A.E. Tereschenko

Key words: Bosporan kingdom, “the coin crisis” of the 3rd c., copper coinage, grain trade, Greater Scythia.
The author analyzes the possible reasons for the complex period of Bosporan history that Russian historiography erroneously named “the coin crisis”. The phenomenon should actually be determined as a crisis in the state revenues, which was brought about by the decrease in grain trade between the Bosporan kingdom and the Greek Mediterranean region. The reason was the destabilization in the lands of Greater Scythia from where most of the tradable grain came. The downfall of Greater Scythia began in the last quarter of the 4th c. BC when Sarmatian tribes appeared on that territory. In numismatics, the beginning of the process was marked by a sharp increase in the amount of copper coinage. That applies to the series which includes two types of coins: “bearded satyr head, protoma of eagle-headed griffin right, sturgeon below, Π-Α-Ν left” and “beardless satyr head, protoma of Pegasus right, Π-Α-Ν right”.