Taman Peninsula
Taman Peninsula | |
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Coordinates: 45°11′8″N 36°47′28″E / 45.18556°N 36.79111°E | |
Location | Krasnodar Krai, Russia |
The Taman Peninsula (Russian: Тама́нский полуо́стров, romanized: Tamanskiy poluostrov) is a peninsula in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, which borders the Sea of Azov to the north, the Kerch Strait to the west and the Black Sea to the south.
Toponym
One version of the origin of the name "Taman" claims its Circassian origin from "temen", a swamp that corresponds to the nature of the area.
History
The area has evolved over the past two millennia from a chain of islands into today's peninsula. In ancient times the peninsula was known to the
The
For most of the 15th century the
The peninsula contains small mud volcanoes and deposits of natural gas and petroleum. Shallow desalinated lakes and local estuaries inhabited by fish and game, overgrown with thick reeds of the shore, create a swampy, impassable area.
Mikhail Lermontov disparagingly describes the town of Taman in his novel, A Hero of Our Time.
The German Wehrmacht and the Romanian Army occupied the Taman Peninsula in 1942; the Soviet Red Army recovered it in 1943.[3] The story of the motion picture Cross of Iron revolves around conflicts that arise within the leadership of a Wehrmacht regiment during the German retreat from the Kuban bridgehead.
In 2018, archaeologists discovered the remains of ancient Greek musical instruments, a harp and a lyre. The instruments were discovered while examining an ancient necropolis located near the Volna settlement. Archaeologists say that a Greek polis existed there from the second quarter of the 6th century BC to the 4th century AD, which belonged to the Bosporan Kingdom.[4]
References
- ^ "Greek colonization in the northern Black Sea area". German Archaeological Institute. Retrieved 4 April 2010.
- ^ Tsutsiev, Atlas of the Ethno-Political History of the Caucasus, 2004
- ^ Robert Forczyk, The Caucasus 1942–43: Kleist’s race for oil
- ^ Russian archaeologists discover ancient Greek musical instruments near Crimea