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Group: Bosporan Kingdom
People: Peter Damian

Bosporan Kingdom

Years: 480BCE - 342

The Bosporan Kingdom or the Kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus is an ancient state, located in eastern Crimea and the Taman Peninsula on the shores of the Cimmerian Bosporus.

It is interesting as the first truly 'Hellenised' state in the sense that a mixed population adopts the Greek language and civilization.The Bosporan Kingdom is the longest surviving known Roman Client Kingdom.

It is a Roman Province from 63 to 68, under Roman Emperor Nero.

The 1st and 2nd centuries are a period of a new golden age of the Bosporan state.

In the end of the 2nd century, the King Sauromates II inflicts a critical defeat to the Scyths and includes all the territories of the Crimea in the structure of his state.The prosperity of the Bosporan Kingdom is based on the export of wheat, fish and slaves, and this commerce supports a class whose showy wealth over the centuries is still being dug out, often illegally, from numerous burial barrows or kurgans.

The once thriving cities of the Bosporan have left extensive architectural and sculptural remains, while the kurgans continue to yield spectacular Greco-Sarmatian objects, the best examples of which are now preserved in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

These include gold work, vases imported from Athens, coarse terracottas, textile fragments and specimens of carpentry and marquetry.