which is reflected on the tombstone of Theophant. Professional doctors also worked in the city. Their names and affiliations are depicted on Chersonesos tombstones of Hellenistic times.
In the 3rd century BC. Chersonesus is under threat of seizure of territories by the strengthened late Scythians (the capital of the state of Scythian Naples). The Chersonesites begin to reorganize the defense of the chora and the urban area of Polis. This activity is reflected in the inscription on the pedestal of the statue of Agasicles. The city defensive walls are further strengthened by tombstones from the necropolis; no later than the middle of the 3rd century. BC. In the south-eastern section, a citadel and a key defense area of the so-called are being built. "Zeno's Tower" However, by the turn of the III/II centuries. BC, as a result of the Scythian wars, Chersonesus loses its possessions in the North-Western Crimea. The estates on the nearby choir are destroyed and the economic decline of the policy begins. Unable to cope with the Scythian threat, Chersonesos at the end of the 2nd century BC. turns for help to one of the powerful rulers of Pontus - Mithridates VI Eupator. His commander Diophantus around 101-107. BC, having made a series of successful campaigns against the Scythians, defends Chersonesos. These events were reflected in the famous decree in honor of Diophantus. However, Chersonesus, for “services rendered,” was forced to enter into a number of alliances with the Bosporan kingdom and go in line with its political interests. After the death of Mithridates, Chersonese fell under the influence of the “friend and ally of the Romans” of the Bosporan king Pharnaces, and from the middle of the 1st century. BC. he already finds himself in the sphere of influence of the Roman Empire itself, the leading military-political force of the ancient world of that period. The city supports Caesar in the fight against Pharnaces, and in return receives the right of eleutheria (“freedom”), freedom from taxation and semi-autonomous status with direct subordination to Rome.
Already from the 1st century. AD The episodic presence of Roman troops is recorded in the city, and statues of legates of the Roman provinces have been found. At the beginning of the 2nd century AD. A permanent Roman garrison appears in Chersonesus, and a bill of exchange of the V Macedonian Legion is stationed. This is evidenced by the epitaphs of freedmen and finds of Roman weapons. In the second quarter - middle of the 2nd century AD. The Roman military presence in Crimea is expanding, including in Chersonesos. Additional parts of the I Italian and XI Claudius legions and auxiliary units (cohorts) are introduced. Along with the ground forces, the naval forces of the Mezean Flying Fleet are present in the city. A squadron of the Ravenna fleet guards the coast. During this period, the Romans began active construction activities. In Chersonesos, the Romans are based in the “Citadel” and are rebuilding it. At the head of the garrison in Chersonesus was a military tribune, at the same time he was also the representative of the Roman administration in the city. Vexilations, cohorts, a fleet squadron, as well as small units based in the Crimea were subordinate to him. Not far from the city, in the area of modern Balaklava Bay, a full-scale Roman base is located and a temple to Jupiter Dolichenus, especially popular in the Roman army, is being built. A number of fortifications also appeared along the southern coast of Crimea. All this is reflected in the collections of archaeological finds from Chersonesus (details of belt sets, soldiers' clothing, horse harness, weapons). In the second half of the 3rd century. Gothic tribes become more active in Crimea, and the Roman military presence is reduced. Nevertheless, Roman military buildings are still used in Chersonesus and the name of military units continues to appear in the city garrison. There are also a small number of artifacts associated with the Roman military. All this tells us about the existence of a permanent, albeit small, Roman garrison in Chersonesos until the first half of the 5th century.
Rome's military presence in the region ensured the security of land and sea routes, contributed to the revitalization of trade contacts, and the development of production and crafts. The loss of land in Northwestern Crimea led to changes in the structure of agricultural production; the main agricultural territory for Chersonesus remains only the Heraclean Peninsula. Here, the area under vineyards is reduced and grain crops are increased, in some cases the external contours of land plots are changed, along with the previously existing ones, a new type of estate buildings appears - with round towers. Due to the need to supply Roman soldiers with salted fish, which was part of their diet, fishing and salt production were intensively developing; In urban areas, fish-salting tanks with a capacity of 20 to 50 tons appear. At the expense of one of the local residents, Theagenes, son of Diogenes. a fish market was built. In honor of this event, a special decree was engraved on the marble stele. During this period, Chersonesus became a major craft center; ceramic, iron-smelting, bronze foundries, and glass workshops existed in the city. Since the middle of the 2nd century, the role of Chersonese in intermediary trade between the barbarian world and the cities of the Asia Minor coast of the Black Sea (Sinopa, Heraclea, Amis), as well as the centers of the Western Black Sea region, the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa has been increasing. In the first centuries AD The urban development of Chersonesos remains within the same limits. However, the Roman presence made some adjustments to the life and appearance of the city. Over the previous centuries, the main source of water supply for the city was wells, but in the Roman period, a ceramic water supply system appeared, several “branches” of which led from the borders of the Heraclean Peninsula through storage pools to Chersonesus, where water was distributed through ceramic pipes directly throughout the city territory. Baths are added to the public urban development, the archaeological remains of which have been discovered in several areas of the city, some of them were built with funds from wealthy citizens. In connection with the deployment of Roman legionnaires, the theater was also rebuilt: its theater was enlarged, and the theater itself could now be used for literary competitions and gladiator fights. There was also a brothel in the city, the tax from which went to maintain the Roman garrison. There is an enlargement of the city's housing development, which includes both industrial and economic complexes. The Corinthian order style began to be used in stone construction, binders and bricks were used in construction, and window glass appeared in the windows of houses. Roman influence was also evident in the coinage of the city; images and legends appearing on local coins reflecting Roman policy in the region; imperial denominations (as, duponium) are used. The farm used the system of Roman weights and measures. The daily life of the Chersonesos of that period tried to maintain conservatism and fidelity to previous Hellenic traditions. The Greek language and calendar, the main holidays are preserved, the main official cult is still Parthenos, in private cults, as before, Dionysus, Hercules and others are revered. But the presence of legionnaires has a huge impact on the daily life of Chersonesos. This was manifested in the wide distribution of various types of ceramic, metal, glass and bone products, jewelry, votive objects, and various games that were previously unknown in the city, but were widespread in the territories subordinate to Rome. They became part of local life and cults, objects of imitation for local craftsmen, influencing the spirit, culture and life of the city population. For example, various forms of red-glazed tableware, Italian lamps, small bronze sculptures (plates, genre figurines), toiletries and clothing items are actively used. The Latin language spreads in the city, and Roman names appear. The cult of Roman emperors and other cults (Jupiter, Hercules, Mithra) appear in the spiritual life of ordinary townspeople.
The increased influx of population into the city from Asia Minor and the Danube provinces increased the craving for eastern cults (Isis) and monotheism; there was a Jewish community and the first Christians appeared (IV century).
The crisis of the Roman Empire in the second half of the 3rd-4th centuries, the “Gothic Wars,” weakened the Roman military presence in the region, including Chersonesos. Nevertheless, the city remained aloof from the main movement of barbarian tribes and continued to serve as an important outpost of the Roman Empire in Taurica. The city was given cash subsidies for the maintenance of the city garrison and the formations of the Gothic allies in the South-Western Crimea. During the reign of Constantine the Great, in 322, Chersonesos provided military assistance to the emperor on the Danube, for which the emperor confirmed the freedom and exemption from taxes previously given to the city. Chersonesus continues to be closely connected on an allied basis with the Empire, but with its eastern part, living and developing further within the framework of the Eastern Roman Empire.
N.V. Ginkut
MIDDLE AGES. KHERSON-KORSUN. BYZANTINE OUTPOST, CRADLE OF ORTHODOXY
At the end of the 5th - beginning of the 6th century. Chersonesus became part of the Eastern Roman or Roman power, which received the name of the Byzantine Empire under the name “Kherson” in the historiography of the 19th century. The city became the northern outpost of Byzantium, through which control was exercised over the movement of barbarian tribes that posed a potential threat to the security of the empire. The Byzantines constantly kept this strategically important fortress under political, economic and ideological control and, given the remoteness of Kherson, used it as a place of exile for oppositionists and unwanted church and political figures.
At various times, the following were exiled here: Monophysite Timothy Elur (60s of the 5th century), Pope Martin, Theodore and Euperius (655), deposed Emperor Justinian II (695-705), brother of Emperor Leo the Khazar - Caesar Nicephorus (776), icon-worshipping monks—companions of Theodore the Studite: John the Psychiat and Joseph the Songwriter (9th century).
Map of the Byzantine Empire during the era of Justinian
The city was governed by a vicar appointed from Constantinople, as well as by the city administration, which was subordinate to him. Under Emperor Theodosius II (408-450), coinage began in the city, which was maintained until the end of the 7th century.
Solid Marcian. Gold. 450-457
In the IX-XI centuries. Kherson was the center of the theme - one of the military-administrative districts into which by this time the entire empire had been divided. It is known that the first strategist (ruler) of the theme was the Byzantine official and architect Petrona Kamatira. In the 9th century under Emperor Theophilos, the issue of local coins was resumed in Kherson. The coins of Kherson from the thematic period differ significantly from the products of other Byzantine mints in their manufacturing technique (casting), appearance and a number of other features. During the X-XIII centuries. Kherson continued to issue its copper coins, and after the cessation of the mint’s activities, the previous issues and Golden Horde coins were in circulation on the city market.
Coin of Roman IV. Bronze. 1068-1071
In the 10th century the head of the Kherson administration remained a strategist sent from the capital. His functions continued to include the defense of the city, the maintenance of the fem army, the maintenance of fortifications in proper condition, and assistance to the archbishop in carrying out missionary activities in neighboring territories. Along with the regular Byzantine army, which included detachments of mercenaries, there was a city militia and a fleet. The ground army was divided into infantry, cavalry and artillery with appropriate weapons. Infantry and cavalry, in turn, were divided into heavily and lightly armed. Lightly armed warriors used bows, axes, knives, darts, flails, etc. during battle. Heavily armed warriors had swords, spears, and pikes. Military weapons corresponded to the warrior's means of defense: shield, helmet, shell armor, chain mail. As a rule, a mixed army took part in hostilities, but the main role, starting from the 6th century, was played by cavalry. It was significantly superior to infantry in maneuverability, which was very important in battles with the empire’s constant enemies—the nomads. The military power of the cavalry was enhanced by metal stirrups, a semi-rigid saddle, a saber, armor-piercing spears and a long-range heavy bow borrowed from the nomads. The infantry served only to protect the cavalry.
Chersonese-Kherson existed for almost two thousand years, of which a thousand as a Christian city. For a thousand years, on a small cape with an area of about 40 hectares, basilicas and baptismal houses, cross-domed churches and chapels, hospice houses and tombs were built; Icons, crosses, and church utensils were brought to the city. Kherson was a conductor of Christianity, a stronghold for missionaries, and a pilgrimage center. Of course, such a long and active religious life was reflected in the material culture of Kherson. Already at the end of the 3rd - first half of the 4th century. Individual items with Christian inscriptions and symbols appear in burials, and at the turn of the 4th-5th centuries. in the suburban necropolis - the first Christian crypts. There is no doubt that at the end of the 4th - 5th centuries. There was already a Christian community in the city, which was probably initially small. In the last quarter of the 4th century. The Kherson diocese was formed, which is documented by the signature of Bishop Epherius at the Second Ecumenical Council and archaeologically by the discovery in the port area of the city of the top of a bishop's staff with an inscription from the end of the 4th - beginning of the 5th century.
The pommel of the bishop's staff. Bone. Late IV - early V centuries.
From the end of the 6th century. Kherson is acquiring the significance of a religious center both for neophytes of Taurica and far beyond its borders. Archdeacon Theodosius at the end of the 6th century. mentions Kherson as one of the transit pilgrimage points on the way to the Holy Land. In the V-VI centuries. In the city there was a hospice house at the Church of St. Foki, in which eulogies (blessings) were distributed in the form of clay circles with an imprinted image of a saint and a blessing inscription. Clay stamp and imprint with the name of St. Phocas were found in the Port area, not far from the city gates, where, apparently, the temple of this saint and the hospices were located.
Stamp Eulogy of St. Foki. VI century
During excavations of the settlement, numerous Christian antiquities were found: church utensils used during divine services in Kherson churches: hanging censers and katsei with horizontal handles - for burning incense;
Katseya. Bronze. XIII century ; Lamp. Bronze. XII century
a chased gilded bronze diptych that served as a memorial, in which entries were made on thin sheets of parchment;
Diptych. Bronze. End of the 11th - beginning of the 12th centuries.
reliquaries intended for storing relics, lamps, horos, lampadophors. Objects of personal piety were small cross-vests made of silver, soapstone, jasper, and bronze;
Cross vest
larger double-leaf encolpion crosses, worn over clothing, were intended to store various Christian relics: particles of relics, fabric, etc.
Encolpion cross. Bronze. X-XI centuries
Encolpions with engraved images of Christ, the Mother of God, and orant saints were brought to Kherson by pilgrims from the holy places of the Middle East, where they were produced by the Melkites, Orthodox Syrians.
For temple and home prayer, the residents of Kherson preferred icons made of bronze and soapstone, which were covered with gilding, often in combination with bright colors. Basically all the icons were imported. Some of them were made in workshops in Constantinople and Thessaloniki. So, for example, in the 12th century. Two paired icons were brought from Constantinople: “The Annunciation” and “Three Holy Warriors”.
Icon. Three holy warriors. Steatite. XII century ; Icon. Annunciation. Steatite. XII century
The earliest in the museum exhibition is a small soapstone icon of a holy warrior, dating back to the 11th century. Bronze imports are represented by a remarkable icon of the 11th-12th centuries. with the image of the Archangel Michael Choniates. Local production includes a bronze icon of Christ Pantocrator (12th century), mounted on a wooden base.
Icon. Christ Pantocrator. Bronze. XI-XII centuries
The peak of economic and cultural growth of early medieval Kherson occurred in the 6th - 7th centuries. Active construction took place inside the fortress walls, accompanied by the filling of antique fish-salting tanks and the redevelopment of neighborhoods. It was at this time that the process of creating a new medieval city began. Large basilicas and cruciform churches were erected in Kherson, becoming city dominants. The foundations of more than 60 temples have been discovered at the site. The formation of early Christian architecture in Kherson took place under the influence of Syrian and Asia Minor traditions, but with the dominance of the capital's Constantinople canons, which in the conditions of Kherson acquired local specificity. In the architectural and artistic design of churches, the main attention of the architects was directed not to the external appearance, but to the design of the interior. The strict ascetic exterior of the building contrasted sharply with the splendor of its interior decor, which clearly expressed the idea of Christian teaching about the predominance of the internal (spiritual) over the external (physical).
In the Chersonesos Nature Reserve you can get acquainted with the richest collection of marble architectural details of the early Christian churches of Kherson, the most complete of which are the capitals. The earliest are composite capitals (5th century), the distinctive feature of which is the presence of an openwork acanthus leaf with small sharp teeth.
Capital. Marble. VI century
The composite capital “in its beauty and grace is the best creation of Byzantine masters; it successfully embodied the new taste for decorativeness, splendor, the effects of light and dark; it best succeeded in creating the impression of elegant lightness and destroying the heaviness of stone.” Sometimes images of animals were placed on the capitals - the volutes of the upper corners were replaced with sculpted ram heads or eagles.
Pulpits, openwork window grilles, altar barriers, and floor pavement in the altar and central nave of the temple were also made from marble. The floor and walls were covered with mosaics. For floor mosaics in Kherson, cubes were used mainly from baked clay and natural stone (marble, sandstone, limestone), and for wall images - specially made multi-colored smalt.
Mosaic floor (fragment). VI century
Over time, mosaic decor in Byzantine churches was gradually replaced by less expensive fresco paintings. An idea of the temple paintings of Kherson in the 9th-10th centuries. gives a fragment of a fresco with the face of the Mother of God, remarkable in its expressiveness, that decorated the altar niche of a small city church,
Fresco. Our Lady. (Fragment). IX-X centuries
part of a fresco depicting the face of the Saint in a diadem from the Country Cross-shaped Church and almost the entire fresco of the Mother of God with the Child from the outskirts of late Byzantine Kherson - the Genoese fortress of Chembalo, made in the best traditions of the Palaiologan Renaissance by the capital's Constantinople master.
