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Τάναϊς Танаис | |
 The archaeological park of Tanais. May 2017 | |
  Tanais Shown within Rostov Oblast Show map of Rostov Oblast.jpg) Tanais Tanais (European Russia) Show map of European Russia | |
| Location | Nedvigovka,Rostov Oblast,Russia |
|---|---|
| Region | Maeotian marshes |
| Coordinates | 47°16′8″N39°20′6″E / 47.26889°N 39.33500°E /47.26889; 39.33500 |
| Type | Settlement |
| History | |
| Builder | Settlers fromMiletus |
| Founded | Late 3rd century BC |
| Abandoned | Second half of the 5th century AD |
| Periods | Hellenistic toLate Antiquity |
| Cultures | Greek,Sarmatian |
| Site notes | |
| Condition | Ruined |
| Ownership | Public |
| Public access | Yes |
| Website | museum-tanais |
Tanais (Greek:ΤάναϊςTánaïs;Russian:Танаис) was anancient Greek city in theDon river delta, called theMaeotian marshes inclassical antiquity. It was a bishopric as Tana and remains a Latin Catholictitular see as Tanais.
The delta reaches into the northeasternmost part of theSea of Azov, which the Ancient Greeks called Lake Maeotis. The site of ancient Tanais is about 30 km west of modernRostov-on-Don. The central city site lies on a plateau with a difference up to 20 m in elevation in the south. It is bordered by a natural valley to the east, and an artificial ditch to the west.
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The site of Tanais was occupied long before theMilesians founded anemporium there. Anecropolis of over 300 burialkurgans near the ancient city shows the site had already been occupied since theBronze Age, and that kurgan burials continued throughGreek and into theRoman era.
Greek traders seem to have been meeting nomads in the district as early as the 7th century BC without a formal, permanent settlement.Greek colonies had two kinds of origins,apoikiai of citizens from the mother city-state, andemporia, which were strictly trading stations. Founded late in the 3rd century BC, by merchant adventurers fromMiletus, Tanais quickly developed into anemporium at the furthest northeastern extension of the Hellenic cultural sphere. It was a natural post, first for the trade of the steppes reaching away eastwards in an unbroken grass sea to theAltai, theScythian Holy Land, second for the trade of theBlack Sea, ringed with Greek-dominated ports and entrepots, and third for trade from the impenetrable north, with furs and slaves brought down the Don.Strabo mentions Tanais in hisGeography (11.2.2).
The site for the city, ruled by anarchon, was at the eastern edge of the territory of the kings ofBosporus. A major shift in social emphasis is represented in the archaeological site when the propylaea gate that linked the port section with the agora was removed, and the open center of public life was occupied by a palatial dwelling in Roman times for the kings of Bosporus. For the first time there were client kings at Tanais: Sauromates (AD 175-211) and his son Rescuporides (c. AD 220), who both left public inscriptions.
In AD 330, Tanais was devastated by theGoths, but the site was occupied continuously up to the second half of the 5th century AD. Increasingly, the channel silted up, probably the result of deforestation, and the center of active life shifted, perhaps to the small city ofAzov, halfway to Rostov.
The city was refounded around the 14th century by theVenetians. It was later acquired by the maritimeRepublic of Genoa, who administered it 1332-1471 as Tana nel Mare Maggiore, being an important place for trade with theGolden Horde, like all their Black Sea colonies controlled by the Genoese Consul atKaffa. It decayed again after 1368. In 1392, it was conquered byTimur.
