Cimmerian Bosporus

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The "Cimmerian Bosphorus" of Antiquity, shown on a map printed in London, ca 1770

The Cimmerian Bosporus (Latin: ) was the ancient name for the Strait of Kerch that connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. The Cimmerians (Cimmerii) were the ancient inhabitants who gave their name to a strait that reminded the Greeks of the more familiar Bosporus that separates Thrace from Asia at Byzantium.

The straits are about 2.5 miles long and 2.5 miles broad at the narrowest, and are formed by an eastern extension of Crimea (anciently called Taurica) and the peninsula of Taman, a kind of continuation of the Caucasus. This in ancient times seems to have formed a group of islands intersected by arms of the Kuban River (Hypanis) and various sounds now silted up.

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