CHARAX
Crimea.
Scythian fortress (later,
Roman) of the 3d c. B.C. on the Ai-Todor promontory
near ancient Chersonesus, not far from modern Yalta.
A fortress of the Tauri tribe, it was ringed with thick
cyclopean walls of hewn stone. The fort was seized by
the Romans in the 1st c. A.D. and made into a military
camp. It then acquired a second ring of walls and the
area was increased to 1.5 ha.
Houses with walls of stone and brick have been uncovered, and water pipes and mosaic-floored basins
(design of cuttlefish) have been found; also, there are
ruins of Roman baths (25 x 15 m) and a necropolis of
the 3d-4th c. Pottery and other articles are of local
manufacture. The Simferopol Museum contains material
from this site.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
V. D. Blavatskii, “Kharaks,”
Materialy
po arkheologii Severnogo Prichernomor'ia v antichnuiu
epokhu [Materialy i issledovaniia po arkheologii SSSR,
No. 19] (1951) 250-91; A. L. Mongait,
Archaeology in
the USSR, tr.
M. W. Thompson (1961) 203-5. M. L. BERNHARD & Z. SZTETYŁŁO
