Phanagoria

Phanagoria [Фанагорія]. (Map: Greek colonies on northern Black Sea coast.) An ancient Greek colony (see Ancient states on the northern Black Sea coast) on the Taman Peninsula at the site of present-day Sinna, Krasnodar krai, Russian Federation. It was founded in the middle of the 6th century BC by colonists from the Ionic city of Teos, and in the 5th century BC it became part of the Bosporan Kingdom. Phanagoria flourished in the 5th to 2nd centuries BC and formed an independent state in the 1st century BC. Its inhabitants (Sindians, Maeotians, Sarmatians, and Greeks) engaged in agriculture, animal husbandry, fishing, various crafts, and trade with neighboring tribes and Mediterranean states. In the 4th century AD the city was razed by the Huns but was rebuilt by the end of the century. It died out in the 11th to 12th century. Excavations of Phanagoria began in the 19th century. More systematic digs conducted in the late 1930s and after the Second World War have uncovered the ruins of palaces, houses, wells, the city walls, a gymnasium, the acropolis, and the port.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]