Archaeology in the U.S.S.R.
Arkhaeologiya v SSSR
These were independent city states to begin with, but they soon united into an extensive Bosporan state whose capital was at Panticapaeum. The unification was evidently a voluntary one, and as much as economic its purpose was the rallying of the Hellenic settlers for self-preservation because they found themselves surrounded by powerful warlike tribes. The united cities formed a strong political force which not only defended the Bosporus from encroachment but also began aggressive action against its neighbours.
The birth of the Bosporan state took place in 480 B.C., when the aristocratic family of the Archaeanactids began to rule the state. After forty-two years they were replaced by a new dynasty, the Spartocids. Under their rule there was a remarkable expansion in the state's boundaries with the annexation of Nymphaeum, Theodosia, and land belonging to a number of local tribes. The fourth and third centuries B.C. were the most flourishing period of the kingdom. It owed its prosperity in this period in large measure to the trade in wheat. The crafts reached a high level of development. In the second century B.C. the economic and political circumstances were less favourable for the Bosporan kingdom; the competition of Egypt undercut the wheat market, while in the Crimea a powerful Scythian state arose threatening the Bosporus. At the end of the second century B.C. there was a rising of Scythian slaves under the leadership of Saumacus against the Bosporan King Paerisades. Saumacus was able to seize Panticapaeum and Theodosia, but the rising was quickly crushed by the Pontic king Mithridates Eupator, who united the Bosporan towns to the Pontic Kingdom. He suffered defeat at the hands of the Romans and fled to Panticapaeum, where he committed suicide. From [191] then on the Bosporus was more or less dependent on Rome. The dynasty of Bosporan kings continued until the fourth century A. D. Its later history is little known.
In the last period of life in the Bosporus, from the end of the second century A. D., an economic crisis and the decline of external trade which was connected with it led to a diminution of population and impoverishment of the towns. There was a general crisis in the slave-holding system, and feudal relationships were ripening. Weakened and wrecked by internal contradictions, the Bosporan kingdom was not in a state to protect its possessions from the barbarians, and the attacks of the Huns that burst upon it in the seventies of the fourth century A. D. brought about its final collapse. After it had been crushed by the Huns, life over a large part of the Bosporan kingdom completely ceased. Only after some time had elapsed did the inhabitants return to the ruins of the half-destroyed cities.
The history and culture of the Bosporan kingdom became the subject of systematic study from the beginning of the nineteenth century. The first excavations were undertaken in 1816 at Kerch, and from 1830 systematic excavations were carried out annually both on the Kerch and Tamansk peninsulas, thanks to which remarkable architectural and inscribed remains were unearthed. However the main efforts of pre-Revolutionary archaeologists were concentrated on the excavation of the cemeteries lying close to the cities. Soviet archaeologists have turned their attention above all to the examination of occupied sites.
The Bosporan Archaeological Expedition, organized by GAIMK and continued by IIMK, has carried out great work in the study of the Bosporan cities, especially on the 'little towns' and settlements on the Kerch peninsula.
The assembling of all this material has shown the general features of the economic and social life of the Bosporus. Material collected over dozens of years has made it possible to study its trade, agriculture, and crafts. The Bosporus produced a large quantity of wheat and marine fish and also animal products (skins and wool), as well as slaves. Bosporan merchants, shipowners, and landowners accumulated substantial wealth which allowed them to buy a large quantity of finished articles and luxuries from Greece, Asia Minor, and other [192] places. The varied finds make it possible to form a picture of the trade connexions of the Bosporus. Thus for example an important source for settling the question of where wine and oil were imported from are the amphorae with pointed bases in which the products were carried, for on the amphora there is often a stamp showing the place where it was made.
Goods coming into the Bosporus or produced there were carried by traders far beyond the limits of the kingdom.
Corn, the main trading item, formed a special industry organized by the Greeks, and was bought or taken as tribute from the native population. The Bosporus was a country where farming was the chief occupation of the inhabitants. The basic implement was the plough, the form of which can be judged from representations on coins of the second century B.C. from Panticapaeum. Grain was usually stored in pits in the ground or in pithoi. Corn was ground with stone querns, mortars, or hand mills with stone millstones. Excavations on Bosporan settlements carried out in the last decade have provided evidence of a significant development of vine-growing and wine-making here. Fishing on a commercial scale had developed in many places, but one of the most important areas for this was the Kerch straits; the basic implements were the seine net and bronze fish hooks.
