An ancient geographic tradition on Phanagorian island   and the attempts to correct it with auger

The article includes four parts. Part I contains source study. There is long ancient literary tradition on Phanagorian island, created with Maeotis, Pontus and brunch or two brunches of the river Kuban. The investigators of the XIX and XX centuries have confirmed its reality and indicated some dry branches on Taman peninsula. The author has studied all reports of the Greek and Roman writers about Phanagorian island (from Hecataios to the late Roman geographers) and finds its wholeness – it doesn’t contain any internal contradictions, but re f lects the real changes of island’s physiography and hydrology. At the VI–V centuries BC there was some river’s brunch, which divided the Taman peninsula in two islands, it dried afterwards and Taman became one island. In part II, the author has critically reviewed new hypotheses on strait or coastal salt lake between mainland and Taman island, they have er roneously rejected literary tradition on the river’s brunch on Taman peninsula. In part III, the author examines three rests of the brunches on Taman peninsula, which may be ancient. The part IV is supplementary, here the author studies the sources of Strabo and Pseudo-Scymnus information on Phanagorian island.