Current work site: Kerch (Crimea)
Head of expedition: Olga Sokolova
The Expedition conducts investigatory works on the Bosporan city of Nymphaeum (Nymphaion) located on the northeast fringe of Eltigen (Geroyevskoye) Village, Kerch. Founded by Greek settlers on the shore of the Cimmerian Bosporus (now the Kerch Strait) during the first half of the 6th c. BC, Nymphaion functioned until the early 4th c. BC.
The location of the city was identified from ancient descriptions of the coast aimed at sailors and travellers as well as from works of ancient geographers and historians. In the 1820s, Paul Dubrux provided a comprehensive description of the ruins and the first map of the site. In 1876–1880, the Imperial Archaeological Commission performed the first excavations in Nymphaeum and its necropolis. In 1938, the Bosporan Expedition of the Institute of History of Material Culture, USSR Academy of Sciences, headed by Professor V.F. Gaidukevich, conducted survey works in Nymphaeum and the surrounding area and established that the life of the city had spanned the period from the late 6th c. BC to the 3rd c. AD. The Nymphaeum Expedition of the State Hermitage has conducted systematic excavations and research on the site since 1939 (Heads of Expedition: М.М. Khudyak, 1939–1958; V.M. Skudnova, 1960–1964; N.L. Grach, 1966–1990; O.Yu. Sokolova, 1991 – present). In 2009–2011, research was performed in conjunction with the Archaeology Institute of the National Academy of Sciences, Ukraine; since 2012, studies have been conducted jointly with the Kerch Historical and Cultural Reserve.
Over several years of excavations on the Nymphaeum site, archaeologists have unearthed shrines, residential and public buildings, a system of defence facilities, pottery kilns, wineries and other features associated with different periods of the city’s millennium-long life; a considerable amount of work has been performed on the necropolis.
The present studies mostly focus on the historical topography and layout of Nymphaeum, the predominant development patterns in the south and southwest of the city as well as Nymphaeum’s fortification system. Since the 1980s, a lot of research interest has been generated by the monumental Hellenistic architectural complex on the southern slope of the Nymphaeum Plateau which can be dated to the first half of the 4th c. BC. One of the structures was interpreted by N.L. Grach as a shrine of patron gods of sailors and navigation. Numerous plaster fragments have been found on the floor of the building. The lining on two walls, with multiple drawings and inscriptions, has been restored. The sustaining walls of the terraces, foundations of two grand entrances (propylaea), four rows of seats in the amphitheatre, foundation of an altar and the bed of an enormous water drain have been unearthed. The functions of the buildings and structures discovered as well as their architectural features suggest that the area may have served as the political, religious and cultural centre of the city in the 4th and 3rd c. BC.
