1. Journal of Ancient History 1 (284)
  2. Some Considerations on an Extinct Strait, the Sindian Bosporus

Some Considerations on an Extinct Strait, the Sindian Bosporus

Surikov Igor E.

As a result of researches conducted by the group of D. Zhuravlev and U. Schlotzhauer, by now there can be no serious doubts as regards the existence in antiquity, to the east of the Cimmerian Bosporus, of the other strait connecting the Black Sea and the Azov Sea. However, the name given to the strait by the scholars cited – the Kuban Bosporus –does not seem quite felicitous to me. I would offer another one: the Sindian Bosporus, as it separated the future Taman Peninsula (then a large island) from Sindica, as the Cimmerian Bosporus separated Taman from Cimmeria. Maybe «the Sindian crack» mentioned in a fragment of Hipponax (the 6th century BC.) has to do exactly with the strait in question. Greek colonization of the Bosporus region in the sixth century went two ways: through the Cimmerian Bosporus and through the above-mentioned more eastern strait. But later the fate of the two sets of colonies appeared quite different. Colonies on the Cimmerian Bosporus flourished and created the Bosporan Kingdom; colonies on the Sindian Bosporus degraded, and their names are even absent from our narrative sources. I think the main reason is that the Sindian Bosporus ceased to be navigable for sea ships already in the Classical period and not in the Hellenistic one.

Keywords: historical geography of the Northern Black Sea region, straits, islands, Bosporus, colonization, Taman Peninsula.
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