, a seaport at the eastern tip of the peninsula of that name at the eastern end of the Crimea [see ḳri̊m ] in the modern Crimean oblast of the Ukrainian SSR.
The district was clearly a well-populated one in pre-historic, Cimmerian and Scythian times, since it contains a large number of kurgans or burial mounds, many of which have been excavated since the last century. In classical times, it was from the 6th century B.C. onwards the site of the flourishing Ionian Greek colony of Pantikapaion, later called Bosporos and the capital of the principali…