In the Bosporan cities the most varied metal objects were produced, from tools to artistic jewellery. In the production of objects of precious metals the representation and decoration on the coinage holds an important place. Craftsmen of the Bosporus made artistic vessels of gold and silver, and plates on which complicated compositions (ritual scenes, drawings of animals, etc.) were shown. In their workshops a number of magnificent objects were made, in which scenes of Scythian life were shown with expressive realism. The production of clay vessels and tiles in the Bosporus began on an extensive scale in the fourth century B.C. In the cities other crafts developed.
Excavations have established that on the terraces of Mt Mithridates lie the ruins of sumptuous public and private buildings. On the outskirts of the city were the houses of the poor and of craftsmen; the lower part, the port, was the scene of much activity. Houses of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. have been revealed by excavation on the mountain. The use of terracing on the hillside in the planning of Panticapaeum has been proved to be as early as the fourth century B.C. Information has been collected not only about the town plan but also about its life, crafts, culture, and art (Pl. 11a).
One of the most important results of the work of the last years may be considered the discovery of the existence of a pre-Greek settlement on the mountain and the presence of a Greek emporium there in the seventh century B.C. An. 'Archaic' house was excavated that had been constructed in that century .
Tyritace emerged as a Greek settlement about the middle of the sixth century B.C. The ruins of a house of the second half of this century, found on the western edge of the town, are of great interest. It consisted of two or three rooms almost square in plan. The lower parts of the wall were of stone, the upper part of sun-dried brick. The roof was covered with clay over a wooden framework. Below the burnt collapsed roof were found numerous and varied objects. Amongst these were various pots, and also painted terracotta statuettes, three of which represented a goddess sitting on a throne. The remains of this house in Tyritace are among the oldest examples of architecture in the Bosporus so far revealed by excavation. In the fifth century B.C. a stone defensive wall was built [195] around the town which underwent considerable alterations in the fourth to third centuries B.C. In places the thickness of the wall was doubled and reached 3 or 4 m.; towers were also added. As at Myrmecium one of the basic features of the economy was vine-growing and wine-making. A wine manufactory of the third to second centuries B.C., consisting of an extensive stone building, came to light in 1946. The north-western part was occupied by a treading area (5.25 by 2.7 m.) consisting of a smooth surface of layers of white mortar underlain by small stone blocks. The pressing of the grapes was done here by slaves trampling the bunches of grapes underfoot. Adjoining this area was a quadrangular vat (2 by 1.75 by 1.55 m.) dug into the ground. The sides and bottom were carefully faced with stone and plastered over. The vat could hold 5,000 litres of grape juice. This juice was then baled out in vessels, pithoi, and amphorae.
In the Roman period the wine-manufactories were of more complicated construction. In an example of the third to fourth centuries A.D. excavated in 1946 a press had been set up in the treading area. The juice from here could flow into four vats arranged in pairs. There was a complicated system of channels and sluices by which the juice could be directed as needed into each vat.
In the first to third centuries A. D. the fishing industry and the salting of fish was of great importance. The eastern and southern parts of the town at this time were completely occupied by wine and fish-salting factories' consisting of groups of cemented vats and tanks. The fish salted here were chiefly herring and khamsa (a Black Sea fish). A substantial part of the town was occupied by these industrial structures. One long main street passed through the middle of the town and on both sides were residential houses, while behind them and partly between them lay wine presses and fish-salting tanks. No especially rich houses were found. We can envisage the character of the houses of the well-to-do part from the large courtyard house of the third to fourth centuries A.D. excavated in the town (Fig. 19).
After the destruction of Tyritace by the Huns life was renewed, but on nothing like the same scale as before. Houses and a Christian basilica belonging to the sixth to eighth centuries have been excavated.
Research has shown that life in Nymphaeum continued until the third century A. D.