Fresco. The Virgin and Child. XIV century
Along with the construction of temples, medieval residential buildings were erected on the foundations of ancient buildings. Kherson city estates included residential and utility rooms grouped around a courtyard with a well or utility tank. Many houses had basements, an overhanging wooden or stone second floor under a tiled roof. The top floor was usually allocated for housing, the kitchen, storerooms, and workshops were located below; Small livestock and poultry were kept in outbuildings and under sheds, and household equipment was stored.
As in the ancient era, pottery, foundry, blacksmithing, glassmaking, and jewelry crafts were developed in the city. Tools were made from iron, weapons and armor of warriors, horse equipment, anchors, chains, household items, locks, and door locks were forged. Wire was drawn from copper, frying pans, jugs, bowls, fishhooks, jewelry, etc. were made. Vessels, candlesticks, lamps, openwork chains, goblets, church utensils, crosses, weights, coins, etc. were cast from bronze; made of lead - fishing weights, goldsmith's tools. Architectural parts were fastened with lead, broken vessels were repaired, and water pipes were bent from sheets of lead. Kherson craftsmen mastered the technique of gilding. Gilding was applied to bronze and stone icons and glass bracelets; this required a solution of copper and mercury, which was stored in special thick-walled spherical clay vessels. Local jewelers used a technique unknown in other Byzantine centers: a bronze, silver or gold sheet was fixed on an iron or wooden base, on which certain images were minted.
Kherson also had its own glass production. A workshop dating back to the end of the 4th century was opened on the northern shore of the city. Traces of glass production can be traced back to the last period of the city's life. The Chersonites, according to the Roman tradition, glassed not only temples, but also residential buildings. Window glass was made in the form of small square and rectangular plates or round disks 5-6 mm thick, inserted into wooden or lead frames, from which the entire window frame was then assembled.
On the territory of Kherson and in its suburban area, several medieval pottery workshops have been identified, in which large and small pithoi, amphorae, a variety of tableware and kitchen utensils were made: jugs, pots, bowls, bowls, plates.
Glazed jug. Clay. XIII century
Glazed cup. Clay. XIII century
Glazed bowl. Clay. XIII century
Jug. Clay. XI century ; Amphora. Clay. X century
Amphora. Clay. XI century
A special page in medieval ceramic production is glazed or glazed ceramics, which replaced ancient ceramics: black-glazed and red-glazed. The first examples of glazed ceramics appeared in Kherson in the first half of the 9th century. Until the 10th century The Chersonites used only imported white clay glazed dishes with relief images made using a stamp. From the same time, more advanced Byzantine ceramics appeared with polychrome painting under a transparent glaze. Late examples of tableware of this type (XI-XIII centuries) were found in Kherson: cups with handles from one set, bowls, large dishes with images of fantastic birds and animals painted with a light wide line with a brush.
From the 11th century. Red clay glazed ceramics, first imported and then locally produced, became widespread in Kherson. The most effective method of decorating white clay dishes, painting, gave way to engraving with a sharp tool on clay covered with engobe, which opened up unlimited decorative possibilities for craftsmen. The museum exhibition presents only part of the huge collection of glazed ceramics from the excavations of Kherson and its environs, stored in the reserve’s funds.
Medieval Kherson, like other Byzantine cities, had its own suburban lands. Many city dwellers combined some kind of craft with growing grapes, grains, horticultural crops, and industrial crops on their country or personal plots, or were engaged in processing agricultural products: winemaking, grain grinding, and bread baking. It is no coincidence that iron plow tips - openers, hoes - are found in Kherson estates; for harvesting - sickles, pink salmon scythes, grape knife; milling tools: stone millstones, mortars, as well as grains of wheat, barley, millet, rye.
Due to the proximity of the sea, fishing remained one of the most accessible and widespread industries. It did not decrease throughout the history of the city and was of a commercial nature. They caught fish with nets and nets, and beat large ones with harpoons; Dredges were used to collect edible shellfish: oysters, mussels, scallops. Sinkers in the form of small ceramic pyramids and barrels with drilled holes, lead rings, or simply fragments of stone or flat ceramics with through holes were hung from the nets. During night fishing, torches were used. The nets were dried in the yard under a shed or in a storage room. Closely connected with fishing was, as in the ancient period, the extraction of salt. First of all, a large amount of salt was required to meet the internal needs of the townspeople, especially the fish-salting industry. Both the population of Taurica and the Asia Minor coast received salt from Kherson.
In addition to fishing and salt production, the Khersonites were engaged in hunting, as evidenced by numerous finds of bones of wild animals and birds: deer, saiga, wild boar, ducks, swans, etc. Bones and horns of wild and large domestic animals, as well as oyster shells were widely used in bone carving production . Ivory was used primarily for church items. To process bone and wood, Kherson artisans used saws, knives, drills, compasses, cutters, and a lathe. The most popular were circular and geometric patterns: circles, lines, dots, crosses, etc. Along with bone products, wooden products were decorated with artistic carvings and inlays: doors, furniture, boxes. During excavations in Kherson, bone plates are found with carved images of birds and animals inscribed in various geometric shapes: circle, segment, triangle, rectangle. They were used to decorate funeral shrouds and sometimes served as diptychs for wax inscriptions. Local craftsmen made wonderful stacked boxes from plates with openwork carved patterns.
Casket. Bone. X century
Plate with a picture of a bird. Bone. X-XI centuries
Plate with the image of a lion. Bone. X-XI centuries
A plate with the image of a warrior. Bone. X century
In Byzantine cities, probably as in Ancient Rus' and Western Europe, weaving looms were used, first vertical, and from the 12th-13th centuries. - horizontal, the invention of which was an important technical achievement of the medieval era. The main raw material for making fabrics was wool, which was combed with special iron combs with long, fine teeth. When twisting the thread, to enhance its rotational movement, stone or clay spindles were used, which were put on the end of the spindle. Kherson seamstresses used bronze and bone thimbles, piercings, needles, scissors, etc. in their handicrafts. Scraps of wool, linen, silk fabrics, and fragments of brocade are often found in medieval houses and burials of Kherson. A variety of mineral and vegetable dyes are used for dyeing fabrics. The most expensive silk fabrics were produced in Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch. Interestingly, the Byzantine government introduced a state monopoly on silk (both production and trade). Only the emperor had the right to wear clothes made from certain types of silk. These fabrics were also used for gifts to foreign sovereigns, bribery of ambassadors, and ransom of prisoners. Fabrics dyed in natural purple were valued most highly.
The main thing that gave the city the opportunity to flourish throughout its two-thousand-year history was trade. The main trading partners of Kherson in the 5th-7th centuries, in addition to the South-Western Crimea, were Asia Minor and Syria, and, to a lesser extent, the North African region. At the end of the 7th century. The Khazars appeared in Crimea, under whose control by the beginning of the 8th century. almost the entire peninsula was located. Kherson remained practically the only place in Taurica that was not under Khazar influence. But already in the third quarter of the 9th century. the Hungarians expelled the Khazars from the Crimea, and in 889 the Magyars were expelled by the Pechenegs, with whom Kherson began to maintain diplomatic and trade relations. “If the Chersonites do not travel to Romania and sell the skins and wax that they buy from the Pechenegs,” wrote Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, “they will not exist.” The relative political and economic isolation of Kherson from the empire during the period of Khazar rule in Crimea was gradually corrected. In the 10th century the city is regaining its role as an important center for transit trade. It was connected by trade relations with almost the entire Southern Black Sea region. The direct route from the Bosphorus to Kherson was actively used by merchant ships. Of great importance for its economy in the 9th-12th centuries. had northern trade routes. Goods were transported along the Volga, Don, and Dnieper; communication was carried out with nearby and remote areas. The Khersonites traded not only with the Dnieper region, but also with Northern Russia: Novgorod, Pskov, Staraya Ladoga. The route from Eastern Europe to Byzantium, Asia Minor, and the Mediterranean countries passed through Kherson. Ships loaded with salt, fish, furs, skins, wax, honey sailed from Kherson to the south, and then moved along the southern coast of the Black Sea to the intended ports. In Trebizond, Sinope, Amastris, Nicomedia and other cities on the coast, caravan roads coming from the east and south converged. Bread, olive oil, medicines, metal, fabrics, expensive glass and glazed dishes, church utensils, marble, colored finishing stones and much more were brought to the northern shore of the Black Sea. In Kherson, imported goods and products from local workshops were also exchanged for agricultural products, using scales and weights of various shapes: from simple flattened bronze disks to highly artistic figurines of emperors.
An epochal historical event of the 10th century. there was a military campaign and the baptism of the Kyiv prince Vladimir in Korsun (that’s what ancient Russian chronicles called Kherson).
Radziwill Chronicle. Anna's arrival. XV-XVI centuries
Radziwill Chronicle. Baptism of Vladimir. XV-XVI centuries
With the adoption of Christianity, Kievan Rus joined the high Byzantine culture, and through it gained wide access to the knowledge accumulated by mankind. The baptism and marriage to the purple princess Anna was a major success in Vladimir's international policy. His position in relation to Byzantium itself strengthened and the importance of his power in the Black Sea and the Balkans strengthened. Vladimir became related to the first imperial house in Europe, which further increased the international importance of Kyiv. As is known from the Tale of Bygone Years, Vladimir from the Korsun campaign brought to Rus' Greek priests, icons, church utensils, as well as “for his blessing” the relics of St. Clement, laid in 1007 in the Church of the Tithes. Subsequently, Kievan Rus never forgot that the beginning of Christian enlightenment - a key, fundamental event in its history - was laid precisely in Kherson-Korsun.
Kherson, like other Byzantine centers, was characterized by ethnic diversity. At different times, Greeks, Sarmatians, Alans, Khazars, Slavs, Armenians, Jews, Arabs, Western Europeans and many other peoples lived here, leaving monuments of their material culture and writing on the Chersonesos land. But the bulk of the population, as in ancient times, were still Greeks. Both the official and spoken language of medieval Cherson was Greek, which almost everyone spoke and which, at least, everyone understood; Writing was also Greek. In everyday life they wrote with pointed bronze or bone sticks - styles - on wax, which covered the inner surface of special plates - diptychs. The material for books, scrolls and codices was parchment, on which they wrote with brown ferrous ink. Each handwritten book was a work, one of a kind, which could not be exactly repeated. There were special workshops in which scribes, parchment makers, and artists who created manuscripts worked. The books and documents themselves, unfortunately, were not found in Kherson, but bronze clasps of code books, lead seals that fastened scrolls, knives for cutting parchment, flat lead rings for ruling were preserved; writing instruments: styles, diptychs - double tablets, the outer surface of which is decorated with carvings; glass ink bottle, ceramic inkwells, etc.
A variety of archaeological finds make it possible to illustrate many aspects of the life of the inhabitants of medieval Kherson: from copper kitchen utensils and cutlery to clay children's toys. It is easy to imagine how the inhabitants of Kherson were dressed in the Middle Ages. It is known that the Byzantines, unlike the Romans, wore trousers, over which they put on a chiton and a long cloak fastened with a pin. The women's tunic was longer than the men's: laws prohibited women from flaunting men's clothing. From the 5th-6th centuries, when the popularity of women's jewelry increased, Kherson fashionistas began to use a variety of fasteners (brooches), buttons, and buckles; jewelry made of metal and glass, among which bracelets of various shapes and colors predominate: oval in cross-section, triangular, multifaceted, twisted, black, blue, with gold stripes; as well as earrings, beads, pendants, etc.
Of course, the residents of the city used various cosmetics and the achievements of contemporary medieval medicine. The Chersonites did not escape the fascination with alchemy, which vainly sought ways to obtain gold from metal and the elixir of immortality. During the excavations, fragments of glass vessels from the “laboratory” of a local alchemist were found.
The townspeople occupied their leisure time with musical exercises and board games. As throughout the medieval world, chess was popular in Kherson. Although, as you know, both the Eastern and Western churches expressed a negative attitude towards chess. Patriarch Photius in the 9th century. equated chess with throwing dice games, which were banned by the VI Ecumenical Council (680-681), and Cardinal Damiani in the 11th century. wrote: “I stop my pen because I blush with shame that I have to mention even more despicable forms of self-indulgence than hunting and catching birds, namely, the passion for games of dice and chess...”. But, despite the strict prohibitions, interest and love for chess did not fade. Emperors, bishops, and ordinary people played chess. The Khersonites, judging by archaeological finds, were fond of not only chess and checkers, but also playing dice.
In the XII-XIII centuries. The political situation in Europe is changing. The conquest of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1204 and the subsequent penetration and strengthening of the Italians in Crimea, which coincided with the Tatar invasion, changed the situation in the Northern Black Sea region and the place of Kherson in the system of trade relations. The city lost its centuries-old role as an international center for transit trade, and its trade monopoly in the Northern Black Sea region passed to other cities of Crimea and the Azov region. Mediterranean goods now reached Kherson through Italian merchants. After the collapse of Byzantium into a number of “imperial centers,” Kherson entered the sphere of political influence of the Trebizond Empire of the Komnenos, and therefore its trade contacts with Asia Minor intensified.
Bronze artefacts of the Asia Minor-Armenian and Western European circles appeared in the city: bronze mortars and pestles, used in pharmaceuticals for the preparation of medicines; elegant narrow pencil cases (calemdans) with engraved ornaments and Arabic inscriptions inlaid with copper or silver; bronze lamps with Arabic inscriptions, Iranian luster plates. The imported Western European bronze bowl was engraved with Latin inscriptions denoting human vices: cunning, deceit, hatred, enmity, anger, revenge, extravagance, idolatry, envy, slander, sin, crime and allegorical images of these vices (usually such bowls were paired, on The second bowl listed the main human virtues).
The raids of nomads of the 13th century became catastrophic for Kherson, as a result of which most of the city burned down, and it was never restored to its former borders. Its territory has shrunk almost to the size of the Port District with elements of “spot” development in other areas of the settlement.
The city entered the 14th century economically oppressed by the Genoese, ravaged and burned by nomads. It was not spared by the pan-European tragedy - the plague - and the terrible Crimean earthquake of 1341. Historians still argue about what Kherson was like during this period. Some call it a city, others believe that all that remains of Kherson is a miserable fishing village on the shore of Karantinnaya Bay, while others generally deny life on the Kherson fort in the 14th century. The tragedies experienced, which showed the illusory nature of material wealth, intensified in medieval society at the end of the 13th - 14th centuries. religiosity led to a rise in spirituality and a revival of monasticism. Kherson was no exception. In its district, new ones are being founded and previously existing cave and ground hermitages are being revived, and the oldest memorials of St., known to the entire Christian world, are being maintained. Clement and St. Martin, the temples are decorated with skillful carvings and painted with frescoes in the best traditions of Palaeologian art. It is known that in 1280 the Kherson diocese was elevated to the rank of metropolitanate, and in 1390, by resolution of the church synod, the entire coast of Taurica up to Sudak was under the control of the Kherson metropolitan. In the 14th century A Catholic bishopric was formed in Kherson and it was even decided to erect the Cathedral of St. Clement.
In the second half of the 15th century. references to it are no longer found in written sources.
T.Yu. Yashaeva
NEIGHBORING TERRITORIES. KHERSON AND ITS NEIGHBORS (CHEMBALO AND KALAMITA)
The Sevastopol land is rich in a wide variety of archaeological monuments from prehistory to the late Middle Ages. In addition to the ancient settlement of Chersonese - Kherson and its agricultural surroundings, today the reserve includes two unique monuments of archeology and architecture, the medieval fortresses of Chembalo and Kalamita, representing two competing forces in the South-Western Crimea - the Genoese colonial administration and the pro-Byzantine principality of Theodoro.
CHEMBALO
The Genoese fortress of Chembalo is located on the territory of modern Balaklava at the entrance to a picturesque bay in ancient times called Sumbalon (Bay of Symbols). The fortress is repeatedly mentioned in written sources and narrative monuments of the 14th-17th centuries, descriptions of travelers M. Bronevsky (1578), E. Chelebi (1665), Z. Arkas (1848), etc.
