Датировка скальных виноградодавилен Юго-Западной Таврики в современной историографии

Abstract

In the south-western area of Taurica, there are more than 230 stationary rock-cut wine-presses. From the moment when F. Dubois de Montpereux discovered them in the early 1830s, they became the subject of particular research. These production facilities for the primary processing of grapes testify to the agricultural specialization of the local population in the early Middle Ages. In the 1970s, the Soviet scholarship developed the “Khazar” interpretation of the origins and dating of the said wine-making complexes (from the eighth and ninth or ninth and tenth centuries). The evidence base for this attribution is presented by E. V. Veimarn’s publications. Hypothetically, the flourishing of local winemaking was associated with the conquest of the Crimean Peninsula by the Khazars, in result of which safe trade routes towards the Khazar khanate developed to make the latter the main outlet for the Crimean wine, which was exported in locally produced Black Sea amphorae. In the future, the said interpretation gained support from V. N. Danilenko, A. I. Aibabin, A. G. Gertsen, and other researchers. The modern historiography, such as the articles of A. G. Gertsen, V. E. Naumenko, and other scholars, hypothesized a narrower dating of the Crimean wineries from the second half of the ninth to the first half of the tenth century (“Byzantine” version). The publication of the materials from the backfill of winery no. 10 at Mangup and carved-in-bedrock pits in the vicinity of the Eski-Kermen wine-presses, which were covered during the construction of new quarter I, clearly defined the chronology when typologically closed wine-presses ceased to exist as the second half of the tenth century. The researchers have explained the beginning of their construction as the purposeful policy of the Byzantine empire for the development of this region following the establishment of the theme of Klimata in 841. This is indicated by the similarity of the Crimean rock-cut wine-presses and similar complexes discovered in Byzantine Anatolia. Local viticulture and winemaking corresponded to common Byzantine traditions. There is no direct connection between the dates when the production of the Black Sea amphorae started in the Crimea and the functioning of the rock-cut wineries. Presumably, the manufacture of grooved amphorae (A. L. Iakobson’s variant 2 or class 36 of the Chersonese classification of 1995) was related to the production of wine in the South-Western Taurica. From the finds of the said amphorae both on the sites of the Saltovo-Maiaki culture and on the territory of the coastal Byzantine cities and towns there are reasons to reconstruct a more extensive trading network in Crimean wine than it was considered before.