Anapa Archaeological Museum "Gorgippia"

The first settlement on the banks of the Anapa Bay refers to the VI century BC. According to the name of the Sindh tribe living in this area, the settlement was called Sindh Harbour. Later, the Greeks – natives of Asia Minor – appear in Sindic. They peacefully coexisted with the Sindhis, they were united by joint occupations in trade, crafts, and the need to defend themselves against enemy attack. This forced the neighboring Greek colonies of Phanogoria, Kepa, Patus and other cities located on both sides of the Kerch Strait (the Bosporus of Cimmeria) to unite into one state - the Bosporan Kingdom. In the first quarter of the IV century BC. Sindh Harbour gets a new name - Gorgippia after the viceroy of the Bosporan king Gorgippa. The Anapa Museum is the only open-air museum in Russia. Here you can see several open excavations quarters of Gorgipia II - early III centuries BC and the main street. Its roadway is paved with slabs, sidewalks stretch along the sides of the houses. The bridge was made at a time when the only mode of transport were chariots and carts drawn by oxen. However, it turned out to be so strong that even now dump trucks with land could pass through it. The street was close to the main city gate. Outside the city, it turned into a road connecting it with the trade road from the Crimea to the Caucasian passes. I-II centuries AD. Gorgippia became one of the richest Bosporan cities. Houses of nobility were located in the public center of the city, on its main square - the agora. There were plumbing and drainage systems. One of them can be observed: the main street, laid along the craft quarter, intersects with another, running from north to south. A drainage channel was laid along it under the plates. He approached a lame well, at the bottom of which there was debris, and the water flowed out on the other side and was dumped into the sea. All houses occupy significant areas and have large and deep basements. There are no land parts of the houses, they have not survived. We can only imagine what they looked like. It is known that in Rome in the III century there were 3.4 and 5 storey houses. They were built from well-burned bricks. In Gorgippia, most likely, there were 2-storey houses, because poorly burned Gorgippian bricks simply could not withstand the weight of many floors. On the first floors, most likely, there were trade shops, craft workshops. The roofs of the houses were covered with clay tiles produced in the city. Although glass windows already existed in the ancient cities of the Mediterranean, they were rare here, more often the windows were tightened with bull bubbles. No fragments of flat window glass were found. The economic way of Gorgippia remains the same: the city continues to export bread, dried and salted fish, and winemaking becomes a commodity industry. In the left corner of the excavation, we see three cisterns of a large winery that could hold up to 6 tons of grape must. Settled juice was poured for fermentation into pyphoses. The finished wine was stored in amphorae. Grain and oil were also stored in amphorae. In the basement of the house, on the right side of the excavations found 26 amphorae with grain and scattered on the floor coins. Maybe it was a merchant's shop. Among the items found are many ceramic products, pottery lamps and terracotta figurines, from which we can conclude that coraplasty was developed in Gorgippia - the art of making terracotta figurines. Exhibits found in the territory of Anapa and its surroundings can be seen in the exhibition halls of the museum, located in a covered room [built in 1897], which can be visited. We can also mention the sensational discovery made in 1975. During the construction of a 12-storey house on the street. Gorky, in the pit was discovered a crypt with three stone sarcophagi, called by archaeologists “the crypt of Hercules”. On the walls and ceiling in the fresco technique are depicted twelve exploits of Hercules. Currently, most of the frescoes are in Moscow, in the Pushkin Museum for restoration, and sarcophagi can be seen. By the beginning of the III century, the situation on the borders of the Bosporan kingdom was changing. In the Northern Black Sea, hordes of Goths invaded. Gorgippia was one of the first to take the blows of barbarian tribes. The city died in a fire shortly after 238. A century later, the Huns came to the Bosporus. They completed the destruction of the once flourishing cities of the Bosporan kingdom.