The fortified town of ancient Cytaca has been definitely identified from an outstanding inscription found there. In 1918 a stone plaque from a temple table with a Greek inscription of the third century B.C. was found on the seashore, where it had fallen from the cultural deposit. The inscription records the construction of the communal temple of the city of Cytaca, which was dedicated to the nameless 'god that thunders'. Amongst the finds illustrating the high level of prosperity of the ruling classes of the population may be mentioned a marble sun dial of the second century A.D. decorated with the relief head of an ox. Burial chambers dug out of the rock cliff of Chetyr-Tau which have been excavated preserved traces of painting on their walls.
The population of Iluratum was basically Scythian but partly Sarmatian. Numerous Scytho-Sarmatian handmade pots were found decorated with incised and other ornament. The indigenous population of Iluratum was strongly Hellenized but yet retained its individual culture. So for example finds of ritual terracotta figures of the goddesses of fertility are evidence of local religious observances. Together with the cult of Aphrodite, which was popular on the Bosporus, in Iluratum there continued worship of the special form of goddess of the animal and plant kingdom in the form of a woman with a radiant halo whose arms are shown outstretched, one of them taking the form of a branch of a tree. She is shown thus on a clay stamp of the third century A. D. The excavations at Iluratum give a [199] clear picture of Greco-Scythian culture that was the basis of the Bosporan state.
The westernmost town of the Bosporan state was Theodosia. Excavations began here only in 1949.
The cultural deposits have an average thickness of 4-5 m., in places much more, and were accumulated during many centuries of occupation in classical and medieval times (twelfth to thirteenth centuries). Excavations began at Phanagoria in 1936, and, interrupted by the war, have subsequently been resumed. Digging has established the exact place of the ancient town, its boundaries, and the sequence of the layers in the deposit. As a result of the sinking of the land and flooding of the coast, the waters of Tamansk Bay now cover the northern part of the town. Piles of masonry survive underwater, which evidently are remains of an ancient defensive wall passing round part of the town that is now covered by the sea. In Phanagoria various craftsmen's workshops existed in which pots, tiles, terracotta statuettes (Pl. 11b), metal objects, and so on were made. Numerous examples
In Phanagoria remains of monumental public buildings and luxurious private houses have been found. Houses, as is usual in Greek construction, were small and had inner courts. In one of the courts a mosaic paving with a pattern of greenish sea pebbles came to light. The internal walls of the rich houses were covered with painted plaster or faced with marble plaques of [200] different colours. First-class examples of such wall decorations were found in 1939-40.
Among finds of the last few years a stele of fine-grained limestone, bearing a relief on both sides and an inscription, deserves mention. The stone is a monument set up, as the inscription shows, in A.D. 179 by Agathus in memory of his father and grandfather who were members of an aristocratic family of the city holding an important position. In the engraving the buried pair are shown, as well as two figures on horseback.
The thick cultural layer covering the remains of the classical town contains foundations of medieval buildings, on which rested the walls of sun-dried brick that no longer survive.
During excavations in 1930 in the coastal part of the town, part of an excellently paved street or square of classical Hermonassa was revealed. A temple or sanctuary of Aphrodite was found in the city. It is possible that the fragments of a [201] marble structure and relief found here, showing the struggle of Hercules with giants, embellished this building.
Gorgippia lay in the land of the Sindi and until it was incorporated into the Bosporan kingdom there had been a native town and harbour here (Portus Sinducus). The Sindi were a people who occupied the Tamansk peninsula as far as Gorgippia before the arrival of the Greeks. Under the influence of Greek civilization and as a result of internal socio-economic development the Sindi achieved important successes in the economic and cultural fields. At the end of the fifth century B.C. they began to mint their own money, but they were rapidly absorbed into the Bosporan kingdom. A special expedition set to work in 1950 to study them as well as the Bosporan rural agriculture, and a number of Sindian settlements have been surveyed. A comparatively small number of urban centres had existed in the country with a whole series of small village settlements.
Proportional to the distance from the important centres of the Bosporan kingdom was the growth of the local non-Greek contributions to life, into which the elements of Greek culture only partly penetrated. Nevertheless this was not the case everywhere. Some remote settlements have emerged as completely Greek cities. Such a settlement was a fortified town recently partly excavated on the lower Kuban 12 km. west of Varenikovska, near the famous Seven Brothers' barrows.
