page_title: History of Crimea
section_title: Tauri and Scythians
hierarchical_section_title: History of Crimea / Antiquity / Tauri and Scythians
caption_attribution_description: Kul-Oba treasure. Cabinet des Medailles, Paris.
context_page_description: The recorded history of the Crimean Peninsula, historically known as Tauris, Taurica, and the Tauric Chersonese, begins around the 5th century BC when several Greek colonies were established along its coast. The southern coast remained Greek in culture for almost two thousand years as part of the Roman Empire, and its successor states, the Byzantine Empire, the Empire of Trebizond, and the independent Principality of Theodoro. In the 13th century, some port cities were controlled by the Venetians and by the Genovese. The Crimean interior was much less stable, enduring a long series of conquests and invasions; by the early medieval period it had been settled by Scythians, Tauri, Greeks, Romans, Goths, Huns, Bulgars, Kipchaks and Khazars. In the medieval period, it was acquired partly by Kievan Rus', but fell to the Mongol invasions as part of the Golden Horde. They were followed by the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire, which conquered the coastal areas as well, in the 15th to 18th centuries.
  In 1783, the Ottoman Empire was defeated by Catherine the Great. Crimea was traded to Russia by the Ottoman Empire as part of the Treaty provision.
context_section_description: In the early Iron Age, Crimea was settled by two groups: the Tauri (or Scythotauri) in southern Crimea, and the East Iranian-speaking Scythians north of the Crimean Mountains.
  Taurians intermixed with the Scythians starting from the end of 3rd century BC were mentioned as  Tauroscythians and Scythotaurians in the works of ancient Greek writers.
  The origins of the Tauri, from which the classical name of Crimea as Taurica arose, are unclear. They are possibly a remnant of the Cimmerians displaced by the Scythians. Alternative theories relate them to the Abkhaz and Adyghe peoples, which at that time resided much farther west than today.
  The Greeks, who eventually established colonies in Crimea during the Archaic Period, regarded the Tauri as a savage, warlike people. Even after centuries of Greek and Roman settlement, the Tauri were not pacified and continued to engage in piracy on the Black Sea. By the 2nd century BC they had become subject-allies of the Scythian king Scilurus.
  The Crimean Peninsula north of the Crimean Mountains was occupied by Scythian tribes. Their center was the city of Scythian Neapolis on the outskirts of present-day Simferopol. The town ruled over a small kingdom covering the lands between the lower Dnieper River and northern Crimea. In the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, Scythian Neapolis was a city "with a mixed Scythian-Greek population, strong defensive walls and large public buildings constructed using the orders of Greek architecture". The city was eventually destroyed in the mid-3rd century AD by the Goths.
caption: The Scythian treasure of Kul-Oba, in eastern Crimea.
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