Anthropologists and scientists from the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences plan to recreate the image of people who lived in ancient times in the city of Phanagoria on the Taman Peninsula, considered the capital of Old Great Bulgaria, using skulls discovered during excavations. the head of the expedition Sergei Ostapenko told TASS. However, Russian scientists do not make any connection between the excavations and the ancient Bulgarians.
In some sources Phanagoria is mentioned as the capital of Old Great Bulgaria between 632 and 665, and it is even claimed that Khan Kubrat died there. This assumption is based on the chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor. The hypothesis that Phanagoria is the capital of Greater Bulgaria is not supported by archaeological data, according to which in the VII century the city has a very small population, located in a section of the coast, today below sea level. Kubrat’s Prophecies, Tsar of the Bulgarians Natalia Svirkina, an anthropologist at the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which collaborates with the Phanagorian expedition, explains that they are working on portraits of the seven inhabitants of the ancient city – men who lived in the Hellenistic era (III -I century BC), during Roman times (I-III century AD) and in the late antique period (IV-V century AD). “When we show the restored face of a man who lived many centuries ago, it is much more impressive than the demonstration of the skull itself and the remains of ancient people. “Such an exhibition technique allows visitors to the museum to better perceive and absorb new information about the health, nutrition and diseases of the Phanagorians,” she explains. “In the first stage we scan the skull – modern equipment allows us to obtain a three-dimensional digital model with an error of less than 0.0018 mm. The resulting virtual replica of the skull is the basis of the work of anthropologists to create a graphic reconstruction. Subsequently, these data also form the basis of the sculptural portrait. As a result, we will have a “portrait gallery” of the inhabitants of ancient Phanagoria, “says Ostapenko. On the life of Phanagoria hundreds and even thousands of years ago. “We do not aim to find thousands of burials or hundreds of houses or meet any other quantitative indicators. The aim is to obtain new information about the life of Phanagoria in the 1500s since its existence based on numerous discoveries. For example, our anthropologist Natalia Svirkina, thanks to many years of excavations and scientific methods used in the expedition, was able to discover new patterns in the specifics of protein nutrition by the people of Phanagoria, “says Ostapenko. Svirkina, for his part of the skeleton, the condition of the teeth and the chemical composition of the bone tissue can e and a lot of information was obtained not only about a particular person, but also about the development of the community as a whole. “For example, adults have defects in tooth enamel, which manifests itself in its uneven formation. This means that these people experienced stress in their childhood – that is, they were very sick, hungry or there was a sudden transition from breastfeeding to adult food, or for example the mother died, or in this society it was customary to abruptly wean the child. from breastfeeding, ”she explains.
Based on anthropological data, scientists draw conclusions about the mutual influence of the cultures of Greek citizens and nomadic tribes. In the first centuries of our era there was an increase in the number of citizens of non-Greek origin. These inhabitants abandoned their tribal traditions. A striking feature is the fact that the urban necropolises of the Bosporus (Cimmerian Bosphorus) usually have a small proportion of Sarmatians (people from nomadic Iranian-speaking tribes) with elongated skulls, although deliberate deformation of the head was characteristic of their culture. At the same time, in the necropolises of the Lower Don and the Volga region, a larger number of the buried have such a feature. Excavations in the Bosporus have revealed Sarmatians with elongated skulls buried in urban necropolises, but their deformation is less pronounced than that of their relatives in neighboring areas. “We have an assumption that the small number of people with deformed skulls in the Bosporus suggests that although the Sarmatians lived in the cities, they were either very few or did not practice deformity. Most likely, they adopted the ancient culture and in order not to stand out, they stopped following their tradition, “said Svirkina. About the lives of people whose portraits are recreated by scientists Using the full range of available techniques and equipment, scientists have been able to partially restore the biography of people whose portraits of life are now being recreated. “A man who lived in the late antique period died at the age of 40-49 – during this time he can be called an adult. We were able to restore not only its appearance, but also to detect a number of diseases: chronic inflammatory process of the ear canal, osteoarthritis and a number of other age-related changes. Caries and tartar show his eating habits and oral hygiene. His diet is likely to be dominated by soft, viscous and carbohydrate foods, such as oatmeal, “Svirkina said of one of the models. of strontium isotopes in tooth enamel showed that the isotope ratio of this element differs from background samples collected near the city and from indicators of other individuals, which means that it has grown elsewhere. other regions, we assume, came from areas north of the Black Sea, and we were able to find out which cereals predominated in this man’s diet: this is millet, which is not typical of the Greeks, but is common among the so-called barbarian peoples: Scythians, Sarmatians and others “, added Svirkina.
Ostapenko, for his part, said that during the years of studying Phanagoria, its flooded part and the necropolis near the city (the current stage dates back to 2004, but the research has been conducted for 225 years), the scientific database of the expedition is collected information for hundreds of residents. The results of the study lead to new mysteries for which there is still no answer. “In the process of investigating the excavation site in the Lower Town (in the part where the residential districts of Phanagoria are located), 19 people were found killed, including children – a girl of nine years and another child of about three years. Among these remains are three skulls, which show that people have had fatal injuries incompatible with life. The high level of injuries in all the people found shows that the city was attacked and its inhabitants killed. Among those killed were individuals with Mongoloid traits. For now, it is a big mystery who these murdered people are. “Did they live in the city all the time, where and when did they appear, or were they the enemies who attacked the city,” Ostapenko said.
Photo: Map of Phanagoria and other Greek colonies on the North Black Sea coast. Image: CC BY-SA 3.0
