In the neighbourhood of Kertch are extensive catacombs similar to those built by the early Christians in Rome. Excavations conducted under the direction of the Russian authorities several years ago disclosed rich ornaments of gold and silver, quaint arms and utensils of exquisite workmanship, which are now in the Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg. The walls of the catacombs are plastered over and covered with cryptographs and paintings, containing the history of prominent people who are buried near by. They are similar to the inscriptions on the Egyptian tombs, and represent combats, hunting scenes, court ceremonies and various other human activities, with accurate pictures of horses, oxen, dogs, and other animals. The men are usually represented in shirts of mail, wearing trousers supported by belts and conical caps similar to the Turkish fez. These catacombs date back at least twenty-five hundred years, and in several cases the occupants can be identified as the early sovereigns of the Cimmerians and the Milesians.
In the sixth century B.C., a Greek colony from Ionia settled near Kertch and dedicated their city to the god Pan, calling it Panticapæum. Coins bearing the effigy of that divinity have been dug up in the neighbourhood. In the same century the Scythians sent a force of men into Asia Minor to assist in repelling the invasion of Darius. In the year 480 B.C. the king of the Crimea was Archæanax. His successor was Spartacus, who died 438 B.C. The people of the peninsula preserved their independence until 115 B.C., when Parisades, the last native king, surrendered to Mithridates, who was the sovereign of twenty-two nations, and able to converse with the inhabitants of all of them without an interpreter.
From that time on the Crimea was the scene of continual struggles. The Greeks, the Persians, the Romans, the Goths, the Huns, the Genoese, the Venetians, the Byzantines, and other races succeeded one another in control at intervals of a century or two. The Golden Horde of Tartars in the fourteenth century drove out the Genoese and retained control, although compelled to pay tribute to the Turks, until in 1771, when the Tartar khan, Sahym Ghyrey, surrendered to Prince Potemkin and the Crimea became a part of the Russian empire.
One of the early rulers, Pharnaces, son of Mithridates, A.D. 63, was in command of the forces that were whipped by Cæsar so easily at the battle of Zelah as to cause him to send his famous despatch to the Roman senate: “Veni! Vidi! Vici!”
Another of the kings of the Crimea, Polemo II, a pagan, married the daughter of King Agrippa of Bible fame and adopted the Jewish faith, which he afterward renounced when his wife deserted him.
The Tartar khanate, which dates from 1380, had its capital at Baghtchasarai, about thirty miles northeast of Sevastopol and the same distance northwest of Yalta. The Khan Sarai, or palace, was restored and refurnished according to the original style by Prince Potemkin for the reception of Catherine the Great when she visited the Crimea in 1787. It is a fantastic building of barbaric splendour, and it is said to be described in the famous poem “Lallah Rookh.” The Russian poet Pushkin rhapsodizes over its beauties in some pretty verses of description. It is by no means as beautiful or as extensive as the Alhambra in Spain, but resembles it in the arrangement and the decoration of the apartments.
There are several well-preserved tombs of the khans who reigned between 1380 and 1786, including a graceful mausoleum, similar to those at Delhi outside the walls, in which repose the mortal remains of Deliarah Bikeh, the beautiful Georgian wife of Khan Shahim Gherai. Her original name was Maria Potorzka. She was the daughter of a Georgian chieftain, a Christian by birth and training, and refused to change her religion. In one of the apartments of the palace is a fountain which her husband, Shahim Gherai, erected in her memory as a symbol of the tears he shed after her death. It is called “the flood of tears.” Outside the walls, in an octagonal mausoleum with a dome, she is buried, and over the door is written in Tartar characters:
“This is the tomb of Deliarah Bikeh, beloved wife of Shahim Gherai, died 1746 A.D. She was a Christian.”
The fountain bears the same date.
About four miles from the town, upon the crest of a lofty crag called Chufut Kaleh (“Jewish rock”) is another stately tomb. It is regarded as one of the finest specimens of Tartar architecture in existence, and was erected in 1437 in honour of a Jewess, Nene Kejeh, queen of Toktamysh, khan of the Golden Horde.