2,000-Year-Old Treasure Discovered In Black Sea Fortress

[Mister D]

Residents of a town under siege by the Roman army about 2,000 years ago buried two hoards of treasure in the town's citadel — treasure recently excavated by archaeologists.

More than 200 coins, mainly bronze, were found along with "various items of gold, silver and bronze jewelry and glass vessels" inside an ancient fortress within the Artezian settlement in the Crimea (in Ukraine), the researchers wrote in the most recent edition of the journal Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia.
"The fortress had been besieged. Wealthy people from the settlement and the neighborhood had tried to hide there from the Romans. They had buried their hoards inside the citadel," Nikolaï Vinokurov, a professor at Moscow State Pedagogical University, explained.

Snip

The siege and fall of the fortress occurred in AD 45.

http://news.yahoo.com/2-000-old-treasure-discovered-black-sea-fortress-151425299.html

[Peter1469]

About 30 years before the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem.

[Mister D]

About 30 years before the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem.

What caught my eye is that this was outside the imperial frontier at its greatest extent.

1237

[RollingWave]

Crimea had a lot of Greek Colony at this time, who were very well connected to it's homeland and the many other Greek colonies all over the greater Med.

The Earliest Greek Colony there dated as early as 5th century BC and they setup a kingdom there soon after. (it became a Roman Client Kingdom around the time of Pompey / Ceaser ) . which was why it may often not be counted as an official part of the Empire. this Client Kingdom lasted all the way until the later 4th century AD, when it was probably overran by the Huns. the Byzantiums slowly went back and rebuilt the area after the end of the Hunnic empire.

Crimea remained greeco-roman for a very long time (with a interruption of some 100+ years when the Huns overran it.), at least it's coastal area did, It wasn't really lost until the 4th Crusade (surprise!) and the local region became independent (most of the Coastal area, including Kerch, was under the Geonese though) the independent state (the Principality of Theodoro) finally fell like the rest of the Byznatium to the Ottomans (several decades AFTER the fall of Constaninople ).

Also, amusingly (or sadly) the Principality of Theodoro had a much better relationship with the Gold Horde / Crimea Khanate then it did with the Geonese.

The Greeks although obviously still often in conflict with the nomads, co-existed with them reasonably well, probably because they were an important and reliable source for them to trade with for goods they otherwise would have problem acquiring / selling.

This was the last Roman Client King Tiberius Julius Rhescuporis VI (died 342 ad)'s golden mask found in his tomb.

http://www.sptimes.ru/archive/img/1472/1472_06_gold1.jpg

It's quite clear that kingdom was wealthy as hell.

Mask remained really popular in the region (including the nomads and later Rus people) for a loooong time. really until guns rendered armor relatively useless.

[Mister D]

Very interesting, RW. Thanks. The Black Sea coast of Anatolia was dotted with Greek colonies in antiquity as well so I suppose it really isn't surprising.

[RollingWave]

Around 5th century BC, Greeks and Phoenicians basically covered the entire greater Med with colonies

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/Ancient_colonies.PNG/800px-Ancient_colonies.PNG

Blue = Greek Colony Zone, Red = Phoenician

Another major area that most people don't think much about in terms of Greek Colony is Libya, Bengahzi is basically the site of Cyrene , which was founded by a student of Socrates and at one point called the Athens of Africa.