It is located on a cape from the east covering the Balaklava harbor and occupies a dominant height, called Fortress Mountain (Kastron), rising with two peaks above the narrow entrance to the bay.
In plan, the fortress has an almost quadrangular shape, its area is about 7 hectares.
The exact time of the appearance of the Genoese in Balaklava harbor is unknown. Obviously, this happened shortly before the devastating raid on the Crimea by the Tatar hordes of Khan Janibek in 1345.
The creation of the fortress was apparently largely completed by 1433. At the same time, a radical reconstruction of the defensive structures was carried out in the early 60s. XV centuries (1463-1467). Located on a rocky ledge, the fortress had a special water supply system. Water was supplied through specially laid threads of ceramic water pipes from the spurs of the Kefalo-Vrisi mountain range. On the rocky northern coast of the cape, under the protection of fortress towers, a port was located in a secluded harbor. There was also a market square here. Chembalo was known for its fish market, famous throughout the area.
In 1475, after the fall of Kafa, then Soldaya, the Cembalo fortress was abandoned and the Turks captured it without a fight, giving it a new name - Balyk-yuve (“fish nest”).
With the capture of Crimea by the Turks in 1475, Chembalo-Balaklava became one of the strongholds of Turkish rule on the peninsula. Administratively, it was subordinate to the Kafa Pasha and, along with Mangup, was the seat of the qadi of the Mangup Kadylyk and the head of customs. According to E. Chelebi, the fortress lost its former strategic importance and already from the 16th century. On the territory of the fortress there were only a few houses for the Turkish garrison, and from time to time the Crimean khans, disliked by the Sultan, languished.
The first descriptions of the fortress were left to us by the ambassador of the Polish king Stefan Batory, Martin Bronevsky, who visited these places in 1578, and by the Turkish geographer Evliya Celebi - in the fall of 1665. We find a detailed description of the Cembalo fortress with its monuments in the work of Z. Arkas in “Description of the Irakli Peninsula and its antiquities" (1848). From a modern point of view, the most thorough and accurate description of the fortifications of Chembalo was compiled in 1929 by E.V. Weimarn.
The basis of the fortress ensemble of Chembalo is made up of fortifications of two defense units located one inside the other: the outer one, where the city itself was located, which received by the middle of the 15th century. name of the city of St. George (castrum St. Jori) and the internal - fortified castle - the city of St. Nicholas (castrum St. Nikolas), where the administrative part of the colony was located - the residence of the consul with service buildings.,
The only road to Cembalo led along the eastern shore of the bay, across the mouth of the Kefalo-Vrisi gorge, to a gateway in the fortress wall, flanked by two powerful initially square, then round towers. These towers, located in the most vulnerable area, were additionally reinforced with advanced defensive walls - barbicans, designed to protect the fortifications from siege weapons.
The dominant feature in the silhouette of the fortress is St. George was a round tower - a donjon, standing on the highest point of the fortress mountain. The donjon was the main stronghold of the southeastern sector of the defense and one of the last refuges of the fortress’s defenders in case the outer walls fell.
The tower has been preserved to its full height (21 m) and had three floors. The lower tier is a water storage tank. Water came here through pipes from captages on Mount Kefalo-Vrisi, located a kilometer southeast of the Chembalo fortress. The second tier was residential. On the third there was a patrol. The upper floors were divided by a wooden ceiling and illuminated through narrow loophole windows; niches were built in the walls.
At night and in bad weather, the donjon, located at a dominant height, was also used as a lighthouse. After the capture of Chembalo-Balaklava by the Turks, this tower was also used as a lighthouse. For six months of the year, from early May to early November, a 10-horn lantern burned on its site.
In the north, on the side of the bay, the city was protected by a defensive wall running along a broken line, reinforced with square towers.
On the cape itself, at the top of a rocky platform, covered by defensive walls, there was a consular castle.
Erected on the top of the second ledge of Fortress Mountain, the consular castle was a small fortress with a powerful rectangular tower more than 15 m high, located above the cliff on the south side. From the north, east and west, along the edge of the ledge, the castle was surrounded by a defensive wall with another tower on the port side. In addition, judging by the surviving building remains, the architectural ensemble of the castle also included a massaria (town hall) and guard rooms, and to the west, above the entrance to the harbor, the defensive line of the castle was closed by a church building.
Permanent archaeological research of the fortress began in 1991.
In 1998, excavations were resumed by a joint expedition of the Tauride Chersonese National Reserve and Kharkov National University.
Since 2002, a joint expedition of the Crimean branch of the Institute of Archeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Simferopol) and the State Hermitage (St. Petersburg) has been working on the monument.
Since 2004, systematic conservation work began on the fortress monuments.
CALAMITA
Another historical attraction that is part of the reserve is the Kalamita Fortress, located within the boundaries of the modern town. Inkerman at the mouth of the Chernaya River, on the Monastyrskaya Rock plateau.
The Kalamita fortress belongs to the unique monuments of the Crimean Middle Ages - the so-called “cave cities of Crimea”.
The fortress was founded in the 6th century. as a result of the regional policy of the Byzantine emperors, who built at the end of the 6th - 7th centuries. on the approaches to Chersonese, the northern outpost of the empire, a chain of fortifications in which garrisons from local Gothic-Alan tribes, allies of Byzantium, served. The construction of walls and monumental buildings was carried out under the leadership of Byzantine engineers, with the involvement of construction artels of Chersonesos, and at the expense of the local population.
The monastery rock was not chosen by chance for the construction of the fortress. It was located at an important crossroads of roads leading from the steppe part of Crimea to Chersonesos. In addition, the rock was perfectly fortified by nature itself: its southern and northern slopes, steeply falling into the Pervomaiskaya valley, constitute a natural barrier, ranging from 40 to 80 m in height.
The name “Kalamita” is known from the Genoese sea maps of the 14th - 15th centuries. In the 15th century Mangup prince Alexei restored the ancient fortress, which was supposed to protect the port of the principality of Theodoro. Probably at the same time, a cave Christian monastery was founded in the thickness of the Monastyrskaya rock.
In 1433, a clash of trade interests between Mangup and Kafa led to Alexei’s capture of the Genoese fortification of Chembalo. This was done with the support of the population of Chembalo, who rebelled against the colonists. A year later, troops under the command of Charles Lomellino, sent from Genoa, again captured Cembalo, captured Calamita, abandoned by the inhabitants, for one day and burned it. But soon the fortress was again occupied by Alexei, and Lomellino’s troops were defeated near Solkhat by the Horde. In the Kalami port there was a slave market, where the Tatars and Genoese sold captured slaves to the Turks.
In 1475, the Kalamita fortress was captured by the Turks and renamed Inkerman. At the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries. they rebuilt the defensive walls and towers, adapting them for the use of firearms.
In the seventeenth century, according to the testimony of a Turkish traveler of the seventeenth century. Evliya Celebi, there were 10 houses in the fortress, but people did not live there, “the guards locked the gates, and the commandant, together with a detachment of fifty people in the valley at the foot of this mountain, lives in the garden. In the event of any danger, all the people from the suburbs, surrounding and seaside villages arrive at the castle in order to find protection behind its walls. ...due to the fact that there are many “ins” in the rocks there, which means caves, the Tatars call this castle Inkerman.”
In the seventeenth century. There was still brisk trade through the Kalamitsky port, as is known from the message of the priest Jacob, who was in Crimea in 1634-1635. as part of the Russian embassy. He wrote that people of many nationalities live in Inkerman, and that ships from different countries come to the town from the sea.
By the middle of the 18th century. The fortress and port of Kalamita-Inkerman lost their military and commercial significance and were abandoned, but almost a hundred years later the ancient cave monastery was revived and consecrated in memory of St. Clement, Pope of Rome.
Currently, on the plateau of the Monastery Rock, six towers have been preserved, rebuilt by the Turks after the capture of the fortress; the height of the towers reached 12 m. The area of the fortress, enclosed by fortress walls, was 1500 sq.m.
All towers were connected to each other by curtains (8-10 m high, 1.2 to 4 m thick), which had a parapet with battlements. The combat passage along the top of the walls, which were not very thick, was expanded with special wooden scaffolds on which the defenders were placed. When the fortress was rebuilt by the Turks, the thickness of the first, second and fourth curtains was doubled by extensions on the outside and inside. The parapet near the walls became different; Instead of teeth, round holes were made for firing handguns. The old wall was lowered to the same level as the new inner wall, and the defenders of the fortress could now move freely along them. Only the curtain wall between the third and fifth towers was not rebuilt: this section of the defense was reliably covered by the newly built fourth tower.
In the early period, the system of defensive structures of the fortress also included the upper caves located in the southern cliff of the cape.
The Inkerman (Chernorechenskaya) valley, especially in the area of the mouth of the Chernaya River, where the Kalamita fortress is located, is rich in other historical and archaeological monuments. To the left of the ancient road leading from the valley to the fortress, 200 meters north of the fortress gate, in the cliff of a small cemetery beam, there is a cave of natural origin, which even now has an area of about 400 square meters. m. Scientists-paleontologists suggest the presence of a site of primitive Neanderthal man in it.
Monuments of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages in this area are the burial ground of the 3rd-4th centuries, known as “Inkermansky”, located 0.6 - 0.7 km. north of the fortress, a burial ground of the same period on the territory of the Sevastopol state farm, burial grounds of the first centuries AD. at the village Khmelnytsky, on the slopes of the Fedyukhin Heights and Sapun Mountain. There are also many monuments of the early and late Middle Ages recorded here: a burial ground on the western slopes of the Sugarloaf heights (IV-VII centuries), a burial ground of the V-VII centuries. on the southern slopes of the Gypsy ravine, a settlement and burial ground of the 4th-19th centuries. on the southwestern slope of the Zagaitan Heights; burial ground of Kalamita-Inkerman herself, XIV-XVIII centuries. 300-400 m north of the fortress; the remains of cave monasteries at the mouth of the Kamenolomnaya (Sovetnitskaya) gully, on the southern and southwestern cliffs of the Monastyrskaya and Zagaitanskaya heights, as well as a number of monuments on the slopes of the Zagaitanskaya rock.
According to historians, during the era of the developed Middle Ages, a monastic center began to take shape in the Inkerman Valley, like Athos, Olympia, Meteora, and the Volcanic Valley, and only Turkish expansion stopped this process. About 30 medieval cave churches and 9 monastery complexes have been identified in the rocks of Inkerman, one of which is the monastery of St. Clement - currently active.
The time of foundation of the monastery is determined by historians ambiguously: from the 8th-9th to the 14th-15th centuries, but researchers agree on one thing: individual cave churches and hermit cells of Inkerman are the most ancient among other Christian cave structures in Crimea. Church tradition connects their appearance with the exile to the Inkerman quarries in 98 of St. Clement, the third pope, ordained by the Apostle Peter himself.
The main premises of the monastery are caves, carved into the western cliff of the Monastery rock. Entrance to the monastery of St. Clement is located at the bottom of the rock (in medieval times there were at least 3 entrances with stairs); from it there is a corridor-tunnel going forward and upward, in the right wall of which windows and 2 balcony doors are cut out; in the left wall along the corridor there are a number of rooms: ossuary crypts, a passage room with a staircase leading to the upper tier, with cells and a bell tower, and three cave churches: Martinovskaya, Andreevskaya, Klimentovskaya.
After the eviction of Christians from Crimea in 1778, the monastery was abandoned. Its restoration began after the annexation of Crimea to Russia, in the middle of the 19th century, on the initiative of His Grace Innocent, Archbishop of Kherson and Tauride. The construction of the Lozovaya-Sevastopol railway in 1875, which passed through the territory of the monastery, introduced some difficulties into the quiet life of the monastery; but on the other hand, this made it easier for pilgrims to access it, especially for whom in 1891 a 2-story hotel was built at the foot of the cliff. Four years later, the semi-cave Panteleimon Temple was built in memory of the rescue of the royal family in the train accident on October 17, 1888 in Borki.
In 1905, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the defense of Sevastopol, several more ancient temples were revived in the rocks of the Inkerman Valley: the cave temple of St. Sofia was reconsecrated in the name of the icon “Joy of All Who Sorrow”; images of military units that took part in the Inkerman battle were placed inside it; on the site of another ancient cave temple, the Church of Demetrius of Thessalonica was built; On the plateau of the Monastic Rock, the majestic above-ground St. Nicholas Church was built.
After the revolutionary events of the seventeenth year, the monastery was abolished, the churches were gradually closed. In 1931, the ancient cave temples were finally closed: Klimentovsky, Martinovsky, Andreevsky.
The Inkerman Clement Monastery was revived for the third time in 1991 and is now operational.
Of course, the transition from Paestum and Sybaris to Tauride Chersonese, lost on the distant outskirts of the ancient world, may seem strange. But the ancient world with all its wonders, as a tangible reality, began for me here. And gratitude, if it is not an empty word, should extend not only to people, but also to places that open new horizons to us.
Russian Pompeii
At the end of the last century, someone called Chersonese Tauride “Russian Pompeii”. This comparison was intended to show that the ancient Greek colony in southern Russia, as an archaeological site, is comparable to the famous Roman city, covered with the ashes of Vesuvius. It is more correct, however, to talk not about the similarities of cities in archaeological terms, but about their differences. The instantaneous destruction of Pompeii, which ensured their rare preservation, represents a striking contrast to the slow agony of Chersonese and its methodical destruction over many centuries. And yet in one respect Chersonesus can be compared with Pompeii. His excavations became a school for Russian archaeological science to the same extent that the study of Pompeii and neighboring Herculaneum influenced the formation of Italian archaeology.
Life in Chersonesus ceased in the middle of the 15th century. His houses were deserted, becoming the habitat of birds and animals. The consul of the Genoese colony in Crimea, Kafa (Feodosia), in 1470 proposed to destroy the walls of Chersonesus for fear that the abandoned city would be captured and used by the Turks. Despite the previous destruction, the defensive system of Chersonesus was then still intact.
The oldest evidence of the ruins of Chersonesus belongs to the ambassador of the Polish king Stefan Batory, Martin Bronevsky. In 1578, during his journey to the south, he visited Chersonesus, abandoned, in his words, “many centuries ago.” The traveler was struck by large and high fortress walls with many towers, powerful fortress gates, a royal palace with undestroyed walls and the ruins of a plundered monastery. One can hardly think that Bronevsky exaggerated the scale of the city and its luxury. He was an educated man and could compare Chersonesos with Krakow, Torun and other fairly large cities of his homeland.
In 1783, after the annexation of Crimea to Russia, the construction of a military port and fortress Bakhtiar (in Tatar - the name of the cliff) began. Six months later, the new Russian possession received the name Sevastopol. A fortress and a city arose in a new place, but nearby there was an abandoned, defenseless Chersonesus. The report of Rear Admiral Mackenzie, who commanded the Russian squadron, says that Chersonesus was turned into a quarry. The denial of this barbarity in order to preserve the prestige of the then “conqueror of the Crimea” Potemkin and his generals has other evidence from contemporaries against it. The famous scientist, Russian academician Peter Simon Pallas, who visited Chersonese in 1794, in his book definitely indicates that the construction of Sevastopol was the reason for the destruction of Chersonese.
While examining the outskirts of Sevastopol, the observant traveler drew attention to the remains of ancient walls and foundations that covered the entire territory of the Heracles Peninsula. Quite correctly, he identified them as traces of the agricultural activities of the Chersonesos and the fortifications where they hid during the attack of the Scytho-Taurs. Pallas also showed interest in the epigraphic monuments of Chersonesus. He noted with regret that most of them were destroyed by sailors while extracting hewn stones. Pallas copied some of the inscriptions that caught his eye. Among them, the most valuable is the decree in honor of the emperor of the eastern empire Zinon (474-491), who strengthened the city walls, and the Latin inscription about his stay in Chersonesus at the end of the 3rd - beginning of the 4th centuries. Roman garrison.
