Киммерийская фортификация

Abstract

Early examples of northern Iranian fortification date back to the Cimmerian era. Thus, the fortifications on the modern Kerch and Taman peninsulas, made up of a system of ramparts and ditches that fenced off the Bosporus from the steppe barbarians, were called “Cimmerian” by ancient authors. The Cimmerians are the most ancient people of southeastern Europe known to us. Their country Cimmeria covered the modern Crimean and Taman peninsulas, the Northern Black Sea region, the Azov region and the Northern Caucasus. During the Central Asian campaigns, the Cimmerians had to confront the advanced armies of that time - Assyrian and Urartian, with their perfect fortresses (in particular, the so-called “Cyclopean”, in the shape of a circle or square), which required the development of siege and assault techniques (polyorcetics), which were successfully used during hostilities. The Cimmerian Wall crosses the middle of the Kerch Peninsula (between the Kerch Peninsula and the rest of Crimea) at its narrowest point and has a length of 40-42 km. The shaft or its individual fragments are also called Asandrov, Uzunlarsky, Turkish, Akkozsky, etc. The rampart (circa 400 BC), reinforced with stonework running along its crest, reached a width of 20 m at the base, a height of up to 7-8 m, and its ditch, 5 m deep, had a width of 10-15 m. Along the entire length of the rampart, the same type of square tower-forts measuring approximately 10x12 m were erected, at a distance of about 2.5 km from each other. Roads run along the rampart, and in the rampart itself there are about a dozen passages, fortified with stone and flanking towers. The Cimmerian Wall on the Taman Peninsula began at the northeastern protrusion of the Taman Gulf and stretched for about 7 km to the shore of the Sea of Azov. According to other materials, it had a length of about 40 km and ran along the bottom from the center of the Taman Bay about 20 km to the northeast, and continued the same amount along the land part, ending before reaching the shore of the Temryuk Bay. The remains of this fortification were noted on topographic maps of the second half of the 20th century as the Cimmerian Val. The аrticle, based on dаta from аrchaeologicаl and written sources, аnаlyzes Cimmerian fortificаtion and polyorcetics. The most significant defensive structures of the Cimmeriаns are exаmined; the most charаcteristic аrchitectural forms аnd construction techniques are noted.