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| | The discovery of the burial in the Kul-Oba tumulus, near Kerch, in 1831 showed that the Crimean land might contain countless art treasures. From that time the Ministry of the Imperial Court, to which the Hermitage was subordinated, began to finance excavations in the area of the Kerch strait. In ancient times this had been the location of the Greek colonies of Panticapaeum, Phanagoria, Gorgippia and Hermonassa that in the 4th century B.C. formed the powerful Bosporan Kingdom. Archaeological finds from this area began to come into the Imperial Museum where four rooms were set aside for antiquities from Cimmerian Bosporus. One of them contained wood and marble sarcophagi, statues, grave stelae and stones bearing Ancient Greek inscriptions. Particular mention should be made of the "Tmutarakan Stone" - a marble slab with an Old Russian inscription dating from 1068, the reading of which made it possible to narrow searches for the mysterious remote Early Russian settlement of Tmutarakan to the Taman Peninsula. |
