Ege University, Faculty of Letters, Protohistory and Near Eastern Archaeology, İzmir, Turkey

Abstract

The article deals with study of medieval amphoraе that are spread over sites of the 8th — 10th centuries AD in the Northern part of the Black Sea region. Such vessels were manufactured in pottery centers of Byzantine Taurica. The general aims of this study are the analysis of northern-pontic amphorae shapes and the recon-struction of chronological changes of morphology of these vessels. The sources of study here consist of 197 whole and restored amphorae from 49 sites of the 8th — 10th centuries from the territory of Eastern Europe (Crimea, Taman, Caucasus, the Don, the Volga, the Dnieper basins). Appropriate analytical techniques were used: Chi square tests were applied in biplots of geometric parameters on their shapes; analysis of the func-tional parts conditions and comparison of these data with the general proportions of amphorae, statistical analysis (canonical analysis for geometrical morphometry) of the data using MorphoJ making possible to use a variety of methods of multivariate statistics. The results of the study show that potters of Crimean work-shops of the 8th — 10th centuries who made northern-pontic amphorae followed two different Early Byzan-tine tradition of ceramic container production. These two traditions initially had fundamental differences in the shape of vessels and the decor of the external surface. Chronological changes of northern-pontic ampho-rae shapes can be described as a process of gradual erosion and mixing of these two pottery traditions. The results helped to discover the main trends and patterns in the chronological evolution of northern-pontic amphorae morphology.