Akra () was an ancient

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

city at the

Cimmerian Bosporus The Kerch Strait is a strait in Eastern Europe. It connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, separating the Kerch Peninsula of Crimea in the west from the Taman Peninsula of Russia's Krasnodar Krai in the east. The strait is to wide and u ...

. The city is now underwater at the

Kerch Strait The Kerch Strait is a strait in Eastern Europe. It connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, separating the Kerch Peninsula of Crimea in the west from the Taman Peninsula of Russia's Krasnodar Krai in the east. The strait is to wide and up ...

, near the Naberezhne village in

Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...

.The Ancient Submerged City of Akra in the Cimmerian Bosporus, Sergey Solovyev, Viktor Vakhoneev, 2018, Skyllis
/ref>Underwater Archaeological Expedition on Ancient Town Akra in 2012 (Eastern Crimea), Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University, State Hermitage Museum
/ref> It was flooded as a result of the transgression of the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

and is now almost entirely immersed in the sea, with the exception of a small section at the Yanysh lake. It was founded in the late 6th BC by

Nymphaeum A ''nymphaeum'' (Latin : ''nymphaea'') or ''nymphaion'' (), in ancient Greece and Rome, was a monument consecrated to the nymphs, especially those of springs. These monuments were originally natural grottoes, which tradition assigned as habit ...

Panticapaeum Pantikapaion ( , from Scythian 'fish-path'; ) was an ancient Greek city on the eastern shore of Crimea, which the Greeks called Taurica. The city lay on the western side of the Cimmerian Bosporus, and was founded by Milesians in the late 7t ...

and was part of the Kingdom of Bosporus until the beginning of the 4th AD.Crimean Atlantis, Russian Geographical Society
/ref> It was an important place for anchoring and trade.Archaeological Excavations on the Chora of Akra, Sergey Solovyev, 2008
/ref> The layers of the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

and the Late

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

periods are destroyed by the waves but the early Hellenistic and Classical periods layers are intact. The city had well-developed fortifications, including walls and towers. The underwater research has revealed many archaeological findings including coins,

amphoras An amphora (; ; English ) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storage rooms and packages, tied together with rope and delivered by land ...

, terracottas, buildings and personal objects.

References

Greek colonies in Crimea Former populated places in Eastern Europe Populated places established in the 6th century BC {{AncientGreekWorld-stub

See also

References