At the end of the 18th century. Another famous traveler and scientist E. Clark visited the territory of Chersonesos. In his work “Travel
in various countries of Europe, Asia and Africa,” published in two volumes in 1810-1816, Clark severely condemns the Russian authorities for the deliberate destruction of the ancient city. He forgets that his countrymen were not more scrupulous in this respect, and Lord Elgin acted like a real barbarian on the Athenian acropolis. Clark's merit is that he drew up a plan of ruins on the present-day Mayachny Peninsula, attributing them to the “old Chersonese” mentioned by Strabo. The plan complemented the work of Russian military topographers of the 18th century.
Of the Russian travelers to Crimea in the first quarter of the 19th century. I.M. was distinguished by the greatest erudition. Muravyov-Apostol. This scientist, well versed in ancient literature, set out to determine the correspondence of ancient settlements and geographical names to modern ones. Along the way, he gave a description of the monuments that interested him, all the more valuable for us since many of them subsequently disappeared without a trace.
The ruins stretched from Quarantine Bay to Round Bay. But who could follow Martin Bronevsky and say: “They are worthy of surprise.” Nothing spoke of a magnificent, rich, populous city. Have we fallen into a quarry? Here and there you can see sailors armed with crowbars. Trucks creak under the weight of huge quads. The seaside walls and towers that were observed by travelers in the 18th century have long disappeared. The “abomination of desolation” reigns everywhere.
This was Tauric Chersonese in 1827. It resembled an uninhabited island, only occasionally visited by pirates. Who was the first Robinson on this piece of land? His name almost coincides with the hero of Daniel Defoe. Kruse was a lieutenant in the Russian navy. Like Muravyov-Apostol and other educated Russians of his time, he saw in the ruins of an ancient city something more than a warehouse of donated materials.
Kruse's excavations uncovered three medieval basilicas, which preserved his name in the modern archaeological plans of Chersonesos. Kruse also conducted research in the area of the so-called Strabonov Chersonese. A certain contribution to the archaeological study of Chersonesos was made by the archeology enthusiast Count Alexei Stepanovich Uvarov (1826-1884). In 1847-1848 he carried out his first explorations and excavations from the mouth of the Danube to the Taman Peninsula.
Armed with this experience, in 1853 the young scientist arrived in Chersonesos. He was attracted by two groups of monuments: burials outside the city limits, and Christian churches inside the city. Uvarov’s excavations of the Chersonesos tombs, despite the shortcomings of their scientific methods, provided the first insight into the funeral rites of the Chersonesos. The tomb he examined was a crypt hollowed out in the wall. On three sides of the small quadrangular room there were niches for bodies. A glass teardrop was placed at the heads of the dead, there were vessels at the feet, lamps on the right side, and a knife or weapon on the left. Women were decorated with beads, pendants, gold or silver rings. Sometimes bronze mirrors were placed next to them. Uvarov, naturally, was interested in the dating of the Chersonesos burials. He established it based on the coins found in them. These were coins of Roman and Byzantine emperors of the first nine centuries of the new era. No more ancient tombs were found.
In the northern part of the city, on the steep seashore, Uvarov managed to excavate a large basilica, which bears his name in archaeological literature. Along the entire length of the basilica, there were marble columns in two rows, dividing it into three parts. The middle part was paved with white marble slabs, the sides with mosaics. Some columns are immortalized with the names of citizens who donated money for their construction. One of the most interesting finds was an ancient inscription indicating the costs of constructing the Temple of Artemis. She allowed Uvarov to come to the conclusion that the Christian basilica was rebuilt from the material of a pagan temple in the 4th century. In modern science, this restructuring is dated to the 6th century.
Soon after the excavations A.S. The Uvarov territory of the Chersonese settlement turned into an arena of fierce battles between the Russian troops heroically defending Sevastopol and the advancing Anglo-French-Turkish army. In the area of the Chersonesus harbor, French sappers dug a trench and equipped platforms for batteries. Exploding shells destroyed ancient walls. Leaving Sevastopol, the British and French took with them the antiquities of Chersonesos that they liked.
In 1861, a male Orthodox monastery appeared on the territory of the settlement. The monks settled in its central part, east and northeast of the Chersonesos agora, surrounded their estate with a stone wall, built a number of services and hotels for visitors, laid out gardens, digging holes for trees right on the monuments. Russian archaeologists of that time understood the harm the construction of a monastery on its territory would bring to Chersonesos. And subsequently, when the monastery was already built, the chairman of the Moscow Archaeological Society, Countess Praskovya Sergeevna Uvarova, approached Nicholas II with a petition to move the monastery to save the ancient city. But the petition was ignored. And, moreover, the monastery leadership was entrusted with conducting excavations. This was not an innovation in world practice. Several decades earlier, Catholic “white monks” began excavating Carthage in the French colony of Algeria.
As the large Cathedral of St. Vladimir is built next to the monastery and the approaches to it are planned, the monastic excavations become more focused, and they are already led by representatives of the highest clergy. The purpose of the excavations is to find “Christian antiquities,” which were supposed to be concentrated in a “Christian museum” near the cathedral.
Since 1876, general supervision of the monastery excavations has been carried out by the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities. From the correspondence of the president of the society N. Murzakevich with the archimandrites and abbots of the monastery, as well as from other documents, it is clear that in the 70-80s. the plunder of monuments occurred on an unprecedented scale. Not only monks took part in it, but also the builders of the cathedral, soldiers of the military unit adjacent to the settlement, and simply random people who carried out pirate raids on Chersonesos. Concerned about this “flow and looting,” the monastery authorities ordered that after general prayer, before starting work, instructions on the careful handling of monuments should be read. To make it difficult for “lovers” of antiquities to access the site, it was planned to destroy the paths from the sea.
By 1881, monastery archaeologists discovered the main street leading from the Vladimir Cathedral under construction to the east, to the seashore. For the first time, a part of the city appeared with the foundations of buildings and even the pedestals of statues that had disappeared in ancient times. This increased interest in Chersonese on the part of metropolitan scientists and caused a special royal rescript on the preservation of the ruins of Christian Chersonese and the assignment of excavations to the Imperial Archaeological Commission (1887). High-ranking members of this commission visited Sevastopol as guests and auditors, while the excavations themselves were entrusted to local resident Karl Kazimirovich Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich.
Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich (1847-1907), a Mogilev nobleman of Polish origin, occupies a completely exceptional place in the history of excavations in Chersonesus. Before heading the excavations of Chersonesus, he tried many professions, including being the editor of the Sevastopol Leaflet. To some extent he can be compared with Schliemann. He was self-taught, an archaeological fanatic, and possessed of exceptional energy and persistence. But Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich did not have Schliemann’s millions and his commercial talents. The archaeological commission released very limited amounts, at the beginning of its activities - only 2 thousand rubles per year. With this money it was necessary to pay workers, watchmen, remove excavated soil, and send finds to St. Petersburg.
The monastery authorities accused Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich of the fact that, “being a person of heterodox origin,” he deliberately desecrated Christian burials.
Just as Winckelmann converted to Catholicism in order to get to Rome, Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich converted to Orthodoxy in order to continue the excavations of Chersonesos. But this changed little. Complaints from the monastery authorities about his actions continued. And they could have had unexpected consequences (the Synod that received complaints was headed by K.P. Pobedonostsev in those years), if not for the support that the archaeologist enjoyed from high-ranking members of the Imperial Archaeological Commission in St. Petersburg. They managed to convince the king that the excavations of Chersonesus were the glory of the empire and his reign. In the diary of Nicholas II we can read the words “dearest Valya...”. The king could not remember the full name of the archaeologist.
In letters to his patrons, Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich skillfully deflected the accusations of the monastery authorities and exposed their intrigues. But Petersburg was far away, and the monks were nearby. They did everything to remove Kosnyushko-Valyuzhinich from the excavations. In a moment of despair, Karl Kazimirovich wrote: “I am so devoted to the investigation of Chersonesus and, like a fanatic, I have gone so far that there is no return. For me, parting with Chersonesus is the same as parting with life.”
Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich had to not only repel the attacks of the clergy, but also conduct a heated scientific dispute with the enlightened expert on Chersonese antiquities, Alexander Lvovich Berthier-Delagarde. The latter, like Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich, was not a professional scientist, but his profession as a military engineer made his opinion on architectural monuments very authoritative. In 1886, i.e. two years before the start of Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich’s excavations, Berthier-Delagarde published a work on the ruins of ancient Chersonesus and the cave cities of Crimea. Supplemented with materials from archaeological excavations, it was republished in 1893 under the title “Antiquities of Southern Russia. Excavations of Chersonesos".
Berthier-Delagarde set out to refute the prevailing opinion about the former splendor of the ruins of Chersonesos and their barbaric destruction by the inhabitants of Sevastopol. According to the researcher, Byzantine Chersonesos, long before the construction of Sevastopol, was a miserable and wretched settlement that did not deserve the admiration with which Martin Bronevsky described its ruins. As for ancient Chersonese, it, as Berthier-Delagarde believed, was not under
a Byzantine city on the shores of Quarantine Bay, and in a completely different place - in the vicinity of Cossack Bay.
These conclusions were supported by a competent expert on ancient monuments, Academician N.P. Kondakov (1844-1925), which put Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinnch in a very difficult position. Telling the monastery authorities that he was looking for a pagan city near Christian Chersonesos, Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich did not have support from scientific authorities. True, already A.S. Uvarov found fragments of the ancient era in the basilicas of the Byzantine era. But who could guarantee that they were always in this place, and were not brought by sea from Cossack Bay during the construction of the temple? K.K. Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich could not provide convincing evidence in favor of his opinion.
This evidence appeared only in 1899. A few steps from the monastery gate, a monumental gate of the 5th century came into view. BC, and to the right and left of them are walls of magnificent masonry. No less a surprise was that in the wall near the gate there was a niche covered with a slab. When the ocher-painted clay was removed and the slab fell away, funeral urns and gold jewelry were revealed in amazing preservation.
In his letter dated March 12, 1899 to the Imperial Archaeological Commission, Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich wrote: “For many centuries, the Byzantines and Tatars who lived here trampled this place with their feet, and, finally, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, tourists and scientists who did not suspect what was under them the whole little Troy is buried with the untouched tombs of its famous citizens.”
Among those who were one of the first to see the gates and walls opened by Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich was his main rival and opponent Berthier-Delagarde. Like a true scientist, he renounced his erroneous opinion and admitted that, by the nature of the masonry, the gates and walls belong to a Greek city of the 5th-4th centuries. BC. And this meant that the city, founded by the Heracleans in the 5th century. BC, was located in the same place as the Byzantine Chersonesos (Korsun according to Russian chronicles).
Official confessions followed. The humble archaeologist immediately became a celebrity. The Archaeological Commission finally honored him with election as its corresponding member. The Tsar ordered to increase the excavation budget by 2 thousand rubles. On this occasion, a telegram came from the Archaeological Commission: “Hurray! Hooray! Hooray! Dear Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich, we rejoice endlessly at our unparalleled happiness.”
In March 1904, Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich wrote: “Why wasn’t I born a century earlier. I would fall at the feet of Great Catherine and save Chersonesos, by excavating it, from future enemies who have caused it since the Crimean campaign, and who are currently causing more harm than the Scythians and other barbarians did.”
Soon, the ancient towers and walls, cleared of soil by the archaeologist, witnessed the formidable events of the 1905 revolution. On November 15, in the roadstead east of Karantinnaya Bay, the rebel cruiser Ochakov dropped anchor. The Northern Side batteries that remained loyal to the tsarist government opened artillery fire on him. Several shells exploded near the antiquities warehouse, above the great western basilica. At one in the morning on November 17, the punitive forces led the commander of the revolutionary fleet, Lieutenant Schmidt, and his son to the garrison guardhouse under the Zeno Tower. Schmidt was limping, blood running down his face. The sailors roughly pushed the prisoner in the back. Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich witnessed this spectacle, and it shocked him.
Visitors to the Chersonesos Museum-Reserve, not far from the now restored Vladimir Cathedral, can see a modest, lonely fence. On the fragment of the column is the name of Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich. The man who gave his life to Chersonesus is buried inside the walls of the ancient city as its eminent citizen.
In the assessments of archaeologists of subsequent generations, Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich is often not the first researcher of Chersonesos, but only its discoverer. This opinion was strengthened by Karl Kazimirovich’s lack of major work on any of the problems in the history of the city he discovered. In the year of the centenary of the beginning of excavations by Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich in Chersonese, at one of the meetings of the Crimean scientific conference in September 1988, a report was made by the Saratov archaeologist Vladimir Ivanovich Kats, which changed our ideas about the discoverer of Chersonese. It turned out that Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich was a pioneer in the study of such a complex and important historical source as marks on ceramics. He was the first to identify a group of marks that belonged to Chersonesus, identifying its characteristic features. Subsequently, he compiled a list of officials who affixed these marks. The latter were used not only for dating archaeological complexes, but also as an argument in the dispute about the location of ancient Chersonesos. After the death of the researcher, his work fell into the hands of the Simferopol collector and numismatist I. Makhov and was published under his name. It took a whole century for justice to prevail, and the work of the Russian scientist was appreciated.
Already in the time of Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich, the city, occupying the cape of the Heraclean Peninsula, between Karantinnaya and Peschanaya bays, seemed like a miracle. Now there is every reason to talk about at least seven wonders of this distant but prosperous outskirts of the Greek world.
The fortification of Chersonesos is the first thing that attracts everyone entering the territory of the Chersonesos Museum-Reserve, evoking a feeling of power and majesty. For almost one and a half thousand years, in the area between Karantinnaya and Peschanaya bays, a “collection of stones” was carried out to protect the city from the barbarian periphery. Carefully hewn, they were laid in dense rows, creating a stone shell from land and sea, protecting Chersonesos from a hostile tribal world. They were the main condition for the functioning of the city. They gave its inhabitants a sense of security and confidence in the present and future. Thanks to them, it was possible to receive ships sailing from all over the ecumene, flock to public meetings, engage in agriculture and crafts, and make sacrifices to the gods of the fathers. For the Chersonesos, the walls were a subject not only of pride, but also of deification. It is not for nothing that the goddess Virgo, the patroness of the city, was depicted on the coin wearing a crown that looked like a jagged city wall.
The walls lived together with the city, transforming depending on changes in the military-political situation. Initially, when the city could only be threatened by the local Tavrians, the structure of the walls was relatively simple. With the transfer of the capital of the Scythian state to Taurida, the walls had to be rebuilt taking into account the possible use of rams by the enemy. Hostile relations with the age-old rival Bosporus arose in the 1st century. BC. further improvement of the fortification of Chersonesos. The Bosporan kings, apparently, considered the city impregnable and therefore, as legend testifies, they decided to capture it by cunning, secretly accumulating their warriors in the house of the noble Chersonesos Hippia. Having learned about this, Hippia informed the authorities about the impending attack of the enemies and saved the city.
Walls and skillful diplomacy helped little Chersonesus survive during the turbulent era of migration of peoples, when great Rome fell victim to barbarian invasions. But the external danger continued to grow. Chersonesos could not do without outside help. It was provided by Byzantium, in whose sphere of influence the city was for many years. The writings of Byzantine historians and inscriptions discovered in Chersonese testify to the participation of the Byzantines in strengthening the Chersonese walls and towers.
With the death and desolation of Chersonesos in the 14th century. The era of “throwing stones” has arrived. No, no one was jealous of the glory of the deceased city and did not seek to destroy its memory following the example of the Romans, who destroyed the hated Carthage. The destroyers of Chersonesus were guided by everyday calculation: removing ready-to-use quadra and columns was cheaper than cutting out new ones. And in this regard, the fate of Chersonesus was no exception. The Greeks treated the dead Mycenaean cities in exactly the same way, the Byzantines - with the cities of the Greeks and Romans, the Italians - with the cities of the Romans. In modern times, this sad tradition continued at least until the middle, and in some regions of the planet until the end of the last century. Cities of the living grew on the bones of the dead.
The history of the destruction of the walls and towers of Chersonesos is as poorly known as the history of their creation. One might think that the first destroyers of the city were the inhabitants of the medieval cities of Crimea - the same Greeks, Goths, Alans, Genoese, who were attracted by free building material. According to M. Bronevsky, the Turks also transported huge stones of Chersonese by sea “for their homes and public buildings.” Then, as already mentioned, Sevastopol arose dangerously close... On a smaller scale, the destruction of the walls continued later - during the construction of the monastery, batteries and military warehouses - by everyone who owned this territory permanently or temporarily. Nature also took part in the destruction of the walls. The sea, whose level has become higher over the last century, is washing away the shores. The curtains are collapsing into the waves, and now it is difficult to imagine where the walls were that protected the city from the sea.
