72 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IIO 



weights, and a quantity of metal articles including padlocks, screw 

 rings, bronze bowls, and others. Room X had a hearth, and on the 

 floor near the west wall were part of a marble column and a cubed 

 stone ; this was possibly either a smithy or a workshop. Room XII 

 was a courtyard ; in the east corner was the cesspool sump. 



The numerous and varied furnishings (work tools and usual 

 articles) allow certain conclusions to be drawn as to the occupations 

 and social organizations of the inhabitants of this dwelling. They 

 engaged in farming, livestock raising, and fishing. Others were 

 artisans such as smiths, locksmiths, builders, and weavers. 



It was a regime of small undertakings, sufficient in themselves ; trade 

 had evidently ceased at this period since no imported articles were 

 found. 



The houses date from the last centuries of the city's existence, or 

 approximately from the fourteenth-fifteenth centuries. 



These observations on the latter part of the medieval period, made 

 during 3 years of excavation, can be extended to some degree over 

 the entire city: 



1. The economic level of the population during the latter stages of 

 the city's existence was very low. 



2. By their occupations and their means of existence, the popula- 

 tions lived mainly in a rural condition through the natural economy 

 of small, independent, and self-sufficient undertakings. 



3. In general, the Chersonesus lost its former importance as a large 

 trading center and became a small town with but slender economic 

 connections with its immediate vicinity. 



Tiritaka. — Although ancient writers referred to Tiritaka as a city, 

 the excavations by the Bosphorean Expedition of IIMK in collabora- 

 tion with the Kerch Archeological Museum under the direction of 

 V. F. Gaidukevich ^ disclosed that in general planning and many other 

 essential traits this settlement did not resemble the usual ancient 

 cities. 



Tiritaka was a well-developed industrial settlement. An additional 

 group of fish-salting cisterns uncovered during 1939 in the southern 

 part of town evidently belonged to a very extensive establishment. 

 There is no doubt that during the Roman period Tiritaka was one 

 of the most important centers for the export of fish. The 1939 excava- 

 tions in the western part of the site were a continuation of those of 

 1938 in the course of which a building of the sixth century B. C. 



^ V. F. Gaidukevich, in Kratkie Soobshcheniia, No. 4, pp. 54-58, summarized 

 the 1932- 1939 excavations. 



