CHERSONESOS
Crimea.
A city on the W
coast of the Crimea ca. 3 km W of modern Sebastopol.
It is mentioned in the ancient sources (
Strab. 7.4.2-7;
Plin.
HN 4.85; Polyb. 25.2.12; Pompon. 2.1.3; Ptol.
Geog. 3.6.2 etc.). Founded in 421 B.C. by colonists from
Herakleia Pontica, perhaps on the site of an earlier
Greek settlement, it rapidly became the major city of
SW Crimea and the chief center in this area for international trade. In the 3d c. B.C. Kerkinitis and Kalos
Limen came under its control. In the 2d c. B.C. under
attack from the Scythian king Palak, it was supported by
Mithridates Eupator, king of Pontus. Although the
Scythians were conquered, Chersonesos lost its independence and became one of the cities of the Bosporan
kingdom.
The city covered an area of 38 ha and its defensive
system is one of the major architectural monuments of
the N Black Sea region. Stone walls (3.5 km long and
up to 3.8 m thick), with crenellated towers and gates,
were first constructed in the 4th-3d c. and rebuilt in the
Hellenistic and Roman times and later. The city was laid
out according to the Miletian plan with straight streets
crossing at right angles. Traces of houses from the 3d-2d
c. follow the same plan as those in other cities in the
region. A corridor led to an inner courtyard onto which
rooms opened; each house had a well or cistern and
the basins were often paved with mosaics. Other architectural remains include a mint of the 4th c. B.C., several
wine-making establishments, several large pottery workshops, numerous cisterns for the salting of fish; large
baths of the Roman era, Christian basilicas of the 5th-7th c.; an odeum (?); a theater of the late 3d-early 2d
c. B.C., which was still in use in the 4th c. Outside the
walls in the Hercules peninsula excavations have uncovered the ruins of numerous fortified farinsteads, some
for grape growing and others for grain.
Among the many Greek inscriptions found are the
oath of the inhabitants of the city (3d c. B.C.) and the
decree of Diophanes (end of the 2d c. B.C.). A fine
head of an ephebus in the manner of Skopas has been
discovered; also many locally made terracottas, including
a torso of a statue of Herakles. The Roman period is
represented by funerary monuments, with portraits, and
sarcophagi ornamented with scenes of Eros, griffins, and
other figures of local legend. The Cherson Museum
contains material from this site.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. H. Minns,
Scythians and Greeks
(1913) 498-553; K. E. Grinevich,
Sto let khersonesskikh
raskopok (1827-1927):
Istoricheskii ocherk (1927);
G. D. Belov,
Raskopki Khersonesa v 1934 g. (1936);
id.,
Otchet o raskopkakh v Khersonese za 1935-1936 gg.
(1938); “Raskopki v severnoi chasti Khersonesa v 1931-1933 gg.,”
Arkheologicheskie pamiatniki Bospora i
Khersonesa [Materialy i issledovaniia PO arkheologii
SSSR, No. 4] (1941) 212-67; id.,
Khersones Tavricheskii: Istoriko-arkheologicheskii ocherk (1948);
Materialy
po arkheologii iugo-zapadnogo Kryma (Khersones,
Mangup [Materialy i issledovaniia po arkheologii SSSR,
No. 34] (1953); S. F. Strzheletskii, “Osnovnye etapy
ekonomicheskogo razvitiia i periodizatsiia istorii Khersonesa Tavricheskogo v antichnuiu epokhu,”
Problemy
istorii Severnogo Prichernomor'ia v antichnuiu epokhu
(1959) 63-85; id.,
Klery Khersonesa Tavricheskogo
[Khersonesskii sbornik, No. 6] (1961); A. L. Mongait,
Archaeology in the USSR, tr. M. W. Thompson (1961)
185-89; C. M. Danoff,
Pontos Euxeinos (1962) 1104-16 =
RE Suppl. IX; E. Belin de Ballu,
L'Histoire des Colonies
grecques du Littoral nord de la Mer Noire (1965) 74-94;
I. B. Brašinskij, “Recherches soviétiques sur les monuments antiques des régions de la Mer Noire,”
Eirene 7
(1968) 96-97.
M. L. BERNHARD & Z. SZTETYŁŁO
