Pages: 85-87

An outstanding archaeologist and linguist Mikhail Fjodorovich Boltenko (1888-1959 ăă.) is known for his researches of Bronze Age and Classical sites in the North-West Pontus Region and comments to Herodotus. In 1912 M.F. Boltenko worked under E.R. Stern’s leadership on excavations in Tyra. The goal of these excavations was to keep searching for a Classical Ancient layer, undisturbed by intrusions, and covered by layers of subsequent periods. The goal was reached only in one of the three soundings dug on the territory of Belgorod-Dnestrovsk (Akkerman) castle, the one in the north-eastern part of the second yard, by the Eastern wall of the citadel (“Genoa castle”). Having got over the layers of Turkish, Moldavian and Golden Horde epochs, they managed to discover several horizons of Tyra layers containing debris, in the upper layer accompanied by pottery and coins of the Roman time, and close to the mainland – exclusively of the classical and Hellenistic periods.  Consequently, M.F. Boltenko’s diary and E.R. Stern’s article leave no doubt about the reliability of conclusions on the place of Tyra’s first settlers.