What's new Kerch archaeologists have found. New wave of archaeological excavations in Kerch
Archaeological excavations and finds captured by Kerch photographers in the late 19th - early 20th centuries.
Excavation site in the south-west of the Panticapaeum settlement, survey date: 1899 - 1910.
A construction complex discovered by excavations of the director of the Kerch Museum Karl Evgenievich Dumberg in 1899. The photo shows three open rooms and a door - the remains of the building's basement floor.
Kerch antiquities, discovered in 1896 and 1897 in the exposition of the exhibition at the Imperial Archaeological Commission, organized in the spring of 1898. Date of shooting: 1896 - 1899.
Terracotta found in 1896 on Mount Mithridates during the excavations of Panticapaeum Date of photography: 1896 - 1899. 
The picture shows four terracottas, two of which represent the masks of Satyr, the protome of Demeter and a figurine of a seated girl with a goose and a bunch of grapes. The terracottas were sent to St. Petersburg.
Earthenware: pixida, one-handed jug, lecythian and scyphos. Date taken: 1898 - 1899. 
Discovered on February 24, 1898 in Tomb 2, Section IV of the Artemis Excavation on Mount Mithridates.
Colored plaster found in 1896 on Mithridates Mountain, date of photography: 1896 - 1899. 
Fragment of a tombstone made of soft limestone, 4th century. BC Date taken: 1873. 
The gravestone of the sons of Dzopir was found in a mound on the northern side of Mount Mithridates in 1873. There is a 4-line inscription on the slab. In addition, the snapshot serves as an inventory card - it contains a short description, passport data.
Painted Bosporan crypt with two sarcophagi on low supports of soft limestone Date of photography: October 2, 1902 - December 31, 1905. 
The crypt was opened by Vladislav Vyacheslavovich Shkorpil on October 2, 1902, behind the railway, to the left of the Katerlessky bridge. On the walls of the crypt, here and there, remains of fresco painting in the form of quadrangles and circles, painted with dark brown and green paints, have been preserved. The entrance to the crypt was closed from the inside with a limestone slab. The slab was covered with white plaster, in the middle there was an image of the head of Medusa the Gorgon with wings on her head and snakes under her chin.
Headstone in situ. Date taken: 1911. 
The moment the gravestone was discovered in the wall of a high stone "booth" on Predtechenskaya Square and at the Fish Market, 1911. The slab was inserted into the wall of a building under construction in the 1840s. The tombstone of white marble, broken into two parts, was 4.2 meters high. At the top, it was decorated with two relief acroteria and a pediment. In the triangle there is a bust of a figure with raised arms, under the pediment there are two reliefs: in the upper one there are two male figures standing next to each other; and in the lower one - a rider on horseback, with a spear in his right hand.
Headstone. Date of photography: 1911-1915. 
Discovered in the central part of Kerch under the pavement of Predtechenskaya square in 1911. There are three figures on the slab: in the center is the bearded god Sabazy with a mirror (?), A wriggling snake rises from the heel of the god, a female figure on the right, Hermes on the left. The photographs show two images of the relief depicting Sabaziy - before and after restoration.
Tombstone from marble IV century. n. Date of shooting: 1900-1910th. 
Headstone with an inscription in 21 lines. Almost the entire front side of the tombstone is occupied by an inscription carved along thin lines. Translation of the inscription: “To God Almighty, merciful, vow. Aurelius Valerius Sog, the son of Olympus, the chief of Feodosia, the famous Augustus, honored by Diocletian and Maximian, also called Olympian in the province, traveled a lot, absent for 16 years and stayed in many sorrows, on a vow he built a prayer house from the foundation in 603. " For more than forty years the slab served as the threshold of a house in the courtyard of the Kerch bourgeois woman P. Krasheninnikova.
Clay cart (children's toy) Date of photography: June 6, 1903 - December 31, 1905. 
A carriage on four wheels made of dark red clay, inside which there was a set of sheep astragals (21 copies). The toy was found by Vladislav Vyacheslavovich Shkorpil on June 6, 1903 in a devastated children's tomb on Glinishche, not far from the local prison and the city slaughterhouse. Probably, the carriage and astragalus, as especially favorite toys of the child, were put in the coffin by his relatives. The toy is kept in the funds of the Russian State Hermitage Museum and is exhibited at an exhibition dedicated to the history of the Bosporus.
The marble lion at the Lion Barrow excavation date: 1894 - 1900. 
