KITALON
Bosporus.
A Greek city on the N
coast of the Black Sea 40 km SW of Kerch near Zavetnoe. It probably dates to the 4th-5th c. B.C. (Ps. Skyl.,
10.68; Plin.
HN 4.86).
In the 4th-3d c. the city was surrounded by walls 2.5
m thick and these were reinforced in the Roman period
by a second circle of ramparts. The city was a fort of
major importance against the Scythian nomadic tribes.
On the outskirts is a kurgan necropolis belonging to
the Hellenized Scythians who inhabited the city. Another necropolis from the Roman period (2d-3d c.) contains tombs decorated with frescos representing warriors, teams of horses, and ships. Particularly noteworthy
are a sundial of the 2d c. A.D. with a relief of a bull's
head in the center (Kerch Museum); from the 3d c.
A.D. an offering table of stone with a Greek inscription
colitaining a reference to a temple; and several other
Greek funerary inscriptions with non-Greek names. The
Hermitage and Kerch museums contain material from
the site.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Iu. Iu. Marti, “Raskopki gorodishcha
Kiteia v 1928 g.,”
Izvestiia Tavricheskogo obshchestva
istorii, arkheologii i etnografii 3 (1929) 116-30; V. F.
Gaidukevich, “Sklepy nekropolia Kiteia,”
Nekropoli
Bosporskikh gorodov [Materialy i issledovaniia po arkheologii SSSR, No. 69] (1959) 223-38; N. S. Belova,
“Arkheologicheskie razvedki v Kitee,”
KSIA 83 (1961)
83-90; A. L. Mongait,
Archaeology in the USSR, tr.
M. W. Thompson (1961) 197; S. S. Bessonova & E. A.
Molev, “Raskopki Kiteia,”
Arkheologicheskie Otkrytiia
1972 goda 258.
M. L. BERNHARD & Z. SZTETYŁŁO
