KEPOI
Kuban.
A Miletian colony founded
in the mid 6th c. B.C. on the Gulf of Taman NE of
Phanagoria, on the site of a Kimmerian (?) settlement
(
Strab. 11.2.10;
Diod. 20.24; Plin.
HN 6.112). At
first the city, of mixed population, subsisted on farming
and trade with Asian Greeks and local tribes, paying
taxes to the Bosporan kings. The inhabitants prospered
from the wheat trade between the 4th c. B.C. and the 1st
c. A.D., but from the 2d c. A.D. the city was increasingly
barbarized by the Sarmatians. The Huns destroyed it in
the 4th c.
The Greek city, originally 20-25 ha, covered a small
hill and extended down the slopes to the seashore. Much
of the coastal part of the site is now under water. Remains of a house of the mid 6th c. B.C. have been
found and some of the numerous graves from several
necropoleis can be dated to the same period, but other
architectural remains date to the 1st c. A.D. or later.
From the 1st c. are ruins of a temple in antis dedicated
to Aphrodite; the terracotta ex-votos found nearby represent the goddess. The remains of houses from this
century reflect the high standard of living. The foundations are of stone, the walls of brick, often imported
from Sinope as were the roof tiles; there are traces of
water pipes. There are also remains of baths from the
1st c. A.D. and two wine-making establishments (1st-3d c.).
Finds include not only Klazomenai wares, Classical
and archaic Attic bowls, terracotta figurines of local
manufacture (4th c. B.C.), imported Syrian glassware
and Egyptian scarabs, but a headless marble statue 0.53
m high known as the Aphrodite of Taman (1st half of
the 2d c. A.D.) and a head of Aphrodite from a workshop
near the Pergamon school of the 2d c. B.C.
The Hermitage Museum contains material from the
site.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
N. I. Sokol'skii, “Kepy,”
Antichnyi
gorod (1963) 97-114; id., “Sviatilishche Afrodity v
Kepakh,”
Sovetskaia Arkheologiia (1964) 4.101-18; id.
& N. P. Sorokina, “Raskopki goroda Kepy i ego nekropolia V 1957-1963 gg.,”
Ezhegodnik Gosudarstvennogo
istoricheskogo muzeia, 1963-1964 (1966) 28-49; id.,
“Vinodelie v aziatskoi chasti Bospora,”
SovArkh (1970)
2.75-92; E. Ia. Nikolaeva, “Raskopki gorodishcha
Kepy v 1964 g.,”
KSIA 109 (1967) 94-100; N. P.
Sorokina, “Raskopki nekropolia Kepy v 1962-1964 gg.,”
KSIA 109 (1967) 101-7; I. B. Brašinskij, “Recherches
soviétiques sur les monuments antiques des régions de
la Mer Noire,”
Eirene 7 (1968) 105-6.
M. L. BERNHARD & Z. SZTETYŁŁO