The excavation was opened in 1894 by the director of the Kerch Museum, Karl Evgenievich Dumberg, in the garden of Lieutenant Colonel Voloshkevich. The garden is located at the bottom of the northern slope of Mount Mithridates. The statue occupies a central place in the contemporary exhibition on the history of the Bosporus kingdom at the Russian State Hermitage Museum.
Excavations of Zelensky Kurgan on the Taman Peninsula, led by the director of the Kerch Museum Vladislav Shkorpil in 1912 Date of photography: 1912. 
Two pithos with lids in an excavation pit in 1898 Date of photography: 1898. 
The digger is on the right.
At the Kerch fortress, volunteers from the Archeology Foundation began to clear the so-called Blue Gate located on Cape Ak-Burun. Why blue? Previously, they were painted blue to distinguish them from everyone else. In general, the fortress had more than 20 fortified passages. In the event of a siege, the besieged could go through the Blue Gate to strike the flank of the enemy advancing on the northern part of the fortress. Nearby was the reduit of a covered path, from which fire was fired, preventing the besiegers from breaking the gates.
At this time, we are engaged in the opening of the earth masses that have accumulated on this site over the last two centuries of the fortress's existence, - said Oleg Markov, Development Director of the Archeology Foundation. - Before the start of work, the area was surveyed by sappers from the Leader Center of the Russian Emergencies Ministry. Clearing showed that the thickness of the soil overflow in the area of the gate is from 20 cm to one and a half meters. Research participants expect to find interesting finds. Thanks to the excavations, it is possible to discover previously unknown elements of the architecture of the Kerch fortress.
In parallel, work is underway to fix the graffiti left by the "artists" on the walls of the fortress. But this, as they say, is a woman's work, and therefore it fell on the shoulders of volunteers-girls. During the existence of the outpost, both builders and defenders of the fortress and foreign invaders have visited its territory. During the Great Patriotic War, the Kerch fortress passed from hand to hand several times.
As specified in the Fund, all work is supervised by the head of the research department "Fortress Kerch" Ph.D. Yuri Beylik, the volunteers of the Archeology Foundation in the fortress of Kerch are led by Alexander Okhremenko.
Cape Ak-Burun (translated from the Crimean Tatar "white cape"), where the Blue Gate is located, is a separate fortified defense area of the Kerch fortress, the internal structure of which has yet to be studied, - said Oleg Markov.
By the way, it is interesting not only for its 19th century fortifications, but also for the archaeological remains of ancient times. There is a hypothesis that the ancient city of Hermisy, mentioned by Pomponius Mela and Pliny, is located on Ak-Burun.
In principle, this is possible, although in the list of names of ancient settlements preserved by written tradition for the stretch of the coast of the Eastern Crimea from Nymphaeus to Panticapaeum, there is another possible ancient city - Diya, - said the director of the Fund. - In any case, only systematic archaeological excavations will be able to determine which city is located on Cape Ak-Burun. At the moment, we know for sure that the "father of Bosporan archeology" Paul Dubrux, in his description of this area, repeatedly drew attention to the rapid destruction of the remains of ancient walls and buildings that he recorded, which disappeared from the surface literally before our eyes. According to his calculations, 500 cubic meters (4900 m3) of stone was removed from only one such point for construction needs, and the lime kiln probably destroyed twice more.
According to his observations, only the fortress wall with towers and gates stretched over a length of two kilometers. Later, when Cape Ak-Burun firmly entered the jurisdiction of the military authorities, these antiquities became almost inaccessible to researchers and they gradually began to be forgotten.
Interestingly, in 1858 at Cape Ak-Burun, the Pavlovsky mound was excavated, in which a burial was discovered dating back to the 4th century BC. The gold jewelry found there suggested that this was the burial of the priestess of the temple of Demeter, the Foundation stressed. - Our volunteers have already had to take part in the excavations of the temple of Demeter, however, on the other side of the Cimmerian Bosporus in the village of Vestnik (Anapa region). Now they may have the opportunity to study the worshipers of the cult of this goddess already in the Crimea.
On Friday, July 14, the Kerch fortress will host celebrations dedicated to the 160th anniversary of the beginning of its construction. Scientists claim that the Kerch fortress is one of the most mysterious fortifications built in the 19th century. Few people know about its existence. Meanwhile, at one time it was the most powerful fortress in the South of Russia and the second most important after Kronstadt.
Since this unique monument is located in close proximity to the future bridge connecting the Crimean peninsula with the mainland, after restoration and partial reconstruction it can become one of the main attractions on the way of tourists.
BY THE WAY
Anyone can become a volunteer and take part in the work of the Archeology Foundation. Anyone interested in the military history of Russia is invited to come to Kerch. Volunteer work on the Kerch Peninsula will last until September 1, 2017.