After the “time of scattering stones,” the time has finally come to gather them again. It continues today. We are, of course, talking about the mental “collection of stones” and their virtual connection for the purpose of scientific reconstruction of the appearance of the city and its fortification at different stages of its existence. In terms of complexity and expenditure of mental energy, this work is hardly inferior to the work of the first stone collectors.
An archaeological dissection of such a long-term structure as a wall provides not a snapshot, but a series of overlapping pictures of the state of the monument in different eras. But these difficulties did not stop archaeologists, who were aware that the walls were not just the most prominent monument of the city, but also a most valuable source for studying the culture, economy, and foreign policy of Chersonesos.
K.K. For a long time, Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich was not considered a researcher of Chersonesos fortification for the same reason that he was a pioneer in the study of ceramic marks: the work he began on the history and archeology of the ancient city disappeared without a trace. After a long search for him, the director of the Chersonesos Museum-Reserve I.D. Antonova managed to find only one sheet of this work in the Leningrad archive - the cover with the title neatly written by Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich.
A draft of Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich’s work was seen by those who came to Chersonesus after the death of the scientist K.E. Grinevich, who twice asked St. Petersburg what to do with these papers. Perhaps the new director of the museum took advantage of some of the thoughts of his predecessor in the major work “Walls of Chersonese,” which was published in separate parts starting in 1926. Grinevich, during excavations in 1927, managed to identify a section of the oldest wall of Chersonese of the 4th century. BC, apparently forming one defensive line with an area discovered by excavations in the area of the ancient theater. It was covered with masonry of the western flank of the 16th curtain of the 3rd century. BC.
Since 1957, a systematic study of fortification structures has been carried out in Chersonesos, related to the need to strengthen the fortress walls and towers that have been destroyed by time. This work was carried out by S.F. Strzheletsky and I.A. Antonova. Excavations and additional research were carried out almost along the entire length of the fortress wall.
During these years, I had to visit Chersonesos almost every summer and participate, together with Voronezh students, in excavations near the 15th tower. Stanislav Frantsevich Strzheletsky often took us around the walls, sharing his thoughts on the defensive significance of each specific site. The most impressive was the flanking tower, designated in the city plan as No. XVII and also known from the inscription found in it as the “Tower of Zeno”. Over the centuries, the tower was strengthened and rebuilt, and the changes in its structure are an excellent source for studying the poorly known military history of Chersonesos.
The oldest part of the tower has a diameter of 8 m. Its outer cladding consists of well-fitted squares, laid dry, without the use of mortar. The most amazing thing is that the inner side of the cladding along the entire perimeter of the tower and its entire height is made of fragments of tombstones of the 4th-3rd centuries. BC. and architectural details.
The ancient Greeks revered the burial places of their ancestors. Desecration of tombs was considered one of the most terrible crimes. Only in case of mortal danger to the state could a tombstone be used as a building material. It is known that the Athenians, at the insistence of Themistocles, used tombs to build “long walls” that protected Athens and its port of Piraeus. This was caused by the threat from Sparta. The Chersonesites, apparently, were threatened by nomads who settled in the steppe part of Taurica. Judging by the epigraphic dates of the tombstones, Zeno's tower was built at the end of the 3rd - beginning of the 2nd century. BC, during the first Scythian invasion of Chersonesus.
Establishing the time of construction of tower No. XVII raised the question of its relationship with other parts of the defensive system. The section of the wall near the main city gate dates back, as we have already said, to the 4th century. BC. Tower No. XVII and the walls built simultaneously with it represent a new powerful defense unit. This citadel was added to the city in emergency conditions of the Scythian threat. Archaeologists presumably name the initiator of the construction of the citadel. Themistocles of Chersonesos was Agasicles, son of Ctesias. His name was preserved by an inscription, indicating that, along with other benefits for the city, he proposed a decree on a garrison and established it.
The construction of a fortress in the least protected place of the defensive system is typical of the 3rd century. BC. The Romans, when founding their colony of Coza on the lands of Etruria (III century BC), also positioned the fortress in such a way that it occupied the corner of the rectangle of the city walls. The choice of an angle adjacent to the harbor made it possible, if necessary, to send reinforcements by sea. The city could be captured by the enemy, but the fortress, which was an autonomous defense unit, had to hold out as long as Greek ships dominated the sea.
The study of masonry and the occurrence of layers allowed Inna Anatolyevna Antonova to understand that in the 4th century. BC. the towers that strengthened the walls had a rectangular outline. In the 3rd century. BC. they have a round shape, and in the first centuries of our era the towers again become rectangular. When old towers were repaired, a new stone shell was erected. This was the case with the best studied tower of Zeno.
The most complete picture of the original state of the fortress wall, untouched by later reconstructions, is given by the 13th curtain with the towers flanking it. One of them, rectangular in shape, is especially interesting because it has retained the embrasures. Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich and after him the Moscow archaeologist N.V. Pyatyshev, it was here, at a height dominating the valley, that the citadel of the city was placed. This opinion was joined by I.A. Antonov.
I often met with Inna Anatolyevna and watched how, putting on scuba gear, she searched at the bottom of Karantinnaya Bay for the remains of port structures and curtains that had collapsed into the sea. Our last conversation took place in the summer of 1988. I was interested in what prompted her, a person of a peaceful profession, to devote her life to the fortification of Chersonesos. Smiling, my interlocutor said that she was the daughter of an architect and often used her father’s books when solving mysterious questions about the construction biography of towers and curtains. In her opinion, the creators of the walls of Chersonesos skillfully used the terrain, and without taking this into account it is difficult to understand the features of individual parts of the fortification system. So, I.A. Antonova was able to establish that near Zeno’s tower there was a beam along which spring waters carried sand and small pebbles into the sea. The height of the tower was reduced, and it had to be built on.
The Greek polis consisted of a walled urban area and a rural district (chora) extending beyond them, which provided food for the townspeople. The inhabitants of the city, for the most part, owned land plots (kleri), which they cultivated, using, depending on the circumstances, the labor of slaves, dependent, non-full-fledged population (helots, pelates, penests, killirii) or impoverished free citizens.
This is the most general picture of the relationship between the urban and rural elements in the ancient era, which emerges when studying the literary and historical tradition of the polis era, especially rich in relation to such polises as Athens and Sparta, and from the colonial centers - Syracuse. But how were the relations between the urban and rural population in Tauride Chersonese, what were the size and composition of its rural district, how was the land divided on it, how was agricultural production organized at different stages of its centuries-old history? There is no data in ancient literature to answer these and other questions related to the rural district. All that we know to answer them was given by monuments of material culture and inscriptions that came into the scope of domestic science two hundred years after the founding of Sevastopol.
With the depopulation of Chersonesus in the 15th century. its rural area was not used by anyone. This has resulted in the remarkable preservation of traces of ancient agricultural activity. At the end of the 18th century, shortly after the annexation of Crimea to Russia, the plan of the Heraclean Peninsula was taken by topographer Anani Strokov. On it, the Heraclean Peninsula is presented as a network of straight lines intersecting at right angles, delimiting rectangular cleres, which face the long sides to the west. There are about four hundred of them on the plan.
Academician Pallas drew attention to these same areas during his inspection of the Heraclean Peninsula in 1794: “The whole Chersonesos (in the Greek meaning of the word “peninsula.” - A.N.), - he wrote, - is full of traces of ancient walls and ancient foundations buildings These walls seemed to be the fences of fields.”
In the summer of 1825, immediately after writing the comedy “Woe from Wit,” Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov visited Crimea. Having walked around Chersonesos, he drew attention to the remains of stone structures and identified in them the suburban premises of the ancient Chersonesos, who divided their fields into cells. In the second half of the 19th century. These buildings date back to the time of the defense of Sevastopol during the Crimean War (1854-1855).
Half a century later, the famous civic oath, found during excavations in the central square of the city, shed light on the agricultural activities of the Chersonesites. The text contains a clause: “I will not sell grain exported from the plain and export it from the plain to another place, but (only) to Chersonesos.” So, the city had a monopoly on all the grain produced on the plain. But where was this plain? Was it directly behind the defensive wall, on the plateau of the Heraclean Peninsula or in the western part of the steppe Crimea, where the ports of Chersonesos Kerkinitida and Kalos Limen (Beautiful Harbor) were located, used for exporting grain by sea or land to the lands of the Scythians?
“Plain” is also mentioned in another Chersonesos inscription from the same 3rd century. BC, in an honorable decree of the Council and the People in honor of Agasicles, son of Ctesias. In the list of his merits, after the item on the establishment of a garrison and before the item on the construction of city walls and agora, it is stated that he “demarcated the vineyards on the plain.” The inscription reveals the role of the state and its elected bodies (Agasicles served as strategist, priest, gymnasiarch and agronomist) in the distribution of land among citizens. But the question of localizing the “plain” remained unresolved. In addition, a new dilemma arose: did the demarcation of the entire “plain” or only that part of it where the vineyards were located take place under Agasicles? In other words, was there a preliminary demarcation of the land used for grain crops?
In the second half of the 20th century. An intensive study of shards with inscriptions (graffiti) discovered during excavations on the Heraclean Peninsula and Western Crimea began. They enriched the information about economic activity in these territories, showing what was produced there and which gods the plowmen and winegrowers counted on when cultivating the lands of Chersonesos. These inscriptions also helped to study the system of weights and measures of Chersonese and, to a certain extent, by the names of astynomoi, the chosen persons responsible for the correctness of weights and measures, to understand in relation to Chersonese the consequences of the widespread barbarization of the ancient cities of ancient Crimea.
In parallel with the study of epigraphic material, an archaeological study of the Chersonese chora was carried out. For the first time, living quarters and buildings of economic importance were identified in the ruins of the Heraclean Peninsula, traces of irrigation and land reclamation were studied, and the directions of ancient roads were traced. In 1914-1924. Lavrenty Alekseevich Moiseev, Ilya Nikolaevich Borozdin and Konstantin Eduardovich Grinevich dug here. In addition to further clarifying the size of the cleres, the researchers' task was to determine the time of the emergence of agricultural estates on the Heraclean Peninsula.
The distribution of clairs near Kamyshovaya and Kruglaya bays of the Heraclean Peninsula was studied by S.F. Strzheletsky. There were 33 claires here, the largest of which reached 60 hectares. Small estates (3.8 hectares) were discovered even earlier on the Mayachny Peninsula. Thus, it became clear that Strokov’s plan was too schematic and did not reflect the picture of land distribution on the Heraclean Peninsula.
Especially carefully S.F. Strzheletsky studied the clair on the coast, near Round Bay. He found that out of 30.5 hectares of its total area, 12.5 hectares were occupied by grapes, 4 by fruit trees, 1 hectares by utility plots, and 12 hectares were used for other purposes, i.e., possibly for grain crops. culture. The presence of plots of identical shape and size led the researcher to the idea that the Chersonesos used a two-field farming system.
Strzheletsky extended the data obtained during excavations of one, as he considered, typical site, to the entire choir. Based on the fact that the Roman agronomist Cato the Elder (2nd century BC) considered an estate of the same size (about 30 hectares) ideal, Strzheletsky considered it possible to extend data on slave labor in Italy of the 2nd century to the Chersonesos agricultural territory. BC.
An employee of the museum-reserve, Pishna Mikhailovna Nikolaenko, came to the conclusion that it was illegal to identify agrarian relations on the outskirts of the ancient world with the Greek classics based on the material of twelve estates and thirty plots of the Heraclean Peninsula that she excavated. She found no traces of the large-scale use of slave labor by the Chersonesos and its consequence - the massive export of wine for sale. Postulated by S.F. Strzheletsky, the huge figure of wine produced on the Heraclean Peninsula, supposedly exceeding the output of wine from the territory of the entire modern Crimea, is, according to the researcher, incredible. The containers and sharp-bottomed amphorae made locally would not be enough to export it. The basis of the economy of Chersonesos was not only viticulture, but also arable farming. At least half of the state-controlled land was used for grain crops. Seasonal workers took part in the harvesting - the same Tauris who lived in the neighborhood, of whom obvious archaeological traces have been preserved.
How do you understand the words of the inscription in honor of Agasicles about the redistribution on the plain of vineyards? - I asked G.M. Nikolaenko during our last conversation in the summer of 1988.
And my interlocutor outlined her concept of the redistribution of land on the Heraclean Peninsula, which removes many controversial issues of organizing the agricultural territory. The allotment received by a citizen of Chersonesos included plots of land of varying quality; Thus, one can imagine that land suitable for vineyards was divided, as well as, for example, land that could be used for grazing livestock and storing fuel. This is how justice was observed. Viticulture occupied second place in the economy after arable farming. But the grapes were not used entirely to make wine. According to archaeological data, raisins were made from it. He, undoubtedly, also went to the production of grape honey, which replaced sugar for the Chersonesites.
With such an organization of the agricultural territory, the number of plots exceeded the number of estates. Not every clerk had an estate. Estates differed in types: 1. Tower house; 2. Estate - industrial complex; 3. Estate-dwelling; 4. The estate is a fortified settlement. The choice of one type of estate or another was determined by the characteristics of the area or other circumstances. Thus, on the Mayachny Peninsula, unfortified estates predominated, since this peninsula is reliably protected from land by a powerful wall with six towers. Tower houses and estates - fortified settlements were located on the open part of the Heraclean Peninsula and could be considered as additional nodes of the defense of Chersonesos. Therefore, the long-standing assumption that the state took part in strengthening estates that combined economic functions with military ones is quite plausible.
The ability to test scientific assumptions experimentally has long been considered the prerogative of the exact sciences. Therefore, archeology, to some extent, can be classified as an exact science. This became clear to me when I became acquainted with the articles of Galina Mikhailovna Nikolaenko on the system of weights and measures of ancient Chersonesos. They are replete with the formulas she derived for ceramic containers. From now on, the volume of agricultural production can be judged by accurate calculations. But Galina Mikhailovna went further and used the experiment to study the agricultural activities of the Chersonesos. Under an agreement with the wine-making state farm named after S. Perovskaya G.M. Nikolaenko in 1979 carried out an experiment in growing grapes using a method discovered during excavations of vineyards on the Heracles Peninsula. Between two trenches on a strip about seven meters wide, stones extracted from the ground were stacked to form plantation walls. The grape bushes were planted in the ground exactly at the same distance as the winegrowers of Chersonesus did. The grape harvest in the experimental plot turned out to be much richer than usual in this area.
The scientific literature has repeatedly raised the question of the role of the Greek colonization of Taurica in terms of the development of agricultural production. Old researchers, relying on ancient descriptions of the Tauri as robbers who attacked ships and sacrificed captured foreigners to their bloody goddess, saw in the local population savages who were not familiar with cultivating fields and viticulture, and the introduction of cultivated agriculture was attributed to the Greeks.
Archeology has also refuted this myth. At the Taurus settlement of Uch-bash near Inkerman in the layer of the X-VIII centuries. BC, among the charred grains of wheat, barley and peas, two seeds of cultivated grapes were found. Chersonesites on the Heraclean Peninsula began to grow local dwarf wheat, the charred grains of which were discovered during excavations of klers. As for grapes, the Greeks selected local varieties. It is unlikely that wine made from grapes grown on the Heracles Peninsula could compete with the famous Greek wines such as Chios. Findings of imported wine amphorae show that expensive wine was imported from Greece as a luxury item. But the Chersonesos had enough of their own grapes for their own consumption and for export to the cities of the Northern Black Sea region, where the grapes did not ripen, as well as to the lands of the Scythians, who had a reputation as drunkards who drank undiluted wine.
With the growth of the city and the increase in its population, the land in the territory closest to the city became scarce, and Chersonesos began to develop land on the Tarkhankut Peninsula, which was used by the Ionian polis of Kerkenitis. By the middle of the 4th century. BC, unable to withstand the onslaught of its powerful neighbor, Kerkenitida lost its independence, and new agricultural estates and fortresses appeared on the newly acquired lands (near modern Evpatoria). As a result, the agricultural area of Chersonesos more than tripled.
