usurpers, adopting the title of "archon of Khazaria" (Arakhan of Tmutar), and placed the city under nominal Byzantine control. But he also issued rough silver coins in his own name which included a short inscription in Cyrillic letters. Then in 1094, like Mstislav before him, he returned to Rus to claim the throne of Chernigov. Byzantine interest in the city was maintained through this succession of client rulers, and thereafter by more direct rule for a while, for an important reason. There were naphtha deposits in the area and this was a vital ingredient of their main tactical weapon, Greek Fire. Up until the end of the 12th century the imperial authorities were forbidding their Genoese trading partners access to the city known to them as Matracha. Decline In the 13th century the city passed to the Empire of Trebizond (a Byzantine successor state). Its last recorded mention was in a scroll of 1378. The region fell under the control of the Republic of Genoa in the 14th century and formed part of the protectorate of Gazaria, based at Kaffa. It was within the territory administered by the Ghisolfi family and was conquered by the Crimean Khanate in 1482 and by Russia in 1791. A possible remaining Khazar connection is suggested by mention of “Jewish princes” in Tamatarkha under both Genoese and Tatar rule. The city subsequently fell into ruin and the site was rediscovered in 1792, when a local peasant found a stone with an inscription stating that Prince Gleb had measured the sea from here to Kerch in 1068. Archaeological excavations of the site were begun in the 19th century and have continued since. The habitation level in places exceeds twelve meters. During much of the 17th and 18th centuries the area was dominated by Cossacks centered on the town of Taman, which was located near the remains of Tmutarakan. The modern town of Temryuk is nearby. Etymology Speculations have been advanced for how the settlement came by its later name. Possibly it derives from the Tatar language or is related to the Greek for "fish curing (Τομη΄τα΄τιχα)", an important Black Sea product. Afterwards it might have been given a Russian folk etymology, combining "t'ma" (darkness) and "tarakan" (cockroach), to mean metaphorically 'the back of beyond', the sense that Vladimir Mayakovsky gives it. References Resources Brook, Kevin Alan. The Jews of Khazaria. 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,