In May - June 2017, the Crimean new building archaeological expedition of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (head of the expedition - Doctor of Historical Sciences S.Yu. Vnukov) excavated the Hospitalny mound in the city of Kerch (Fig. 1, 2). The research was carried out within the framework of a project for the preservation of historical heritage monuments falling into the construction zone. The excavation of the mound was supervised by a researcher at the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ph.D. I.V. Rukavishnikov, reports the press service of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The hospital mound is located in the southeastern part of Kerch in the Solnechny microdistrict, east of the Heroes of Stalingrad highway. It is named after a former military hospital located nearby. Hospital is the largest in the chain of mounds on the central rock ridge Yuz-Oba (One Hundred Hills - Tatar) in Kerch. The height of its embankment (Fig. 1) was more than 7 m, the diameter was 70 m, the total area of the monument was approx. 13,700 sq. m. The central stratigraphic profile of the mound showed a complex structure of its embankment and several periods of its formation. The embankment was erected in several stages, which are associated with various burial structures of the mound. In addition, in all stratigraphic sections, traces of numerous plundering excavations and trenches of different times that damaged the mound were recorded. Read: Research has shown that the earliest are two burials in stone boxes (Fig. 4, right) with slab ceilings, located side by side at the same level along the north-south line. One of the boxes contained a single intact burial, the other was completely looted in antiquity, apparently twice. In an intact burial (Fig. 5), a poorly preserved human skeleton was found in a wooden sarcophagus (Fig. 8), decorated with plaster ornamental overlays. The deceased was accompanied by numerous items related to sports. These are more than 10 alabastres - special vessels for oil, which was used in training and competitions, a shearing blade - a sickle-shaped scraper, used to clean the athlete's body from oil, sweat and dirt, as well as for massage after the competition. There were also found 150 astragalus dice. Particularly noteworthy is the painted red-figure jug for wine - pelika (Fig. 9), the so-called Kerch style. Judging by these findings, in the 2nd half of the 4th century. BC. a young male athlete was buried here. Above these two early burials, the first, comparatively small mound was built. On it, to the south and north of the burials, 2 stone eschara altars were erected (Fig. 7). Bonfires and pits with remnants of funeral feasts performed in memory of the dead were also discovered not far from them. They contained numerous fragments of painted red-figure vessels of the 4th century. BC. and other ceramics. Among them are fragments of a red-figure crater (a vessel for mixing wine with water) with images of maenads and satyrs. Read: After some time, apparently at the end of the 4th century. before. AD, a grandiose stone tomb was added to the early embankment (Fig. 4), placed on an ancient day surface. It was blocked by an additional embankment. The tomb is an antique crypt with a long dromos corridor, which led to a rectangular burial chamber measuring 5.20 x 4.80 m with a stepped ceiling. The length of the dromos is about 20 m; it expands towards the entrance. The entrance to the dromos apparently came out on the surface of a new embankment and was shaped like a stepped portal. It was laid with a torn stone (Fig. 3). The inner walls of the cell and the dromos corridor were covered with thin smoothed plaster. The later, higher mound of the kurgan, which overlapped the crypt, was erected in several stages as the structure was being built. This made it easier to lay the upper rows of masonry walls and floors. Each level of the embankment was separated from the overlying layer by a layer of stone chips formed during the laying of the next row of the tomb's masonry. In some places, the foot of the new embankment was reinforced with a special roller made of limestone chips. Numerous fragments of container and table vessels of the 4th – 3rd centuries were found in the embankment. BC. To this crypt, apparently, belongs one more memorial altar-eskhara, opened in the western field of the late embankment. Later, the crypt was repeatedly robbed, it was also dismantled into stone. As a result, it was very badly destroyed. Nevertheless, some architectural details of the rich decoration of the tomb have survived: a fragment of a frieze decorated with ovs, a pilaster capital, an architectural plaster decoration covered with blue paint. Fragments of pottery dating from the 4th century BC were also found in the filling. BC. and the middle ages. In the western part of the embankment, two later burials in the sidewalls, dating to the turn of the era, were also discovered. For some time, the destructible crypt stood open. One of these periods includes the most interesting schematic drawings (Fig. 6), applied to the plaster with ocher and soot, apparently in the 3rd-5th centuries. AD Shown are battle scenes, ships, solar symbols, etc. The style of the images resembles those in the crypt of the Sabazids in Kerch. Restorers of the State Hermitage and the Kerch Museum-Reserve took part in the work on their conservation. Read: The remains of a temporary dwelling with a hearth, arranged in an already destroyed dromos, date from the Middle Ages. The nearby small settlement "Hospital" is connected with the mound. There is reason to believe that the builders of this mound lived there. Thus, the Hospital mound is a complex burial complex of different times, the main burials in which were made in the 2nd half of the 4th century. BC. The destroyed crypt opened in it, apparently, was not inferior to the best examples of Hellenistic Bosporan funerary architecture and contained the burial of a representative of the top of the local society. Also of great interest are the later drawings on the walls of the crypt. Excavations of mounds of this size have not been carried out in Crimea for over 120 years. For the first time, they were carried out in a comprehensive manner, at a modern scientific level. In addition to archaeologists, specialists - anthropologists, paleozoologists, palynologists, restorers and others - took part in the work. They received important information about the funeral rite of representatives of the Bosporan nobility, the burial structures of the Bosporus and the technique of their construction, about the material culture of the Bosporan kingdom in the Hellenistic era, in Roman and medieval times.