The Greek colonies had their own chroniclers who collected information about their foundation and the main moments of history; they have not been preserved everywhere. Chersonesus was no exception in this regard. We know only from the inscription about the existence of Siriscus, the son of Heraklion, “who laboriously described the apparitions of the Virgin” (i.e., he set forth facts that, in general opinion, indicate the special patronage of this deity for Chersonese). “And he spoke about the relationship with the kings of the Bosporus and explored the former friendly relations with the cities according to the dignity of the people.”
Marble slab with an inscription from Chersonesos.
“With good happiness. Theogenes, son of Diogenes, being an agoranomist, set up a fish market at his own expense under the priest Dionysius, son of Philadelphus.”
The historical work of Siriska disappeared without a trace, just as everything written in style on papyrus or parchment disappeared in Chersonesos. The scribbled wooden boards that were on display for all to see have decayed. Together with bronze statues, descendants indifferent to the past melted down bronze tables with the most valuable state acts. Only what was carved with a chisel or painted on the stones was preserved. And the history of Chersonese Tauride is based on them.
The accumulation of inscriptions from Chersonesos began at the end of the 18th century. the first Russian travelers. Several inscriptions that caught my eye were copied and preserved for history by Academician Pallas. At the beginning of the 19th century. copies of the Greek and Latin inscriptions of Chersonesus were taken by P.I. Sumarokov and P.I. Köppen. Especially many valuable epigraphic finds were brought in the 1870s. digging a pit for the foundation of the Vladimir Cathedral on the site of the Chersonesos agora.
In the second edition of the Corpus of Greek Inscriptions of the Northern Black Sea Region, compiled and masterfully published in 1916 by Academician Vasily Vasilyevich Latyshev, there were 395 Chersonese inscriptions on stone. Among them was the famous oath. By accepting it, the Chersonesos swore to protect democracy and defend their city from enemies:
“I swear by Zeus, Gaia, Helios, the Virgin, the Olympian gods and goddesses and the heroes who own the city and the lands and fortifications of the Chersonesites, I will be in thoughts with everyone in everything that relates to the freedom of the state and citizens...”
Over the century that has passed since this publication, the number of inscriptions found in Chersonesos has almost doubled. But progress in epigraphy, as well as in other areas of knowledge and life, is least of all determined by quantitative indicators. On the one hand, none of the newly found inscriptions is comparable in terms of the wealth of historical information with the famous Chersonesos oath or with the decree in honor of Diophantus. On the other hand, epigraphic science itself has not stood still all this time. Taking advantage of her achievements, representatives of the new generation of epigraphists were able to answer many questions that puzzled V.V. Latyshev and other great Russian epigraphists of the late 19th century. - first half of the 20th century.
The founder of ancient epigraphy in Russia was Professor of St. Petersburg University Fedor Fedorovich Sokolov. From his school came such major researchers of inscriptions as A.V. Nikitsky, N.I. Novosadsky, V.V. Latyshev, S.I. Zhebelev, I.I. Tolstoy. One can imagine the surprise of any of these venerable academicians and professors if he learned that a woman would take the baton in the study of the inscriptions of Crimea. But Gladstone and Disraeli would have experienced no less a shock if they had been told that a lady would become Prime Minister of Great Britain. Feminization affected politics, science, and literature. This is a symbol of time.
It turned out to be quite natural that the inscriptions of Chersonesus fell into the graceful female hands of Ella Isaakovna Solomonik. After all, she, a graduate of Leningrad University, attended the reports of S.I. Zhebelev and lectures by I.I. Tolstoy, a student of their student - the prominent Soviet scholar of antiquity S.Ya. Lurie. Among the circumstances that were especially favorable for the study of the inscriptions of Chersonesus was that E.I. Solomonik studied all the inscriptions in kind, and not from prints, as St. Petersburg resident V.V. often had to do. Latyshev. She held them in her hands in the literal sense of the word, and not just held them, but turned them, examined them in different lighting, applied one inscription to another, and even poured water on them so that the colored letters appeared more clearly.
In her Chersonesos “residence”, the basement where the fragments of inscriptions were collected, she was a real queen who captured the imagination of every specialist, not to mention those who knew about the work of the epigraphist in literature. Isn’t it amazing that two fragments with inscriptions found in different places, so little similar in appearance (one of them was on fire and covered with reddish burn spots, and the other with a grayish coating), folded together and formed into one inscription, of course, immeasurably more valuable than the previously published two. In another case, E.I. Solomonik combined four fragments of the Roman decree into one text.
How was this done? Let us give the floor to the researcher: “Only after repeated and comprehensive examination of individual inscriptions, when their font is imprinted in the memory, like the handwriting of familiar people, is it possible to compose a slab from three or even four separate fragments, recreating a once destroyed monument.”
Sometimes inscriptions found during long-standing excavations gather dust on shelves for decades, awaiting their discovery. So, I waited for E.I. Solomonik is a fragment of a marble slab found in Chersonesos back in 1910 and somehow turned out to be unpublished. At the first glance at the inscription, which covered the entire smooth surface of the uneven fragment, she had a feeling of familiarity with the style of writing. And it did not deceive! It turned out that the newly discovered text was carved by the same scribe who was entrusted with perpetuating the merits of the Pontic commander Diophantus and another unknown person who liberated the Chersonese fortress of the Beautiful Harbor from the Scythians.
One can imagine the impatience of the epigraphist who began reading the new inscription. After all, it is capable of adding new facts or episodes to the history of the war, which was waged on behalf of the young king Mithridates Eupator, the future famous enemy of Rome, by its commander Diophantus. In a fragment read by E.I. The Solomonic inscription reported that someone (his name has not been preserved) provided assistance to the city by restoring some buildings at his own expense, thereby ensuring the safety of the people. It was further indicated that this person, at his own expense, opposed the Napit fortress. It is clear that the Scythian fortress was located in the steppe part of the Crimea, where, according to literary sources, there were three Scythian fortresses - Palakiy, Khabaei and Naples. Consequently, there was a fourth fortress - Napit, the location of which is still unknown. Confirmation of the existence of a fortress with this name is the mention of the Scythian tribe of Napites (or Napeev, Napov). Thus, it turned out that these drinks did not live somewhere in deep Scythia, but in the steppe Taurica, where in the 2nd century. BC. the capital of the Scythian kingdom moved.
“Each inscription,” explains E.I. Solomonik, is a kind of exam for a scientist: she asks the most unexpected questions and touches on various areas of economic, political and cultural life.” A historian by education and vocation, Ella Isaakovna was far from the history of medicine and never thought that she would have to study it.
It all started with a poetic epitaph from Chersonesos at the end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd centuries. BC, extracted in 1969 from the defensive wall of Chersonesus. The inscription, carved in small, clear letters and outlined in red paint, read:
He erected his son Leskhanorid for his deceased
This tomb is owned by the father, a physician from Tenedos, Eucles.
On the same slab, an elderly man and a young man were painted in red and black ocher, with medical instruments above them. It became clear that the drawings complement the inscription and the point is that Leskhanorid, like his father, was a doctor who practiced in Chersonesos. “But why,” Ella Isaakovna wondered, “does Eucles call Tenedos, a small island famous only for its proximity to Troy?”
The study of the Tenedos inscriptions has not yielded any information that sheds light on the stele of Leschanoridas. But after a long search, we managed to find a published inscription from Cyprus of a certain Fed, called “the most skillful physician of Hellas.” He also turned out to be from Tenedos. “Obviously,” concluded E.I. Solomonik, - on Tenedos there was a hitherto unknown center of medicine, which may have been revived after the decline of the Knidos and Kos schools, which flourished in the 5th-4th centuries. BC.". I had to E.I. Solomonik also studied the images of medical instruments on the steles of Chersonesus. The surgical knife (scalpel), forceps, and spatula were beyond doubt. The ointment was applied last. But what purpose did the jar have? Maybe this is a container for taking medicine? And this assumption was rejected. It was possible to establish that this is a jar for relieving pneumonia or for sucking blood. A burning wick was inserted into it for a moment, after which it was applied to the patient’s body in the place where a small incision was made. So in ancient times, before the discovery of the beneficial properties of leeches, high blood pressure was reduced.
From the 1st century Chersonesos, which was experiencing an economic boom, became the main stronghold of the Roman Empire on its northern, worst-protected borders. Few in comparison with Greek, Latin inscriptions provide valuable information about the military-political situation in Taurica and the life of the Roman garrison located in Chersonesus. The epitaphs indicate the names of the Roman soldiers buried in Chersonesus, the names of the legions and units in which they served. So we learn that at different times the garrison of Chersonese was made up of parts of the V Macedonian, I Italian and XI Claudius legions.
From the dedications it became known that Chersonesus was defended from the sea by the ships of the Moesian Flavian fleet. I witnessed Ella Isaakovna’s work on one of these inscriptions. It was in such poor condition that at first glance one could hardly detect traces of individual letters. Peering into the surface of the stone hour after hour, the researcher revealed a coherent and very interesting text: “Gaius Valerius Valens, a sailor of the Moesian Flavian fleet from the Liburne “Strela,” erected an altar to Jupiter the Best, the Greatest.” So we learn that the coast guard included fast ships of the Liburn type (these ships were named after the Liburn tribe,
engaged in piracy on the Adriatic Sea) and that one of them bore the name “Arrow” (other names of ancient warships known to us came from the names of the gods). This dedication is reminiscent of military rapport in style.
The life of the ancient inhabitants of Chersonesos is evidenced not only by the remains of fortifications, dwellings, and outbuildings, but also by burials. According to excavations of the oldest northern necropolis of the late 5th century. - beginning of the 4th century BC. P.D. Belov managed to find out that half of all those buried belonged not to Dorian settlers from Heraclea, but to the local population, which was included in the number of inhabitants of the founded colony. Even more important as funerary monuments are the steles made from the same yellow limestone that served as the material for the buildings. These are high vertical slabs up to 170 cm high, from 28 to 40 cm wide, 12-22 cm thick. On their front edge, the name of the deceased was carved or written - in the latter case, with the name of the father or father and husband. Below the inscription, sculptural rosettes were carved on many steles: two on the front side, one on the sides. Symbols indicating the gender, age and social status of the deceased were also depicted. Thus, a sword in a sheath, sometimes with a baldric, depicted on a funeral stele meant that the deceased was a warrior and defender of Chersonesus. On some steles there are images of strigil scrapers and aryballos - vessels with a narrow neck for storing olive oil. Strigils and aryballas were used by ephebes, young men of pre-conscription age who were undergoing military sports training. On a few steles you can see an image of a cleaver, a tool of a winegrower, with the help of which dried vines were removed. On one stele with the name of Dionysius, son of Pantignothus, written in Greek, medical instruments are painted: a scalpel, forceps, a spatula for applying ointments and a blood-sucking jar. Dionysius was a doctor. The women's steles depict mourning ribbons tied in a knot and an incense bottle.
The steles also differ in architectural design. There are four types of architectural decoration: 1) stele with pediment; 2) stele with acroteria; 3) stele with antefixes; 4) stele ending with a cornice. All these decorations reflect the idea of the temple: the burial was thought of as a cult place, dedicated to the gods and protected by them. But the use of steles to strengthen the city wall in emergency circumstances, especially if it was sanctioned by the popular assembly, was not considered sacrilege. After all, the walls were the shrine of the city!
In addition to the information contained in the images on funeral steles, the names themselves say a lot. Some of them indicate the metropolis of Chersonesus, Heraclea Pontica, located on the southern coast of the Pontus Euxine, since they are found elsewhere in another city. Along with Dorian Greek names, there are names of non-Greek origin: Iranian, Paphlagonian, Phrygian, Thracian. This made it possible to raise the question of the ethnic composition of the population of Chersonesos. The presence of Iranian, Paphlagonian, and Phrygian names can be explained by the fact that the first settlers from Heraclea included not only Hellenes, but also “barbarians” who adopted Hellenic customs and culture. The Thracian names most likely belonged to settlers from the western bank of the Pontus Euxine, with which the Chersonesites maintained close ties for many centuries.
Studying the inscriptions of Chersonesos, E.I. Solomonik drew attention to two steles, made by the hand of one master, with the names of Gero and Hermodorus. The girl and the boy, who belonged to different families, were buried nearby and at the same time. All this gave the researcher the idea of some kind of love tragedy that cut short the lives of Hero and Hermodorus, similar to the one that inspired Shakespeare to create Romeo and Juliet.
One of the extraordinary steles, made of marble, contains a poetic epitaph revealing the personality of the deceased young man:
Wanderer, I hide with myself young Xanth, who
Was the consolation of the father, the sweet beauty of the homeland,
Well versed in the mysteries of the muses, impeccable in the company of fellow citizens,
Honored among all young men, a bright star of beauty.
In the battle for his homeland, he was destroyed by Ares, who was envious.
As we see, Xanth, who died in battle for his homeland, was not only a warrior, but also a poet. Is this why he was awarded a poetic epitaph?
Among the funerary steles of Chersonesos there is a fragment of stone with a picturesque image of a young man. None of the magnificent Etruscan or southern Italian funerary monuments preserved a portrait of the deceased similar to that of Chersonesos. An amazing feeling comes over you when you find yourself face to face with him. There is something in the turn of the head, the expression of the eyes, the outline of the lips that you cannot immediately find a definition for. Perhaps this is explained by some features of the appearance of the Greeks that could not be conveyed by sculptural images. Or is it an unknown creative manner, with all its meagerness of artistic means, distinguished by rare expressiveness?
Before this discovery, another picturesque image on a stone from Chersonesus was known - the tombstone of Aptha, the wife of Athenaeus, from the middle of the 4th century. BC. Apfa is presented in long dark clothes, with a hood pulled over her head. She sadly looks at the child reaching out to her, saying goodbye to him. The painting is now lost, and we can only judge it from the surviving copy.
Both steles were painted using the encaustic technique characteristic of antiquity. Ancient authors gave enthusiastic descriptions of paintings created with wax paints, truthfully conveying nature, showing drops of dew on flowers, dark figs cracked from ripeness, and the natural blush of apples. The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, who gave a brief description of the artists’ work with encaustic painting, wrote: “It is not damaged by either the sun or the wind.”
We can add to this: not by time. This was first proven by the paintings of the deceased on wooden boards found at the end of the last century in Fayum (Egypt), which went down in art history under the name “Fayum portraits.” They date back to the existence of Egypt as a Roman province (2nd-3rd centuries AD) and, therefore, date back almost two thousand years. However, research has shown that the encaustic technique was known to the Egyptians already in the 3rd millennium BC. It was used in the painting of ancient Egyptian tombs.
But isn’t the reason for the amazing longevity of encaustic painting the dry climate of Egypt, in whose soil even fragile sheets of papyrus are preserved for thousands of years? Findings of encaustic paintings on stone in Chersonesos, as well as in Kerch, which arose on the site of the capital of the Bosporan kingdom of Panticapaeum, convincingly showed that the problem was not the Egyptian climate, but the amazing durability of wax paints.
When they say about someone that “he gave his life to the theater,” it is implied that we are talking about an actor or director. Meanwhile, these words are also applicable to a person of a non-stage profession, for example an archaeologist, if he managed to open a theater by removing the rubble that had accumulated for centuries in the voids of an ancient theater structure, revealing it in the layers of different eras and construction periods.
All this was accomplished by the Crimean archaeologist Oleg Ivanovich Dombrovsky, who raised the Chersonesos theater, the existence of which one could only guess, into daylight. Many major discoveries happen completely unexpectedly. Clearing the rubble that formed during the years of the fascist occupation of Sevastopol on the floor of the Christian “temple with the ark,” Dombrovsky pursued the goal of returning the medieval monument to the state in which it was under its discoverer Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich. Since his time it was considered indisputable that this temple stood right on the rock. During clearing in 1954, a small stone mound was discovered under the floor, which vaguely reminded the archaeologist of a bench in an ancient theater. Having shared this idea with a museum employee working nearby, Dombrovsky forgot about it. But the next morning the archaeologist had to accept congratulations from a group of museum workers on the discovery of the long-awaited theater.
