CERAMICS AND CERAMIC PRODUCTION OF MEDIEVAL BILHOROD, HISTORY OF RESEARCH, PROBLEMS AND PERSPECTIVES

The 120-year history of the study of medieval ceramics from Bilhorod (other names Akja-Kermen, Asprokastron, Maurokastro, Moncastro, Mokastro) — one of the largest trade centres of the North-Western Black Sea coast in the late Byzantine and Ottoman Ages is analysed in the paper. The site is located in the modern city of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, Odessa region, Ukraine. This urban center was formed on the ruins of ancient Tyras in the late 13th — early 14th centuries. There are two stages in its history: the «Golden Horde» — the 1290s — 1370s, when the city was under the protectorate of Ulus Jochi, and «Moldavian» — the last quarter of the 14th century — 1484 when it passed into the possession of the Moldavian rulers, who has erected the large fortress there. In 1484 the site was captured by Ottomans and was renamed as Akkerman. Despite the long terms of archaeological excavations and the significant researched area at the site (more than 4000 m2), the precise dating of pre-Ottoman medieval deposits and ceramics from them, as well as the origin of some groups of the pottery, are still discussed (Teslenko, Myronenko 2022). Therefore, a critical ana­ly­sis of current stratigraphic schemes of the medieval layers together with existing concepts of chronology and classification of medieval ceramic materials were among the aims of this work. As a result, we outline the several main issues in the archaeological study of Bilhorod. Firstly, until recently archaeologists have used a very simplified stratigraphic scheme of cultural layers proposed in the 1970s (S. Kryzhytskyi, A. Kravchenko, G. Boguslavskyi, and others). According to it, the thickest cultural stratum containing three building horizons was associated with the «Golden Horde» period of Bilhorod history, despite finding of Moldavian coins in some contexts. The detailed chronology of these horizons as well as the specifics of ceramic assemblages each of them still are not understandable. «Moldavian» contexts, with some rare exceptions, were not clearly defined also. It was deemed that they mostly have been damaged or destroyed during the fortification works around the middle of the 15th century, as well as during the Ottoman period. So, most of the medieval ceramic finds were dated to the «Golden Horde» times which is not always the case, and the specifics of the material culture of the «Moldavian» city still have remained unclear (A. Kravchenko, G. Boguslavskyi). Secondly, the information about the ceramics assemblages of the site was predominantly incomplete. Ceramic finds are represented in publications mainly without connection to their precise archaeological contexts (A. Kravchenko, G. Boguslavskyi). So despite the abundance of published materials, it is rather difficult to obtain information about the composition of the certain ceramic assemblages. Therefore, it is also difficult to clarify the chronology of the archaeological context based on ceramic data. Thirdly, a detailed description of the technological features of the local wares still has not been represented despite the discovery of the workshops with kilns and wasters in 1960—1970ss. Thus, till recently, mass ceramics ware the origins of which were not clearly defined a priori associated with the products of local workshops. Fourthly, the dating of most ceramic finds was quite wide, for example, within the «Golden Hordes period» or the 14th—15th centuries, without a more detailed chronological gradation (A. Kravchenko, G. Boguslavskyi, I. Karashevich, etc.). This was largely due to the problems with the precise chronology of the cultural layers in general. To summarize it should be mentioned that the work of the previous researchers and archeological materials accumulated for 120 years of excavations are certainly very important and have a rich information potential. Nevertheless, the proposed methods of study and interpretation of these data need a great deal of improvement. At the same time, thanks to our research in collaboration with the «Archeology & Archaeometry» Laboratory (CNRS UMR5138) in Lyon (France), and Dr.HdR. S. Y. Waksman, we have advanced in the study of some mentioned points in the last years. Firstly, one of the authors excavated the archaeological complex of Moldavian period (early 15th century — 1480s) on the territory of the Civil yard inside the fortress in 2017. So, we obtained the possibility to analyze in detail the ceramics materials of this period and clarify the origin of some pottery groups thanks to their archaeometric study in France. We found out, for example, that the most numerous groups of glazed ceramics from the assemblage are not local, as thought before, but come from Crimea. This fact indicates very close trade links between Bilhorod and Crimea during the 15th century. It also turned out that all samples of Byzantine wares originated from the Constantinople workshop Sirkeci (Teslenko, Waksman forthcoming). Thus, we have got the new data on the distribution of its products in the North-western Black Sea Region during the 15th century as well as get evidence of the activity of this workshop probably as far as at least the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Another insight we have got during the revision of the ceramics collections from the previous excavations of one local ceramic workshop. It specialized in the manufacture of glazed pottery and stove tiles. On the basis of the comparative analysis of these finds with the materials from Central and Eastern Europe, we could realize that the products of this workshop, and hence the kilns that served it, can not be dated earlier than the 15th century. So, it worked in the Moldavian time, and not in the «earliest stage of the Golden Horde period», as declared before. This provides the background for reviewing the chronology of the medieval cultural stratums of Bilhorod, which has existed so far. In addition, the samples of finished wares and wasters help to specify the composition of raw materials of one of the subgroups of local ceramics production. Consequently, the further research of both old and current collections of medieval ceramics from Bilhorod will help to clarify the attribution and chronology of ceramic assemblages and archaeological contexts of the site, as well as will contribute to the more fruitful study of the trade and intercultural relations in the region during the late Byzantine — early Ottoman Age.