TYRAMBE
Kuban.
A Greek settlement on the
S coast of the Sea of Azov, 20 km E of Phanagonia.
Founded in the 6th c. B.C., probably by Greek colonists
from Phanagonia (
Strab. 11.2.4), the settlement has been
almost completely destroyed by the sea.
In the 1st c. B.C. the city was ringed with a brick wall
and became a fortification within a general defensive
system set up by the Bosporan state against Rome. Destroyed in the 1st c. A.D., it survived to the 3d c. and was then laid waste by the Getae.
The necropolis (5th c. B.C-3d c. A.D.), contains tumulus
tombs with a dromos and burial chamber cut in the
earth. There is no stone work. The archaeological finds
made here are richer than those in the city: red-figured
Attic lekythoi, jewelry of gold and bronze (ring representing Eros and Psyche). Among the terracottas is one
showing Aphrodite and Priapos, another showing Aphrodite with a dolphin; some plaster Gorgon masks probably served to decorate the sarcophagus. The Pushkin Museum, Moscow, contains material from the site.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. K. Korovina, “Raskopki nekropolia
Tiramby v 1959 g.,”
KSIA 89 (1962) 70-73; id.,
“Drevniaia Tiramba,”
VDI (1963) 3.126-31; id.,
“Tiramba (gonodishche i nekropol'): Itog arkheologicheskii rabot ekspeditsii GMII za 1959, 1961-1963 i 1965
gody,”
Soobshcheniia Gosudarstvennogo Muzeia izobrazitel'nykh iskusstv imeni A. S. Pushkina 4 (1968) 54-84.
M. L. BERNHARD & Z. SZTETYŁŁO
