KERCH or KERTCH, a seaport of the Crimean A.S.S.R. on the Strait of Kerch or Yenikale in 45° N. and 36° 28' E. Pop. (1926) 34,090. It stands on the site of the ancient Panticapaeum, and, like most towns built by the ancient Greek colonists in this part of the world, occupies a beautiful situation, clustering round the foot and climbing up the sides of the hill (called after Mithridates) on which stood the ancient citadel or acropolis. The town is a railway terminus and seaport. The Kerch channel is 30o ft. wide and has been dredged to a depth of 17 ft. From April to August steamers drawing 162 ft. of water can cross the bar, but from Sept. i to the close of navigation only vessels of I21- ft. draught can pass. There are six quays. On the north-west side of the Shiroki mole the walls of a basin for a floating dock have been completed; when dredged it will have a depth of 32 ft. The old Genoese mole has been reconstructed, and protection for sailing vessels against the north-east winds has thus been afforded. The chief exports are wheat, barley, linseed, flour, wool and iron goods depending on the local iron mines opened in 1895. Asphalt, fish and jam preserves, tobacco and flour are produced in the town, which also has a considerable fishing industry. Its mineral mud baths, one in the town itself, and one near Lake Chokrak, 9 m. distant, are increasingly frequented. About six miles north-east is the former Turkish fortress of Yenikale. The church of St. John the Baptist, founded in 717, is a good example of the early Byzantine style. That of Alexander Nevsky was formerly the Kerch museum of antiquities, founded in 1825. The more valuable objects were subsequently removed to the Hermitage at St. Peters burg.
The Greek colony of Panticapaeum was founded about the middle of the 6th century B.C., by the town of Miletus. From about 438 B.C. till the conquest of this region by Mithridates the Great, king of Pontus, about ioo B.C., the town and territory formed the kingdom of the (Cimmerian) Bosporus, ruled over by an independent dynasty. Phanaces, the son of Mithridates, be came the founder of a new line under the protection of the Romans, which continued to exist till the middle of the 4th cen tury A.D., and extended its power over the maritime parts of Tauris. After that the town—which had already begun to be known as Bospora—passed successively into the hands of the Eastern empire, of the Khazars, and of various barbarian tribes. In 1318, the Tatars, who had come into possession in the previous century, ceded the town to the Genoese, who soon raised it into new importance as a commercial centre. They usually called the place Cerchio, a corruption of the Russian name Kertchev (whence Kerch), which appears in the i ith century inscription of Tmutara E.
kan (a Russian principality at the north foot of the Caucasus). Under the Turks, whose rule dates from the end of the 15th century, Kerch was a military port ; and as such it played a part in the Russo-Turkish wars. Captured by the Russians under Dolgorukov in 1771, it was ceded to them along with Yenikale by the peace of Kuchuk-Kainarji, and it became a centre of Russian naval activity. Its importance was greatly impaired by the rise of Odessa and Taganrog; and in 1820 the fortress was dismantled. Kerch suffered severely during the Crimean War.
Archaeologically Kerch is of particular interest, the kurgans or sepulchral mounds of the town and vicinity having yielded since 1825 a rich variety of beautiful works of art. In the Altun or Zolotai-oba (Golden Mound) was found a great stone vault similar in style to an Egyptian pyramid ; and within, among many objects of minor note, were golden dishes adorned with griffins and beautful arabesques. In the Kul-oba, or Mound of Cinders (opened in 183o-1831), was a similar tomb, in which were found what would appear to be the remains of one of the kings of Bos porus, of his queen, his horse and his groom. The ornaments and furniture were of the most costly kind ; the king's bow and buckler were of gold; his very whip intertwined with gold; the queen had golden diadems, necklace and breast-jewels, and at her feet lay a golden vase. In the Pavlovski kurgan (opened in 1858) was the tomb of a Greek lady, containing among other articles of dress and decoration a pair of fine leather boots (a unique discovery) and a beautiful vase on which is painted the return of Persephone from Hades and the setting out of Triptolemus for Attica. In a neighbouring tomb was what is believed to be "the oldest Greek mural painting which has come down to us," dating probably from the 4th century B.C. Among the minor objects discovered in the kurgans perhaps the most noteworthy are the fragments of en graved boxwood, the only examples known of the art taught by the Sicyonian painter Pamphilus.
Very important finds of old Greek art continue to be made in the neighbourhood, as well as at Tamari, on the east side of the Strait of Kerch. The catacombs on the northern slope of Mithri dates hill, of which nearly 200 have been explored since 1859, possess considerable interest, not only for the relics of old Greek art which some of them contain (although most were plundered in earlier times), but especially as material for the history and eth nography of the Cimmerian Bosporus. In 1890 the first Christian catacomb hearing a distinct date (491) was discovered. Its walls were covered with Greek inscriptions and crosses.
See H. D. Seymour's Russia on the Black Sea and Sea of Azoll (London, i855) ; J. B. Telfer, The Crimea (London, 1876) ; P. Bruhn, Tchernomore, (Odessa, 1878) ; Gilles, Antiquites du Bosphore Cimmerien (1854) ; D. Macpherson, Antiquities of Kertch (London, 1857) ; Compte rendu de la Commission Imp. Archeologique (St. Petersburg) ; L. Stephani, Die Alterthiimer vom Kertsch (St. Peters burg, 188o) ; C. T. Newton, Essays on Art and Archaeology (London, 188o) ; Reports of the [Russian] Imp. Archaeological Commission ; Izvestia (Bulletin) of the Archives Commission for Taurida ; Antiquites du Bosphore Cimmérien, conservees an Musee Imperial de l'Ermitage (St. Petersburg, 1854) ; Inscriptiones antiquae orae septentrionalis Ponti Euxini graecae et latinae, with a preface by V. V. Latyshev (St. Peters burg, 189o) ; Materials for the Archaeology of Russia, published by the Imp. Arch. Commission (No. 6, St. Petersburg, 1890 ; M. Rostovt zeff, Iranians and Greeks in South Russia, 1922 (with bibliography ano illustrations).