TANAIS
Russia.
An ancient city on the steep
right bank of the Mertvyi Donets, a branch of the Don
delta, near the village of Nedvigovka. Founded in the
3d c. B.C. (
Strab. 11.2.3), it replaced Elizavetovskoe as
the chief commercial center in the lower Don and the
main intermediary between the Graeco-Roman world and
the inhabitants N of the Sea of Azov. Its mixed population is proved by the indigenous names found in Greek
inscriptions. The city was destroyed by the Bosporan king
Polemon ca. 8 B.C., but it recovered and began to flourish
in the late 1st c. A.D. Its destruction ca. 240, perhaps
by Goths, put an end to the city as a major economic
and cultural center but it revived in the late 4th c. and
existed very modestly until it died out sometime before the mid 5th c.
Two walls encircled the city: the inner one of stone
enclosed an area of ca. 5 ha; at a distance of 215 m
from it was an earthen wall. Between these two rings of
fortification were the huts of the poor. Within the walls
traces of houses have been found, built of uncut stone
bonded with mud and roofed with clay tile. There is no
evidence of a street plan. There are potters' kilns and
evidence of local glass production.
The necropolis outside the walls contained inhumation
burials and a few cremations. Grave gifts include many
Greek objects.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. H. Minns,
Scythians and Greeks
(1913) 566-69; T. N. Knipovich,
Tanais: Istoriko-arkheologicheskoe issledovanie (1949); D. B. Shelov,
Nekropol' Tanaisa: Raskopki 1955-1958 gg. [Materialy
i issledovaniia po arkheologii SSSR, No. 98] (1961); id.,
ed.,
Drevnosti Nizhnego Dona [Materialy i issledovaniia
po arkheologii SSSR, No. 127] (1965); id., ed.,
Antichnye Drevnosti Podon'ia-Priazov'ia [Materialy i issledovaniia po arkheologii SSSR, No. 154] (1969); id.,
Tanais i Nizhnii Don v III-I vv. do n.e. (1970); id.,
Tanais i
Nizhnii Don v pervye veka nashei ery (1972); A. L.
Mongait,
Archaeology in the USSR, tr. M. W. Thompson (1961) 202-3; E. Belin de Ballu,
L'Histoire des Colonies grecques du Littoral nord de la Mer Noire (1965) 148-50; I. B. Brašinskij, “Recherches soviétiques sur les monuments antiques des régions de la Mer Noire,”
Eirene 7 (1968) 102-3.
M. L. BERNHARD & Z. SZTETYŁŁO