Archaeologists received an invaluable gift during the construction of the Crimean bridge. On the site from the side of Kerch, a whole ancient village was discovered. According to scientists, the settlement dates back to the end of the 5th century BC.
While the researchers are immersed in the study of the secrets of the ancient world, the builders are adjusting the project. The railway approach will be relocated to preserve the unique estate. This will not affect the deadline for delivery.
Literally across the street from modern residential buildings - the outskirts of the ancient world. The estate of the end of the 5th century BC - the time when the Bosporan kings ruled on this territory and worshiped the ancient Greek gods.
The estate was, as it were, separated from the outside world. The windows of all the buildings - there were 40 of them - overlooked only the inner cobbled courtyards. Judging by the area - about five thousand square meters, aristocrats lived here. This is evidenced by the found fragments of the tiles, luxurious for that time, and whole placers of coins with relief minting. Near the tables on which grapes were pressed, scientists found Aegean amphorae and well-preserved pottery - black lacquered wine goblets, presumably brought from Attica.
“Before us is a black-gloss saucer, almost intact, the rim is slightly chipped off. Imported tableware. At the bottom of this saucer there is a name or a wish that has been scratched, ”says Alexander Bonin, a specialist at the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
It was here, on the way to the Crimean bridge, that a new railway was supposed to pass according to the project, a section of 18 kilometers long. The ancient monument was stumbled upon by archaeologists who were conducting research before construction. Now the track will be moved - the rails will go around the estate. The developers assure the deadline that this will not affect. Trains on the Crimean Bridge will be launched on time - in December next year. And here scientists will continue excavations - you need to get to the lower layer in order to find out who was the first owner.
“I don't know any analogies either in Ukraine or in Russia. On the territory of the entire Black Sea region, no one has dug anything like this in the rural area. This is the first time this farmstead has such an area, such complexity of planning and such preservation. Were it not for the construction of the railway, we would never have received such opportunities to work on such an area, at such a pace, with so many people, ”said Alexander Maslennikov, head of the field research department of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
It is very rare, scientists say, - the artifacts have been preserved in almost the same condition in which they were left by their owners. Archaeologists especially note the skill of the architects.
“The homestead is located on a slope. Naturally, during the rains, there was a powerful drain here, and the inhabitants of this estate built a rather complex and branched drainage system. We haven’t come across such a system yet, ”said Sergei Vnukov, a leading researcher at the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
But various antiquities during the construction of the Crimean Bridge are found regularly - in two years, more than one hundred thousand valuable exhibits have already been transferred to museums.
In the village of Podmayachnoye in the area of Golubina Bay, excavations of the ancient settlement of Gleyki-2 continue. This expedition was already carried out last year. The expedition is led by Professor, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Head of the Department of Primitive Traditional Society of the Institute of Archeology of Crimea, Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexander Evgenievich KISLOGO. Gleyki-2 is one of the oldest settlements in Crimea. During the excavations, many artifacts were discovered there. So, for example, back in 2016, a burial of a young warrior with a large grater on his shoulder was discovered in the settlement, and last year an archaeologist managed to find elements of three boats of different models. Read: “The uniqueness of this settlement is that we in Crimea do not know such a different culture. Here is a set of artifacts that make up the cultural fund. These are ceramics, products and from such a material cultural layer, we do not know. Nowhere else, in any settlement, we do not know such ceramics with such a culture, with such a form in Crimea, ”Alexander Evgenievich said in an interview. This year, the expedition is trying to find even more structures that may have remained from ancient times.
