Qualla: Dykyi Sad Archaeological Site

Dykyi Sad Archaeological Site: Introduction

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kirotsi, CC BY-SA 4.0. In the middle of Mykolaiv, in a patch of ground once called the Wild Garden, archaeologists have uncovered something that predates almost everything around it by thousands of years. Buried under the modern city are the remains of a fortified Bronze Age settlement, a port town that stood between roughly 1250 and 925 BC, in the age of the legendary Trojan War. This is Dykyi Sad, and it is unlike anything else found in Ukraine: the only steppe settlement of its era discovered in the country, a fragment of a lost world quietly surfacing in the heart of a working shipbuilding city.

Image: Kirotsi | CC BY-SA 4.0

Dykyi Sad Archaeological Site: A Garden That Went Wild

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mr.Rosewater, CC BY-SA 4.0. The name is almost accidental. The land was originally laid out as a garden by Admiral Greig during his time as governor of the city, and officially it was the Admiral's Garden. But the trees planted there were wild and bore no fruit, and so people simply called it the Wild Garde...

Image: Mr.Rosewater | CC BY-SA 4.0

Dykyi Sad Archaeological Site: The Town From the Age of Troy

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Čičinka, CC0. What lies under the garden is astonishing. Excavations have revealed a settlement of the Late Bronze Age, dated to around 1250 to 900 BC and belonging to the Bilozerka culture, with a level of development that marks it as a genuine port city. It originated some five hundred years...

Image: Čičinka | CC0

Dykyi Sad Archaeological Site: Homer's Cimmerians?

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Serhio Magpie, CC BY 4.0. The most tantalizing idea of all connects Dykyi Sad directly to the Odyssey. Some researchers have proposed that this site is the City of the Cimmerians that Homer describes, a shadowy place at the edge of the world wrapped in mist and darkness. The geography of the Odyssey is fa...

Image: Serhio Magpie | CC BY 4.0