Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

the rise of the pontic steppe scythians
to trade with both ethnic groups. Early evidence of Greek activity is provided by East
Greek pottery of the late seventh century dredged from the river mouth. A little later
a large fortified trading base was established at Elizavetovskoe in the delta. It covered
some 40 hectares and contained within it a smaller fortified area where the native
elite lived. The discovery of large quantities of Greek imports suggests that there may
have been Greek merchants actually in residence. With the annexation of the area by
the Bosporan kingdom at the end of the fourth century new opportunities for trading
opened up and early in the third century Tanais, a trading port overlooking the
estuary of the Don was founded. Strabo, writing at the beginning of the first century
ad reports:
Major Greek cities
Scythian fortified sites
Steppe
Forest steppe
Deciduous forest
N
Trakhtemirov
Sula
Psël
Vorskla
Bel’sk
Don
Dnieper
Volga
Bug
Donets
Dniester
Danube
Prut
Nadlimanskoe
Istria
Olbia
Tyras
Dnieper
Chersonesos
Black Sea
Neapolis
Scythica
Kamenskoye
Panticapaeum
Nymphaion
Sea of
Azov
Tanais
Phanegoreia
Gorgippa
Kuban
Don
Elizavetovskaya
0 200 miles
0 200km
5.8 The Greek cities on the Black Sea coast provided the trading interface between the Aegean and the
steppe worlds, but other trading and manufacturing centres developed inland, usually on river routes
where regional exchanges could take place. Greek merchants may well have taken up residence in these
enclaves.
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