Also in 1954, the remains of three concentric stepped cuts made in the rock mass were discovered. At the edge of the lower clearing, a barrier made of rubble was found that separated the spectators from the arena. “So this is an amphitheater,” thought Dombrovsky. He remembered the relief depicting gladiators and vividly imagined how spectators from the benches he had excavated watched the bloody spectacle. “Probably, the first rows were occupied by soldiers of the Roman garrison stationed in Chersonesos. Service on the distant outskirts of the Roman Empire should have been considered even by people from the Danube provinces, not to mention the native Romans (the names of both were preserved in inscriptions), as a punishment, as an exile. To raise the morale of warriors cut off from their homeland, the city created an entire corporation of priestesses of Venus Public and, by a special decree that has come down to us, defined the responsibilities of the owners of lupanars and their visitors. The soldiers had little bread and love (or rather, its surrogate). They were hungry for spectacle. And the city fathers had to fork out money to create an amphitheater.
“Or maybe the expenses were small,” the archaeologist thought. “Was the amphitheater rebuilt from a previously existing theater?”
Taking into account his previous experience, he did not share this idea with anyone, but he carried out excavations with even greater care, hoping that under the amphitheater of Roman times he would be able to discover some of the elements of the classical Greek theater.
And the miracle happened! During the excavations the following year, the stones of the parod, the passage to the orchestra, and behind it the orchestra itself, began to emerge from the ground. And it was already possible, giving free rein to the imagination, to imagine the solemn exit of the choir of elders from Sophocles’ tragedy “Antigone”:
There are many great forces in the world,
But stronger than man
There is nothing in nature.
He rushes invincible
On the waves of the gray sea,
Through the roaring hurricane...
He conquers the evil disease,
And he foresees the future
A wise man...
I don’t know whether these exact words arose in Oleg Ivanovich’s memory. Or did he imagine the beginning of the tragedy “Iphigenia in Tauris,” which was supposed to be closest to the Chersonesites? But Sophocles’s hymn to man is most consonant with Dombrovsky’s discovery. After all, the return from oblivion of monuments of the past, undoubtedly, is one of the acts that testify to the power of the human mind, not only foreseeing the future, but also penetrating into the irretrievably gone past.
Excavations continued. It was possible to identify the base of the proscenium, a platform rising above the orchestra (in a modern theater - a front stage). The façade of the proscenium, facing the audience, consisted of a row of three-quarter columns of the Doric order, and in the corners there were massive rectangular pillars. Only a few fragments of these columns and pillars have survived. Maybe the Turks took everything else to Sinope? Or did the builders of the Christian temple burn the fragments of the entablature into lime? But there were depressions left in the stone from them. The capitals of columns and pillars found here supported the plane of the platform, proscenium and skene.
Transporting me, as if in a time machine, to the theater of Chersonesus in the 4th-3rd centuries. BC. from August 1988, Oleg Ivanovich walked sideways along the base of the proscenium and said: “If I were a director, I would cast the actors like this. From the middle part of the theater they would have been seen in profile.” These words gave me the basis to build the image of the discoverer of the ancient Crimean theater. Someone called archaeologists “grave diggers”, “collectors of unnecessary things”, “scientific crackers”. But I myself have always been sure that imagination is the faithful companion of a real scientist, no matter what kind of science he does. Imagination is what distinguishes Faust from the Wagners, the creator of flying machines from the Morlocks of H.G. Wells, who can only disassemble and lubricate what others have created. And archeology is driven not by “cogs”, but by creative minds, people who combine Schliemann’s imagination with Evans’ methodicality.
The first excavation campaign for the theater was followed by a second (1964-1971). After a long and persistent search for O.I. Dombrowski managed to open the right-wing people of the theater and thereby completely determine its layout. At the same time, it was necessary to find out the time of its construction and destruction, and establish connections with neighboring public buildings.
Along with archaeological materials, the dates provided by inscriptions and epigraphic documentation contribute to elucidating the chronology of ancient monuments. The inscriptions discovered during excavations, read and published by E.I. Solomonik, fully confirmed the assumption of O.I. Dombrovsky about the Greek theater, which during perestroika in the 1st century combined. AD contains the functions of an amphitheater. The inscriptions best documented the history of the complex. During the excavations O.I. Dombrowski, two small altars with Greek and Latin inscriptions dedicated to the goddess Nemesis were discovered. The font and language of the inscriptions made it possible to date them to the middle of the 2nd century. AD At this time, Nemesis, considered in the classical era as the goddess of retribution, acquired the role of the goddess of fair fate in any competition. She became a favorite of actors and athletes, gladiators and warriors, and her altars are found during excavations of Roman theaters, amphitheaters, Roman legion camps, and Roman road posts.
The illuminator of the altar of Nemesis with the Latin inscription turned out to be Titus Flavius Celsinus, a warrior of the XI Claudian Legion stationed in Chersonesus. He, undoubtedly, was a regular visitor to the Chersonesos amphitheater and, probably, a great fan of gladiator fights or baiting of animals. However, it remains unclear what prompted Flavius Celsinus to erect an altar to “Nemesis the Guardian...” for “the salvation of himself and his children according to a vow.”
After the opening of the theater and the establishment of the time of its combination with the amphitheater, an old find in Chersonesus became clear - a marble slab depicting the final episode of a gladiator fight. An athletically built man is preparing to deliver a fatal blow to an equally naked, defeated opponent. The fight between gladiators can also be seen at the bottom of a clay lamp from Chersonesos.
From the time the theater existed in the city, a fragment of a marble slab with a partially preserved image of a woman and the inscription “Harmony” has reached us. This monument, found near the theater, dates back to the mid-3rd century. BC. He was obviously part of the multi-figure frieze that decorated the theater. The name Harmony was a common noun to denote proportionality in art. She was considered the educator of a comprehensively educated person. Her place was where theatrical action took place, where poets, musicians, and athletes competed in their art.
New discoveries allowed O.I. Dombrovsky dates the reconstruction of the Chersonesos theater to the time of Emperor Nero (54-68), who loved to perform in front of audiences as an actor. During his reign, passion for theatrical performances was a manifestation of loyal feelings. Under Nero, as the researcher established, the first three rows of auditorium seats were destroyed and the proscenium was moved, which made it possible to enlarge the orchestra, making it suitable for gladiator battles and baiting of animals; at the same time the back rows were added. The theater, combined with an amphitheater, could now accommodate up to three thousand spectators, occupying six sectors. The sectors were separated by descending staircases, the middle of which was slightly wider than the others.
In the area of the Chersonesos theater, during excavations, outstanding epigraphic finds were always made, shedding light on the history of this territory. In addition to the above-mentioned altars of Nemesis and the slab with the name of Harmony, a marble slab with a list of literary and musical competitions of the authors of comedies, hymns of praise and epigrams, as well as heralds and trumpeters should be mentioned. These competitions also took place in the theater, since the city did not have a special room (odeon) for this.
1988 did not bring new epigraphic finds in this area. But their absence is compensated by the discovery of two reliefs. On one of them, marble, only the lower part of the animal’s paw with claws has been preserved. A griffin, a mythical monster with a lion's body and an eagle's head, is easily recognizable by its claws. This is not the first discovery of an image of a griffin in Chersonesus: a statue of a griffin is known. The popularity of the griffin in the northern city requires explanation. According to Greek legend, griffins lived in the country of the northern people of the Hyperboreans, where they guarded the gold of Zeus from the one-eyed Arimaspian tribe. It is possible that the Chersonesos, the inhabitants of the extreme Greek north, to some extent felt themselves to be Hyperboreans, and identified their neighbors and opponents, the Tauri and Scythians, with the Arimaspians, instinctively perceiving the fairy-tale griffin as a kind of ally in protecting treasures and Hellenic culture.
On another relief, carved from tuff, two human figures are visible. At first glance, both of them appear to be female due to their clothes. But O.I. Dombrowski drew my attention to the fact that the figure depicted on the left is armed and her head is covered with a helmet. In terms of physique, he is a young man, which gave the researcher reason to see Achilles in him and interpret the relief as an episode associated with the myth of the Amazons and their leader Penthesilea, who died under Troy (the second of the relief figures was defeated). The women's clothes in which the hero is dressed, according to O.I. Dombrovsky, are reminded of the cunning of his mother, the sea goddess Thetis, who dressed her son in women's clothing and hid him among the royal daughters on one of the islands of the Aegean Sea so that he would not be involved in the campaign against Troy, where he was destined to die. However, the heroes Odysseus and Diomedes, who arrived under the guise of merchants, placed weapons and armor among the decorations intended for the princesses, to which, hearing the ringing of weapons and military cries outside the palace walls, the disguised young man rushed.
The question arises: why did this relief, which is not directly related to the theater, end up on its territory? An archaeological study of the theater areas in Balkan Greece has revealed many miniature works of art, which, based on the inscriptions on them, are identified as dedications of the winners of the competitions to the gods. Based on the nature of the image (the motif of dressing), the found relief could have been a gift to Dionysus or another god who patronizes the agons. The image of a griffin could have the same purpose.
Anyone who can visit the excavations of the Chersonesos theater will see an amazing sight: the medieval Christian basilica, like a winner, stepped with its foundation and walls on part of the audience seats and orchestra of the ancient theater. This arrangement of monuments from two eras seems to most clearly express the meaning of the ideological changes that took place during the years of the construction of the Christian temple. Initially, Christians saw the theater, which was considered a “school for adults” in the ancient world, as a demonic play. Hostility towards the theater and, in particular, towards the amphitheater (which the theater of Chersonese became in Roman times) was also fueled by the fact that it was in this kind of entertainment facilities that public executions of Christians took place. Therefore, the choice of the site of the theater, banned by the Christian emperors of Rome, for the construction of the basilica is understandable. Where previously one could hear the clanking of swords and the enthusiastic roar of the crowd enjoying the torment of mortally wounded gladiators or the groans of victims tormented by predators, Christian chants began to sound in honor of the Christian martyrs.
One spectacle replaced another. But it turned out to not last forever. Standing at the edge of the orchestra, I heard the actor’s voice muffled by the stone blocks. A hundred meters from here, under the tower of Zeno, a production of J. Anouilh’s play “The Lark. The feat of Joan of Arc." The theater is dead... Long live the theater!
Among the wonders of Chersonese Tauride, like any ancient Greek city, the first place should have been given to temples. Moreover, one of these temples, the sanctuary of the Virgin on Cape Parthenius, already attracted the attention of poets and historians in ancient times. Herodotus, Euripides, Diodorus Siculus, Ovid and Strabo wrote enthusiastically about him. There are no traces left of this temple. And there is not even an exact localization of Cape Parthenius, where it was located. It is usually identified with a steep rock, on which in the 9th century. St. George's Monastery was built.
Pushkin, who visited this place and examined the St. George Monastery, wrote:
Why cold doubts?
I believe: there was a formidable temple here,
Where is the blood thirsty gods
The sacrifices were smoking.
The Temple of the Virgin was located outside the city limits, a hundred furlongs from Chersonesus. Not a single ancient author reported on temples in Chersonesus itself. But dedications to the gods on altars and vessels, as well as other inscriptions, suggest that there were also temples of Zeus, Aphrodite, Athena, Asclepius and other gods in Chersonesos. We can imagine that these buildings dominated the rest of the dwellings uncovered during archaeological excavations. But none of them survived. Most of the architectural decor of ancient temples is scattered throughout the settlement. They are found in ancient pavements and city walls, often broken into pieces, disfigured beyond recognition.
It is not possible to construct at least one temple from these fragments and even determine which of the temples they belong to in Chersonesos. We know of only one attempt to reconstruct a temple of the Ionian order in Chersonesos, carried out by I.R. Pichikyan. Therefore, as a rule, we have to talk not about temples as complexes, but separately about their architectural and sculptural details. We will focus on statues, as the most prominent and expressive monuments, and also the best studied.
The Chersonesites, like other Greek settlers of Taurica, did not have their own marble. It had to be delivered by ship from the Aegean. But the high cost of marble did not stop them from paying honor to the gods. And if there are few marble statues, this is explained by the value of the material, which attracted subsequent generations.
Noteworthy is the magnificent marble head of the Asia Minor goddess Cybele, found in the central part of the city. On the goddess's head is a high headdress (kalaf), from under which emerge braids woven into a knot. The oval-shaped face has a heavy chin and somewhat elongated eyes. The goddess is somewhat reminiscent of portrait images of the kings and queens of Halicarnassus. And this is not surprising! Cybele, the Great Mother of the gods and everything living on earth, was a Phrygian. The veneration of Cybele in the Greek world dates back to the classical era, when she was identified with the goddess Rhea. Experts date Chersonese Cybele to the 5th century. BC. Its creator could have been a native of Asia Minor, who knew very well the ethnic type of its non-Greek population.
There are numerous finds in Chersonese of marble statues of Dionysus, the patron god of vegetation and, above all, viticulture. On one of the marble heads of Dionysus kept in the Hermitage, he is represented as a bearded middle-aged man. There is a grape wreath on his hair. Below the wreath on the forehead there is a narrow strip of ribbon. The face of God is calm and stern.
The veneration of Dionysus in Chersonesos is confirmed not only by statues, but also by inscriptions. Dionysus is present in the civil oath among the gods, in whose names those taking it swore. In another inscription of the same, III century. BC. it is reported that "the inhabitants left the city with their children and wives, accompanying Dionysus." Judging by the participants in the cult procession, we are not talking about bacchanalia, but about the consecration of agricultural territory on the holiday of Dionysius with the magical purpose of increasing the harvest. This holiday is explicitly mentioned in the decree of honor in honor of the historian Siriscus, who was awarded a golden wreath during the Dionysius.
From the statues found in Chersonesus one can judge the veneration of the healer god Asclepius. The cult of the daughter of Asclepius, the goddess of health Hygiene, was also celebrated in his temple. In 1965, a badly damaged marble statuette of Hygiene was removed from the pavement of the defensive wall. The goddess is depicted as a young woman, wearing a long lower tunic and a himation over it. In the hands of the goddess is a snake, bowing its head over a flat bowl. A bowl with a snake in the hands of Asclepius and Hygiene has become a symbol of medicine today. From her name comes the name of the science of health and the measures that ensure it - hygiene.
Archaeologists are often called the pathfinders of history. They sometimes have to reconstruct a picture of distant life from insignificant remains. During excavations in Chersonesus, a marble pedestal with a dedication to the goddess was discovered. On one of its faces, indentations from the feet of a bronze or marble statue are visible. Based on their size, it can be established that the statue was slightly taller than average human height. But what did she look like? What was your position?
Prominent Soviet numismatist A.N. Zograf recalled that the coins of Athens and other Greek cities often depicted the most revered statues of gods and goddesses. Paying attention to the coins of Chersonesus, the researcher found that the same figure of the Virgin is shown from different angles. This could indicate the existence of a statue of the Virgin, a prototype of coin images.
The supposed statue wore a long chiton, crossed crosswise across the chest with two belts. Her head was decorated with a crown with teeth, symbolizing the city fortress wall. In his right hand was a spear raised before throwing, in his left - a bow. This is the image of a warrior goddess, the patroness of a city surrounded by hostile barbarians.
During the excavations of Chersonese, not a single bronze statue was found, although they undoubtedly existed. This is evidenced by numerous finds of bronze figurines that are of interest from both an artistic and historical point of view. These are images of the Olympic gods - Zeus, Athena, Helios, Hermes. All of them go back to the types of statues of the great Greek masters of the V-IV centuries. BC. The researcher of these figurines G.D. Belov assumes that they were imported, since there are their analogues in Greece, Italy, and Asia Minor.
Along with stone and metal, clay was also used as a material for making statues of gods. A terracotta torso with perfectly rendered musculature was discovered. Apparently, that part of the statue of Hercules, who enjoyed special veneration in Doric Chersonese: Chersonese was founded by people from Heraclea, the city that bore the name of this popular hero-god. Figurines made of baked clay and molds for their manufacture are found in large quantities in Chersonesos. The terracotta heads of Aphrodite, Dionysus and Niobe were distinguished by their special craftsmanship. Their first researcher - G.D. Belov was able to use the material of sculptural terracotta to trace the development of the traditions of classical and Hellenistic art in Chersonesus.
