Добыча и обработка камня в средневековом городе на плато Эски-Кермен

Abstract

Archaeological researches at the plateau of Eski-Kermen has recorded the traces of large-scale construction works carried out when the castle was built in the late sixth century and later, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, when several homesteads in the town quarters were demolished and small aisleless churches were erected at their places. The urban building was directly connected with stone-mining and stone-working. The most noticeable traces of ashlar-mining on the plateau appear in the sites between the three marches of the ascension road to the main gate of the town, which is carved into the bedrock of the south-western slope of the table mountain. The traces of work on the ashlars from the ruined buildings suggest the use of a pick, adze, simple and toothed chisel by local stonemasons. Mediaeval stonemasons also put special cross-shaped marks on the stones to indicate the batch of building materials prepared for the church construction. The living conditions in the castle and, later, in the town at the rocky plateau forced the local inhabitants to learn the skills of stone-working, as the mining and working of stone was in permanent need for the building and reconstruction of economic rooms, artificial caves, carving of graves, and making of household implements, such as the lids for pythoi and water-trough for livestock. Centuries-long life on the rocks probably developed a guild of professional stonemasons, or λάτομοι, in the town, who mined and dressed stone and passed on their skills from generation to generation. More complex work with stone, such as the making of architectural details and carving of decorations, wee plausibly done in specialised workshops (έργαλεΐον τους πελεκάνους) located outside the town, most likely near the quarries. The identification of the sites of these workshops in the south-western Crimea is a subject for the future research.