This Sindian town sprang up in the sixth century B.C. and reached an impressive level of development before its incorporation into the Bosporan state. In the first half of the fifth century [202] B.C. it was surrounded by a permanent stone defensive wall and so converted into a powerful fortress. The population were farmers, fishermen, craftsmen, and traders. Of especial interest was a house revealed by excavation and referred to the third and second centuries B.C. , which probably belonged to a prosperous landowner. The house is quadrilateral in plan, 22.5 m. long by 19.5 m. broad. The entry on the south side leads into a court which contains a well faced with stone blocks; on three sides of the court are grouped the internal rooms. The massive thickness (1.7 m.) of the walls is striking. Excavations in the house brought agricultural tools to light.
In 1923-8 an expedition of GAIMK examined a series of fortified sites on the lower reaches of the Don which had preceded the arrival of the Greeks on the Black Sea. In the fourth century B.C. these settlements died out but were resettled in the first century A. D. From then on the influence of the more advanced classical culture everywhere shows itself with increasing clarity in the life of the population of these Sarmatian settle- ments. Evidently an important part was played in this by the growth of the trade operations of Tanais with which the native settlements were linked.
As the main attention of Soviet archaeologists has been concentrated on excavating the Bosporan towns, so the cemeteries have been examined on a more modest scale than in pre- Revolutionary times. However, thanks to the care exercised in the work, it has been possible to elucidate a number of details of the burial ritual, and this way distinguish native from Greek burials, which has assisted in the study of the history of the local population.
These excavations helped to show that Ai-Todor arose in pre-Roman times as a 'refuge' for Tauri. The Romans occupied this area and drove the Tauri away from the coast. The cyclopean wall built already by the Tauri served as part of the defences of Roman Charax, but the chief defence consisted of two lines of roughly coursed stone walls. Most of the buildings were concentrated within the highest wall on a fairly restricted area of not more than 1 1/2 hectares (4 acres). Here were found small stone and brick houses, supplied by water through clay pipes, and a water tank, on the floor of which there was a mosaic showing an octopus. Bricks and tiles were found bearing the stamps of military units which had made them. Charax was a modest settlement occupied by soldiers and craftsmen, and the only luxurious buildings were the bath-houses. These were used as a sort of club by the Romans, and in large towns were sumptuous buildings. This example was comparatively small (25 m. long by 15 m. broad), but nevertheless it was an important building during a fairly long time and was subsequently enlarged by the addition of annexes. It had special rooms for cold and hot baths, a steam chamber, a dressing-room with stone benches, and lavatories. Large rooms adjoined the baths, one of which was evidently used as a palaestra (sports area). The walls were built of stone set in lime mortar with a bonding of brick and broken tile, while the bath was warmed with the help of a system of clay pipes, laid under the floor, through which hot air passed.
After the Romans had left the southern shores of the Crimea in the middle of the third century A. D., life on the hill at Ai- Todor did not cease. The fortifications of Charax evidently continued to serve the local inhabitants as a refuge in time of danger. The poor native population of farmers, fishermen, [205] and craftsmen interred their dead in the necropolis which was started in the fourth century A.D. outside the outer wall of Charax.
The Greek cities stimulated social development and the growth of the economy, culture, and art among the inhabitants of the south Russian steppes. The native peoples borrowed much from the Greeks and the latter in their turn from the native population. The Classical Period in the history of the north coast of the Black Sea is actively studied by Soviet archaeologists.
Attention must be drawn to several shortcomings of classical archaeology in the USSR. They really amount to this: that the majority of archaeologists follow the path of accumulating and collecting purely source material for their researches. Together with the profound archaeological study of the classical cities it is necessary to study in detail the native tribes living around these cities, to extend research to the agricultural areas around the Greek towns, and to resolve the problem of production in conditions where slaves were used and the problem of the relationships of the classical states of this area with the [206] different parts of eastern Europe on the one hand and with the Mediterranean countries on the other. The profound study of these questions will bring Soviet scholars studying the Greco-Roman period to a proper understanding of the process of historical development of slave-owning society in the Black Sea area, and to a full revelation of the picture of its birth, development, and decay.
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