I remember that the first coin was found in the area assigned to students of Voronezh University. They immediately sent for the head of the excavations, Stanislav Frantsevich Strzheletsky. Students surrounded the venerable scientist, awaiting an assessment of the find. But he was in no hurry, turning the coin, now moving it away from his eyes, now bringing it closer. Having finished this “sacred act,” he clutched the coin in his fist and, pushing his glasses onto the tip of his nose, looked around at the students frozen with shovels and picks in their hands.
So,” he concluded. - What is the significance of the find?
There was a long silence as everyone prepared to listen rather than answer.
“This is a valuable historical source,” mumbled the lanky student.
- Well done! - Stanislav Frantsevich praised. - But more specifically... A source for studying what?
“The state of the economy,” said the lanky one.
“The political history of Chersonesos,” added another.
After this, silence reigned again.
There is an inscription on the coin,” Strzheletsky suggested.
“To determine the chronology of the inscriptions by the nature of the writing,” said a stocky student with glasses.
- Right! But there is an image there. Hence, it is a source for learning art.
- Yes! Yes! - the students agreed.
“And, besides,” Strzheletsky noted, “this piece of metal characterizes the technique of coin making.”
As he climbed the embankment, he looked back.
- This is the most general thing. For me, the most important thing is what time it is. After all, with the help of this coin it will be possible to date the complex you are excavating.
Stanislav Frantsevich was not a numismatist. The identification of coins in Chersonesus was carried out by Anna Mikhailovna Gilevich, who lived in a house under a tiled roof at the gate of the monastery wall. The inscription could be shown to a group of students, but the coin must be cleaned of patina for a long time, then examined with a magnifying glass. Therefore, the Voronezh students never found out what time the coin they found was from. But those who became interested in numismatics - among them was a stocky student with glasses - subsequently became acquainted with the works of A.M. Gilevich and with the works of other numismatists who dealt with the coins of Chersonesos.
Chersonese silver and copper coins first appeared in catalogs of Western European collections at the end of the 18th century. The “father of numismatics,” Ekel, knew five Chersonese coins. French numismatist of the early 19th century. Mionnet described 31 coins of Chersonese. The accumulation of numismatic material allowed B.V. Kene in 1848 to describe 204 coins of this city and highlight three periods in the history and coinage of Chersonesos: Greek, Roman-Bosporan, Byzantine. In the “General Catalog of Coins...” of the Northern Black Sea Region P.O. Burachkov's description of the coins is supplemented with drawings that facilitate the work of numismatists. But the value of this atlas is reduced due to the presence of drawings of counterfeit coins in it.
This deficiency was partially corrected by numismatists of the next generation - A.L. Berthier-Delagarde and A.V. Oreshnikov. They are credited with the correct classification and grouping of Chersonese coins in order to establish the periodization of Chersonese coinage and the chronology of individual issues. “The work of A.L. Berthier-Delagarde, writes V.A. Anokhin, constituted an era in the study of Chersonesos numismatics, finally freeing it from amateurism.” Successfully examined the coins of Chersonesus A.N. Zograf (1889-1942), who summed up more than a century of study in his work “Ancient Coins”.
According to the updated dating of V.A. Anokhin, the coinage of Chersonesus survived three periods: 1. The period of autonomy (390-110 BC); 2. The period of Pontic-Bosporan-Roman influence (110 BC - 138 AD); 3. The period of the second eleutheria (138-268).
The most ancient coin of Chersonese has on the front side an image of the head of the Virgin, turned to the left, on the reverse side - the club of Hercules, whose name was borne by the metropolis of Chersonese, Heraclea Pontus. A.L. Berthier-Delagarde dated the first issue of coins of Chersonese to the middle of the 4th century. BC. Zograf attributed it to 390-380. BC, and this dating was accepted by Anokhin. The beginning of coinage helps to establish the time of the emergence of Chersonesos as a sovereign state. In the absence of information from literary and epigraphic sources, the readings of the coins are decisive.
Already the first researchers noticed that coins of economically interconnected states are often united by a common weight system. The convenience of a unified weight system lies in the fact that during trade operations there was no need to deal with the transfer of monetary denomination from one system to another. The peculiarity of the Chersonesos coinage was that the drachmas of the first series were of two types - light (3.5 g) and heavy (5 g) weights. Difference in weight of drachmas A.L. Berthier-Delagarde quite logically explained them by belonging to different weight systems. Developing this thesis, L.N. Zograf suggested that the lighter drachma was minted according to the Chios (Rhodian) system, and the heavier one - according to the Persian one. The use of two weight categories reflects the city’s foreign economic relations. Falling out of use in Chersonesus in the 2nd century. BC. the Persian system and the transition to Chios is evidence of a change in economic orientation - from the cities of Asia Minor (including the metropolis of Chersonese Heraclea) to the island states of Rhodes and Thasos. The weight of Chersonese coins continued to change in the future, marking an increased dependence on the Bosporus: coins were issued that were close in weight to the Bosporan sestertius.
In addition to weight data, valuable historical information is contained in images on the front and back surfaces of coins, which are usually called type. Various coin types illustrate the local flora and fauna, the spread of myths and religious cults, the architecture and sculpture of the city, and the sporting achievements of its citizens. Coins make it possible to date certain significant events in military-political history, including victories in military operations, the territorial expansion of the state, the transfer of power to a particular ruler, and even his political program. In a word, a small field of a coin for the experienced eye of a numismatist is like a small round window through which one can discern miniature, but quite vital details of a long-dead world.
It is, of course, immeasurably more difficult to extract historical data from the “pictures” on Chersonese coins than from the images on the coins of Athens, Syracuse, not to mention Rome. And not only because the coin types of these states are more diverse and numerous. The lack of a coherent history of Chersonesus has a negative impact. If the historical work of Siriska, dedicated to the “apparitions of the Virgin” and the relations of Chersonese with the kings of Bosporus and Scythia, had been preserved, the images on the coins of Chersonese would have been more understandable. But enormous difficulties did not prevent researchers of Chersonesos coins from expressing a number of interesting thoughts and assumptions.
Above we have already outlined the hypothesis of A.N. Zograf, according to which images of the Virgin - from a participant in casual mythological scenes to a formidable goddess in a tower wreath - reflect the appearance of a temple statue in the guise of a protector from enemies and, above all, from the Scythians who settled in the steppe part of the Crimea. The savior of Chersonese from the Scythian threat was the king of Pontus, Mithridates VI Eupator, but this salvation resulted in the loss of Chersonese's independence and submission to the king of Pontus, and then to the kings of Bosporus. Perhaps the change in the political status of Chersonese was reflected in the appearance on the coins of a grazing deer next to the Virgin, which is also present on the tetradrachms of this king. Also, the spread of the image of an eagle with lightning can be connected with the same symbolism on the coins of both Mithridates and Bosporus, which received independence after his fall.
In addition to images, ancient coins, like modern ones, have inscriptions. Sometimes this is the name of the city, more often its abbreviated form is HER, HERS. There are also Greek names Morius, Apollonius, Diotim, Senocles, Baphilus, etc. It is indisputable that these are the names of the persons responsible for issuing the coin. But which ones? Elected annually by citizens in assemblies? Or the priests of the Virgin who were in charge of minting? And what does the disappearance of these names and the appearance of the monogram “Parthenos” (Virgin) mean? These issues remain controversial.
Particular attention was drawn to the legend “Eleutheria of Chersonese”, which accompanies coins with the image of the deity of Chersonese with a lyre on the obverse and Hygieia on the reverse, as well as coins of old to types of the first monetary period. Literally, “eleutheria” means “freedom”, “independence”. But this word acquires a precise meaning if it is compared with other terms of political phraseology: autonomy and atelya. “Autonomy” meant that the city lived by its own laws and did not recognize anyone’s authority over it. "Eleutheria" is independence, but with some restrictions. “Atelya” is an exemption from duties stipulated by an agreement. The exact extent to which Chersonese's independence was limited is unknown, but the continued issue of coins meant that Chersonese enjoyed greater freedom than many other cities of the Roman Empire. On the epitaphs we find the names of Roman soldiers, but on the coins there is not a single Roman name. There are no traces of barbarian influence on the coinage, although it is noticeable in terms of Scythian subjects on the short-term coinage of Kerkenitis, which depended on Chersonesus. Throughout its ancient history, Chersonesus remained a typically Greek city.
The recognition of eleutheria made it possible for Chersonesus to have its own chronology. It was started by the German scientist August Beck, who studied Chersonesos coins in the 20-30s. last century, took 36 BC. A.L. Berthier-Delagarde set a new, undoubted date - 25/24. BC.
Subsequently, the freedom of Chersonese, which no longer minted its own coins, was recognized by the Roman emperors Diocletian and Constantine. This privilege is explained by the fact that the Chersonesos provided great assistance to the empire in containing the onslaught of the barbarians. In major political games of such strong states as Pontus, Bosporus and Rome, Chersonesos itself was always a small bargaining chip.
Historical information is contained not only in the coins themselves, but also in the circumstances and places of their discovery. The appearance of coin hoards indicates the onset of a turbulent time, and the latter dates back to the newest coins of this hoard. According to the finds of coins of Chersonesus A.M. Gilevich determined the approximate size of the Chersonese choir and the gradual reduction of its possessions.
And you came to this end of the earth,
As once the messenger of Mithridates.
What kind of ships sailed here -
Triremes, caravels and frigates.
What languages were spoken here!
Who hasn't the sun shone here?
What kind of soldiers and armies have boots?
We followed the trail of the Hellenic fagots!
The shovel bites into the rock -
And with one glance you take in
And the triangle of the bronze arrow,
And an armor-piercing shell tube.
You see how the shores are crumbling
And the curtains fall into the sea.
And maybe in distant centuries
Ships are leaving Quarantine.
When you look at the sparkling sea below through lonely ancient columns sticking out and seemingly supporting the sky, it may seem that only it has remained unchanged in the flow of successive centuries and cultures. But this is an illusion! The sea not only changed its name, becoming Black from Pontus Euxine. As a result of the “dirty deeds,” the fish disappeared. The swimmer carefully enters the waves of the “bluest sea in the world”, so as not to get into fuel oil or foam (oh no, not the one from which Aphrodite emerged) - foam from soap powders. Tourists look at the huge fish-salting tanks of the ancient Chersonesites on display with disbelief: “How were they able to fill them?” The port of Chersonesus sank to the seabed. Crayfish nest in the cracks of the masonry of a building on the southern shore of the city. The curtains of a section of the fortress wall collapsed into the waves. The growing Sevastopol is advancing on the chora of Chersonese, bulldozing tarpan slabs and plantation walls. And what else will happen when Crimea is “blessed” with a nuclear power plant?
“Panta rei,” the ancient sage assured. “Everything flows!” You can't hold back the flow of time! But in this fast-paced world of change there are eccentrics who care about preserving the remnants of the past, traces of ancient cultures. Knights of the selfless Mnemosyne (Memory), servants of her great daughter Clio, guardians of history. For them, those who settled, watered this rocky piece of land with sweat and blood are not the “glorious ancestors” about whom falsifiers and ignoramuses compose slobbering tales and absurd etymologies. Yes, they are aliens. But show me a people who have always occupied the same territory! In our cosmic age, is it possible to divide the inhabitants of the earth into original inhabitants and strangers? History, like life itself, is a movement in time and space that does not recognize rest. In addition, this cape, occupied by Greek colonists, became a meeting place of civilizations. Millennia of Tauro-Scythian, Hellenic, Byzantine and Russian history came together here. And this is all our story. Universal!
During its history, Chersonese survived Roman and Byzantine rule, but at all times the city remained a cultural and political center, as evidenced by the mention of Chersonese in the “Geography” of the Greek historian Strabo: “Many kings sent their children for the sake of educating the spirit and in which rhetoricians and sages were always honored guests.” Chersonesus fell into disrepair after the raids of nomads in the 13th–14th centuries and was revived in the 19th century as an archaeological monument.
City `s history
The foundation of the city was laid by immigrants from Heraclea Pontica and the island of Delos. Initially, the territory of the city, which did not exceed 4 hectares, was concentrated on a small cape at the entrance to modern Quarantine Bay. The settlement was surrounded by a defensive wall, behind which there was a necropolis. Residents of the city conducted trade relations with Heraclea Pontic, the Mediterranean islands and Attica.
By the second quarter of the 4th century BC. e. Chersonese Tauride was a slave-owning republic with a democratic form of government, in which the people's assembly was the main legislative body of power, and only the first settlers and their descendants had civil rights.
In the middle of the 4th century BC. e. The early settlement expanded deep into the Heraclean Peninsula, the area of the city increased almost 10 times. At the same time, the agricultural territory - Chora - is also being developed. Archaeological excavations show that the city had a regular system of urban development, in which streets intersected at right angles, forming blocks with typical residential buildings.
Already from the 1st century AD. e. The episodic presence of Roman troops is recorded in the city: during excavations, statues of legates of the Roman provinces were found. At the beginning of the 2nd century AD. e. The Roman presence in Chersonesos expands, a permanent Roman garrison appears here and the city serves as an important outpost of the Roman Empire in Taurica. From the second half of the 3rd–4th centuries, the Gothic wars weakened the Roman military presence in the region, including Chersonesos.
In 322, Chersonese provided military assistance to Constantine the Great on the Danube, for which he confirmed the freedom and absence of taxes previously given to the city. Later, Chersonesos came under the rule of the Byzantine Empire and Christianity spread in the city.
In 987, Prince Vladimir launched a military campaign against Chersonesos, besieging it from sea and land - the city was forced to surrender. Entering the city, the Russian prince asked for the hand of Princess Anna, the sister of Emperor Vasily II, and received consent on the condition that he accepted the Christian faith. It was in Chersonos, or Korsun, as the Slavs called the city, that Vladimir was baptized.
Archaeological excavations
The first descriptions of the ruins of Chersonesus were compiled in 1595 by the ambassador of the Polish king M. Bronevsky. In the 18th century, with the beginning of the construction of the Sevastopol fortress near Chersonese, the remains of the structures of the ancient city began to serve as building material for a new settlement. Through the efforts of public figures who understood the significance of ancient Chersonesus, in 1805, Alexander I issued an order “On protection from destruction of the antiquities of Taurida,” which significantly reduced the scale of looting.
The first archaeological excavations were carried out in 1827 by Lieutenant K. Kruse, on the orders of the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral A.S. Greig. At the same time, work is being carried out by Count and Countess Uvarov and the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities.
In 1852, on the territory of the Kherson settlement, the monastery of St. Vladimir was opened, the inhabitants of which were also engaged in excavations of the ancient city.
Since 1888, K.K. was appointed head of the excavations of Chersonesus. Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich, who all his life served the idea of researching and preserving the ancient city. During the excavations, city blocks of the Hellenistic polis with residential buildings, defensive walls, the remains of several basilicas were discovered and studied, and in 1952 the first ancient theater in the Northern Black Sea region was opened.
Chersonese Museum
In 1892, the first museum of Chersonese opened, which was called the “Warehouse of Local Antiquities.” During the First World War, the Kherson collection was evacuated to Kharkov, where it was kept in the library of Kharkov University. In 1920, after the establishment of Soviet power in Crimea, the museum was reorganized, the exhibition was transferred to former monastery buildings, the stock collections were systematized, a new museum exhibition was created and excavations of the ancient settlement continued.
During the Great Patriotic War, the museum’s collection was evacuated to the Urals, and the territory of the ancient settlement and choir turned into a fortified area with various military structures, suffering significant damage.
In 1978, a state reserve was created on the basis of the Kherson Museum; today it is a large research and museum institution on an archaeological territory of more than 290 hectares. The museum collection includes over 214 thousand exhibits. Among them are monuments of numismatics, epigraphy, architectural details, sculpture, glazed ceramics, bone products, beads, lamps, mosaics.
On June 23, 2013, at the 37th session of the World Heritage Committee, the serial site “The Ancient City of Tauride Chersonesos and its Chora” was included in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List.