Tmutarakan

Coordinates: 45°13′09″N 36°42′51″E / 45.21917°N 36.71417°E / 45.21917; 36.71417
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from
Hermonassa
)
"Hermonassa" redirects here. For the ancient town on the Black Sea coast of Turkey, see Hermonassa (Pontus). For the moth genus, see Hermonassa (moth).
Tmutarakan
Excavation at the site, September 2008
Tmutarakan is located in Krasnodar Krai
Tmutarakan
Location of the site within Russia
Tmutarakan is located in European Russia
Tmutarakan
Tmutarakan (European Russia)
Alternative nameHermonassa
LocationKrasnodar Krai, Russia
RegionTaman Peninsula
Coordinates45°13′09″N 36°42′51″E / 45.21917°N 36.71417°E / 45.21917; 36.71417
TypeSettlement
History
Founded6th century BCE
AbandonedAfter 14th century CE
Site notes
ConditionIn ruins

Tmutarakan

Byzantine
name for the city, Tamatarcha, is derived) was built on the site in the 7th century, and became known as Tmutarakan when it came under the control of Kievan Rus'.

History

See also:
Greeks in pre-Roman Crimea

The

Panticapaeum, major trade centers for what was to become the Bosporan Kingdom. The city was founded in the mid-6th century BCE by Mytilene (Lesbos), although there is evidence of others taking part in the enterprise, including Cretans.[4] The city flourished for some centuries and many ancient buildings and streets have been excavated from this period, as well as a hoard of 4th century golden coins.[5] Hermonassa was a centre of the Bosporan cult of Aphrodite[6] and in the early centuries CE was trading with the Alans.[7]
There is also archaeological evidence of extensive replanning and construction in the 2nd century CE.

After a long period as a Roman client state, the Bosporan kingdom succumbed to the

Hunnic Empire in the late 5th century, the area passed within the Roman sphere once again but was taken by the Bulgars in the 6th century. Following the fall of the city to the Khazars in the late 7th century, it was rebuilt as a fortress town and renamed Tamatarkha. Arabic sources refer to it as Samkarsh al-Yahud (i.e., "Samkarsh of the Jews") in reference to the fact that the bulk of the trading there was handled by Jews.[8] Other variants of the city's name are "Samkersh" and "Samkush".[9]

Fortified with a strong brick wall and boasting a fine harbor, Tamatarkha was a large city of merchants. It controlled much of the Northern European trade with the

AM 4746 (985–986) refers to "our lord David, the Khazar prince" who lived in Taman
and who was visited by envoys from Kievan Rus to ask about religious matters.

Medieval history

The city of Tmutarakan (Samkarsh) and its international relations during Khazar and Rus times.

Although the exact date and circumstances of Tmutarakan's takeover by

Vladimir the Great gave to his sons, which implies that Rus control over the city was established in the late 10th century and certainly before Vladimir's death in 1015.[10] Bronze and silver imitations of Byzantine coinage were struck by the new rulers during this period.[11][12]

Vladimir's son

Rostislav Vladimirovich who in his turn was forced to flee the city when Gleb approached with an army led by his father. Once Svyatoslav left, however, Rostislav expelled Gleb once again. During his brief rule, he subdued the local Circassians (also known as Kasogi) and other indigenous tribes, but his success provoked the suspicion of neighboring Greek Chersonesos in the Crimea, whose Byzantine envoy poisoned him on 3 February 1066.[14]

Afterwards command of Tmutarakan returned to the prince of

Volodar Rostislavich, who seized the city.[16] Exiled from the city to Byzantium by Khazar agents during this turbulent time, Oleg Svyatoslavich returned to Tmutarakan in 1083 and ousted the usurpers, adopting the title of "archon of Khazaria" (Arakhan of Tmutar), and placed the city under nominal Byzantine control. But he also issued rough silver coins in his own name which included a short inscription in Cyrillic letters. Then in 1094, like Mstislav before him, he returned to Rus to claim the throne of Chernigov.[17]

Byzantine interest in the city was maintained through this succession of client rulers, and thereafter by more direct rule for a while, for an important reason. There were

Matracha.[19]

Decline

Taman peninsula
, c. 1870.

In the 13th century the city passed to the

Kaffa. It was within the territory administered by the Ghisolfi family and was conquered by the Crimean Khanate in 1482 and by Russia in 1791. A possible remaining Khazar connection is suggested by mention of “Jewish princes” in Tamatarkha under both Genoese and Tatar rule.[20]

The city subsequently fell into ruin and the site was rediscovered in 1792, when a local peasant found a stone with an inscription stating that Prince Gleb had measured the sea from here to Kerch in 1068. Archaeological excavations of the site were begun in the 19th century and have continued since. The habitation level in places exceeds twelve meters.

During much of the 17th and 18th centuries the area was dominated by

Cossacks centered on the town of Taman, which was located near the remains of Tmutarakan. The modern town of Temryuk
is nearby.

Etymology

Speculations have been advanced for how the settlement came by its later name. That it derives from the Tatar language is generally assumed. Jean Richard also mentions the Greek for "fish curing" (Τομη΄ταριχα), an important Black Sea product. Afterwards it might have been given a Russian folk etymology, combining t'ma ("darkness") and tarakan ("cockroach"), to mean metaphorically 'the back of beyond', the sense that Vladimir Mayakovsky gives it.[21]

References

  1. ^ Occasionally, Tmutorakan.
  2. ^ Vasmer, Max. "Тмуторокань".
  3. ^ Andrew Burn, The Lyric Age of Greece, New York, St Martin's Press, 1960 p. 119 & n. 60.
  4. ^ Andrew Burn, The Lyric Age of Greece, New York, St Martin's Press, 1960 p. 119 & n. 60. M.J. Traister and T.V. Shelov-Kovedyayev, “An inscribed conical clay object from Hermonassa”
  5. ^ The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites
  6. ^ Yulia Ustinova, The Supreme Gods of the Bosporan Kingdom, Brill 1999, ch.3, p.129ff
  7. ^ The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 1979
  8. ^ J.B.Bury, History of the Eastern Empire from the Fall of Irene to the Accession of Basil 1912, p.408; Kevin Alan Brook, The Jews of Khazaria, ML 20706, 2004, p.29-30
  9. ^ "Krimchaks". Encyclopaedia Judaica
  10. ^ Tikhomirov (1959), p. 33
  11. ^ Marlia Mundell Mango (ed.), Byzantine Trade, 4th-12th Centuries, Routledge 2016
  12. ^ illustration at Munzeo
  13. ^ Shepard (2006), pp.34-5
  14. ^ Dimnik (2003), p.82
  15. ^ Dimnik (2003), p. 285
  16. ^ Tikhomirov (1959), p. 171
  17. ^ Shepard (2006), pp.42-6
  18. ^ Shepard (2006), pp.24-5
  19. ^ Shepard (2009), pp.439-40
  20. ^ Arthur Koestler, The Thirteenth Tribe”, London 1977, p.129
  21. ^ "Great Online Encyclopaedia of Black Sea". blacksea.ehw.gr. Retrieved 2022-08-26.

Resources
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