At the excavations of Phanagoria, the largest archaeological site located in the Temryuk district of the Krasnodar Territory, scientists have discovered a part of a marble stele of the 5th century BC with an inscription of the Persian king Darius I and the remains of ancient city fortifications, the press service of the Volnoe Delo Oleg Deripaska Foundation reported.
It is specified that a unique artifact - a part of a marble stele with a cuneiform inscription on behalf of the Persian King Darius I - was discovered during the 13th joint season of the complex archaeological expedition of the Foundation and the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
“The find is tentatively dated to the first half of the 5th century. BC. According to archaeologists, its discovery could become a world scientific sensation,”the message says. It is specified that the inscription on the discovered fragment of the stela was made in the ancient Persian language in cuneiform used only by the Persian king. According to scientists, about 10-15% of the message has been preserved on the stele. Nevertheless, the deciphered parts of the inscription directly indicate that it was made on behalf of Darius I.
One of the previously unknown words present in the text, scientists have restored as "Miletus" - this name was borne by the largest Greek city in Ionia (modern Asia Minor). The department explained: at the beginning of the V century. BC. Miletus was at the head of the so-called Ionian uprising of the Hellenic policies against Darius I, it was suppressed in 494 BC.
Scientists suggest that the king, after his victory over the Greeks, erected a marble stele in the city with a text, possibly with a message about his triumph. Later, a fragment of the overthrown and broken stele ended up in Phanagoria, probably as ballast on one of the ships that visited the Phanagoria port, since there is no stone of its own on the Taman Peninsula. “Currently the stele is in the restoration laboratory of the scientific and cultural center“Fanagoria”. Its study and more thorough dating will be continued,”the Foundation added.
They also noted that in addition to this, the remains of the oldest city fortifications were discovered on the acropolis, which is also an event for classical archeology. According to preliminary estimates of scientists, they were built in the second half of the 6th century. BC, and destroyed at the beginning of the 5th century. BC. “Defensive structures of the archaic and early classical times are a great rarity for archaeologists, not only in the Black Sea region, but also in the Mediterranean,” the message says.
Phanagoria is the largest archaeological monument in Russia of the ancient era, located on the Taman Peninsula. The city, founded in the middle of the 6th century BC. Greek settlers, for a long time was one of the two capitals of the oldest state formation on the territory of Russia - the Bosporus kingdom (starting from the 5th century BC).
Svetlana Berilo
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