Its ruins now lie in the modern city of Kerch.
■ Early existence
During the first centuries of the city’s existence, imported Greek articles predominated: pottery (see Kerch Style), terracottas, and metal objects, probably from workshops in Rhodes, Corinth, Samos, and Athens. Local production, imitated from the models, was carried on at the same time. Athens manufactured a special type of bowl for the city, known as Kerch ware. Local potters imitated the Hellenistic bowls known as the Gnathia style as well as relief wares—Megarian bowls. The city minted silver coins from the 5th century BC and gold and bronze coins from the 4th century BC. At its greatest extent it occupied 100 hectares (250 acres). The Hermitage and Kerch Museums contain material from the site, which is still being excavated.
■ Fifth to first centuries BC
In the 5th–4th centuries BC, the city became the residence first of the Archaeanactids and then of the Spartocids, dynasties of Thracian kings of Bosporus, and was hence itself sometimes called Bosporus. Its economic decline in the 4th–3rd centuries BC was the result of the Sarmatian conquest of the steppes and the growing competition of Egyptian grain.
□■ Mithridates
The last of the Spartocids, Paerisades V, apparently left his realm to Mithridates VI Eupator, king of Pontus. This transition was arranged by one of Mithridates’s generals, Diophantus, who earlier had been sent to Taurica to help local Greek cities against Palacus of Lesser Scythia. The mission did not go smoothly: Paerisades was murdered by Scythians led by Saumacus, and Diophantus escaped to return later with reinforcements to suppress the revolt (c. 110 BC). Half of a century later, Mithridates took his life in Panticapaeum, when, after his defeat in a war against Rome, his son and heir Pharnaces and citizens of Panticapaeum turned against him.

SE 0.1Km	Mount Mithridat
NE 1.2Km	Kerch
NE 5.1Km	Royal Kurgan
SW 6.8Km	Kul-Oba
SW 9.5Km	Tyritake
SE 10.3Km	Yeni-Kale
SW 13.3Km	Nymphaion (Crimea)
NW 13.3Km	Baherove
SW 38.9Km	Kimmerikon

vTourMap パンティカパイオン Panticapaeum 潘提卡彭 Пантікапей

vTourMap パンティカパイオン　 Panticapaeum　潘提卡彭　 Пантікапей