Description of the attraction
In the spring of 1827, not far from Simferopol, in the village of Kermenchik, local residents accidentally found a limestone slab with a convex, relief image of a young man on a horse, wearing a soft felt hat. Some kind of Greek inscription was found on the fragments of the slab.
Large-scale archaeological research of the settlement was carried out in the 1940s-1950s. On a hill southeast of Simferopol, where Scythian reliefs were found more than a century ago, archaeologists stumbled upon the remains of a wall made of huge blocks of stone, the gaps between which were filled with rubble. It was a powerful defensive wall more than eight meters thick.
A large Scythian city, surrounded by a powerful defensive wall, towered at the junction of ancient trade routes connecting the steppe and foothill Crimea with the Black Sea coast. At the city walls of Scythian Naples, archaeologists for the first time discovered an overground Scythian tomb. Clearing the mausoleum, 72 burials and the remains of four horses were found here. The richness of the burial resembled the tombs of the great mounds. Scientists have suggested that this is the tomb of King Skilur himself. The mausoleum is the only monument of its kind in the Scythian settlements.
Archaeologists have also found burial vaults outside the city. The remains of residential and public buildings, including those with frescoes, have been unearthed. Found portrait reliefs, fragments of statues, pedestals with Greek inscriptions - dedications to the gods.
Almost all of the excavated sections of the settlement were then again covered with earth for preservation due to the lack of funds for the maintenance necessary for the ruins. Today Scythian Naples - a historical and archaeological complex, an archaeological monument of world importance - is in a state of disrepair.
