In 2024, the Hermitage’s Southern Crimean Archaeological Expedition under the leadership of Svetlana Borisovna Adaksina conducted archaeological reconnaissance in the area of Novomikhailovsky settlement (Tuapse District, Krasnodar Krai).
Archaeological artefacts in the lower reaches of the River Nechepsukho attracted researchers’ attention from the 1830s onwards. An idea that has become particularly popular in present-day historical scholarship is that Cape Agriya (two kilometres south of the mouth of the river) was the location of the fortress of Nicopsis, which was the centre of the Orthodox Christian Zigian Eparchy between the 6th and 10th centuries. Some historians, however, suggest that Nicopsis was situated in the environs of Anakopia (New Athos, Abkhazia). The weakness of both hypotheses lies in their lack of supporting archaeological data.
Previously, archaeological exploration in the Novomikhailovsky area had been conducted episodically and on a very minor scale. In 1905, when a house was being built on Cape Agriya for Major General Alexander Beskrovny, the workers uncovered and plundered part of a necropolis. The ancient artefacts collected by the owner of the dacha were passed over to the Imperial Archaeological Commission.
In 1907, this group of finds was published and dated to the 6th to 15th centuries. That same year, Beskrovny’s estate was visited by the archaeologist Alexander Miller, who drew up a sketch map of the ancient fortress located there. Additionally, Beskrovny’s wife gave the scholar several dozen objects of various ages that came from the territory of the Cossack settlement then called Novo-Mikailovskaya. In 1909 Miller published the results of his own researches. The finds that he brought back to Saint Petersburg were given into the keeping of the Hermitage.
In the 20th century, a few more attempts at exploration were undertaken, resulting in the discovery of traces of a fortification presumed to be from late Antiquity, the marble capital from a Corinthian column and shards of pottery.
The most recent work on archaeological sites in the lower reaches of the Nechepsukho took place in the 1970s, followed by a long gap in the study of this area.
The main task of the reconnaissance conducted by the Hermitage expedition was to examine the present condition of the two fortresses close to Novomikhailovsky.
The initial results are these: on the territory of the fortification located on the grounds of the Zolotoi Kolos sanatorium complex, in a 2-metre-square test pit the ruins of a 1.7-metre thick fortress wall were discovered. The recoverable materials collected here have been preliminarily dated to the 4th–6th centuries.
On the territory of the fortress on Cape Agriya (Beskrovny’s Cape), within the Primorskaya tourist centre, in two test pits with a total ground area of 16 square metres, a 2.25-metre-thick fortress wall was discovered that has survived to a height of 2.5 metres. There were also ruins of some early Byzantine monumental structure and the walls of a Genoese building. So, the expedition managed to discover on the site constructions from two historical periods associated with the activities of the Byzantines (6th–10th centuries) and the Genoese (14th and 15th centuries). Alongside the fortress, the expedition identified traces of a settlement and a burial ground.
The data obtained confirm the existence on Cape Agriya of a stronghold with mighty defensive walls and provide substantial support for the previously proposed hypothesis that this was indeed the location of the centre of the Zigian Eparchy. More precise evidence in favour of this can only be obtained in the course of future excavations.
In the next few years, Hermitage archaeologists plan to continue their research around Novomikhailovsky with the aim of studying and precisely localizing the sites there. The most urgent matter at the moment is to carry out a modern instrumental survey of these cultural heritage features with precise determination of their boundaries, the territory of the protected zone and the zone of regulated development.
Already on the basis of this season’s results, it is clear that this territory – as yet practically unexplored from an archaeological viewpoint – looks very promising for the creation of a historical and archaeological park that could become one of the most interesting and popular tourist attractions in the Tuapse District of Krasnodar Krai.
