science

Stone of Tmutarakan

Stone of Tmutarakan is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Stone of Tmutarakan rather than just read about it. In short: The Stone of Tmutarakan (Russian: Тмутараканский камень) is a marble slab engraved with the words "In the year 6576 [ A.M., 1068 A.D] the sixth of the Indiction, Prince Gleb measured across the sea on the ice from Tmutarakan to Kerch 14,000 sazhen" (Old East Slavic: "Въ лѣто 6576 індикта 6 Глѣбъ кнѧзь мѣрилъ м[оре] по лєду ѿ Тъмутороканѧ до Кърчєва 10000 и 4000 сѧжє[нъ]"; Russian translation: "В лето 6576 индикта 6…

Key takeaways

Stone of Tmutarakan belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Stone of Tmutarakan to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Stone of Tmutarakan from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Stone of Tmutarakan (Russian: Тмутараканский камень) is a marble slab engraved with the words "In the year 6576 [ A.M., 1068 A.D] the sixth of the Indiction, Prince Gleb measured across the sea on the ice from Tmutarakan to Kerch 14,000 sazhen" (Old East Slavic: "Въ лѣто 6576 індикта 6 Глѣбъ кнѧзь мѣрилъ м[оре] по лєду ѿ Тъмутороканѧ до Кърчєва 10000 и 4000 сѧжє[нъ]"; Russian translation: "В лето 6576 индикта 6 Глеб князь мерил море по леду от Тмутороканя до Корчева 14000 сажен"). A sazhen, an old Rus unit of length, was equal to seven feet (or corresponded roughly to a fathom); thus the Kerch Straits, according to the stone, were 88,000 feet or 18.5 miles across (that is, from Kerch to Tmutarakan — the straits themselves are only 4.5 miles wide at their narrowest point, but the distance from the site of Tmutarakan to modern-day Kerch is about 15 miles.) The tenth-century Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus wrote that the straits were the equivalent of 18 miles across, and this might explain why that measurement appears on the stone, although it is unclear if an eleventh-century prince in Rus would have had access to that information; this uncertainty calls the stone's authenticity into question. The Prince Gleb referred to in the inscription was Gleb Svyatoslavich, then prince of Tmutarakan. Gleb was later Prince of Novgorod the Great, where he saved Bishop Fedor's life by chopping a sorcerer in half who led a pagan uprising against the bishop. Gleb was eventually killed fighting pagan Finnic tribes in the northern Novgorodian Lands ("the Zavoloch'e" or "Za Volokom", "the Land beyond the Portages") on May 30, 1079. The stone was discovered on the Taman Peninsula just east of Crimea in 1792 and the inscription was first published in 1794 by Aleksei Musin-Pushkin. The study of the inscription is said to be the first epigraphic study in Russian history. In spite of its importance in the history of Russian epigraphy, a number of scholars have called the stone's provenance into question and consider the stone an eighteenth-century forgery, perhaps done by Romanticists enamored of ancient culture or even as an effort to find precedent for Russian involvement in the Caucasus. The stone is currently housed in the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Stone of Tmutarakan

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Stone of Tmutarakan claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Stone of Tmutarakan before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Stone of Tmutarakan ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Stone of Tmutarakan

In research: Stone of Tmutarakan appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Stone of Tmutarakan in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Stone of Tmutarakan is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 11th-century inscriptions, 1792 archaeological discoveries, Archaeological collections of the Hermitage Museum, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Stone of Tmutarakan outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Stone of Tmutarakan in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Stone of Tmutarakan means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Stone of Tmutarakan out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Stone of Tmutarakan in simple terms?

Why does Stone of Tmutarakan matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Stone of Tmutarakan?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Stone of Tmutarakan.