The conquest ofCentral Asia by the Mongols had opened theBlack Sea as a trading hub for goods from China, Persia, and parts of Russia.[1] The Venetians settled inSoldaïa andTrebizond, but soon focused on Tana, which was better situated on both land and water trade routes.[2] They would later settle inMaurocastro as well.[3] Tana was the connecting point for the Danube, Polish and Persian trade routes, as well as the route beginning inAstrakhan that led to China.[4][5]Giosafat Barbaro mentioned how six or seven trade galleys came from Venice every year for the silks and spices from Astakhan as well as other goods.[6] He also described annual shipments of 40,000 cattle toCentral Asia and caravans with 6000 animals that went to India.[7] Among the goods traded in Tana were caviar, salted fish, wine, amber, salt, grain, fur, horses, and slaves,[7] as well as spices and silk.[8]
In the fifteenth century Tana was a modestly-sized town mostly or entirely surrounded by walls with towers.[9] Commercial rivals Genoa and Venice fortified their sections of the town.[9] Byzantine and Russian quarters were near the Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas.[9] There were Jewish andZichian quarters as well.[9]
In 1438, theGreat Horde underKüchük Muhammad advanced on Tana.[10]Arsenio Duodo, the Venetian Consul to Tana sent Giosafat Barbaro as an emissary to the Tatars to persuade them not to attack Tana.[11][12] Later, Barbaro was part of a group of less than fifty that drove off a hundredCircassian raiders.[13][14]
The Tatars attacked Tana in 1442, setting fire to the Venetian quarter, though many of the people survived due to the actions of Consul Marco Duodo, Arsenio's brother.[15] The fire started in the bazaar near the fortress and was fanned by a strong north wind.[16] Four breaches were made in the city walls, one by Giosafat Barbaro himself, for people to escape, but even then women and children needed to be lowered over the walls by rope.[17] The fire burned for three hours until a combination of human efforts and rain extinguished it and over four hundred people died.[17] In 1442, there was also concern over the Turks raiding Venetian shipping.[17] Between that and the siege and fire at Tana, the new ConsulPietro Pesaro was stranded in Caffa for several weeks at his own expense before he was able to relieve Marco Duodo.[15] That July the Venetian Senate considered not sending trade galleys to Tana that year.[17] Instead they ordered Lorenzo Moro to use the war galleys fromNegroponte and Naplia to escort the trade galleys commanded byLeonardo Duodo to and from Tana.[17]
Marco Basso, the last Venetian Consul before thefall of Constantinople left Tana before his term ended or his successor arrived.[15] In December 1452, the galleys returning from Tana, three large merchant galleys commanded byAlvise Diedo, and two smaller war galleys commanded byGabriele Trevisano arrived in Constantinople. Their instructions were to return to Venice within ten days of the arrival of another Venetian galley fromTrebizond. That galley, commanded by Giacomo Coco reached Constantinople on December 4, 1452, but EmperorConstantine XI and the Venetian BailoGirolamo Minotto persuaded them to aid in the city’s defense.[18] The fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453 cut off the trade route to Tana.[6][19] Venice and other Italian states tried to re-establish trade in the Black Sea or find alternate routes, but were not successful.[6][20]
Tana was conquered by theOttoman Turks in 1471, by theRussians in 1696, again by the Turks in 1711 and by the Russian Empire in 1771.
In 1823, I. A. Stempkovsky first made a connection between the visible archaeological remains, which were mostly Roman in date, and the "Tanais" mentioned in the ancient Greek sources.
Systematic modern excavations began in 1955. A joint Russian-German team has recently been excavating at the site of Tanais, with the aim of revealing the heart of the city, theagora, and defining the extent of Hellenistic influence on the urbanism of the Bosporan Greek city, as well as studying defensive responses to the surrounding nomadic cultures.
In the bookJakten på Odin, authorThor Heyerdahl advanced a highly controversial idea postulating connections between Tanais and ancientScandinavia. In preparation of the book, he conducted some archaeological research on the site of Tanais. Heyerdal`s idea was based on the old Norse sagas ofSnorri Sturlason. (1178 - 1241)
Tanais Tablets are the most important historical discoveries in region of Tanais.
9 Y-chromosome markers were obtained from a skeleton. The result was 389I=13, 389II=30, 458=15, 385=11, 393=13, 391=11, 635=23, 437=14, 448=19. This result is characteristic forhaplogroup R1a.[21]
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