Chersonesos, Ukraine

Lapped by the waves of the Black Sea, the ruins of ancient Chersonesos at the mouth of Sevastopol harbor stand today as a "Slavic Pompeii." Founded in the fifth century B.C. as a colony of Herakleia Pontika on the north coast of Asia Minor (today Turkey), Chersonesos was occupied into the Byzantine period and subsequently abandoned. The Ukrainian prince Volodymyr is said to have been baptized here in A.D. 988, bringing Christianity to the Kievan Rus (a medieval state centered around what is today Ukraine's capital city of Kiev).

Keywords: Chersonesos (Cherson, Chersonese, Khersones, Korsun); Sevastopol (Sebastopol); Crimea (Krym); Ukraine (Ukrayina); ancient city; ruins; archaeology; excavation; dig; archaeological site; classical Greece; ancient Greek colony; stock photography