GLAZED POTTERY MANUFACTURING IN CRIMEA AT THE TIMES OF ULUG ULUS

Abstract

Different questions related to the manufacturing of glazed pottery in Taurica during the Jochid state and the Genoese colonization are in the sphere of scientists’ interests for more than a century. Significant increase of the archeological collections in the last decades of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century, together with the more progressive approaches to the analysis of large volumes of ceramics, and the using of archeometrical methods, allow to reach a new level of study in this field.
 Now on the territory of the Crimea are known at least 10 pottery workshops, which have appeared at different times in the period from the last quarter of the 13th (not earlier than the end of the 1260s) to the first quarter of the 15th century and 6 site with single evidence of such manufacturing. 9 workshops were located in five medieval town of the peninsula: 2 — in Kaffa (Theodosia), 2 — in Soldaya (Sudak), at least 2 — in Solhat (Staryi Krym), one in Lusta (Alushta) and in Chambalo (Balaklava). Two more workshops (the earliest ones among known) were found at the settlement of the potters Bokatash II in Solkhat vicinity. Visual, and in some cases archeometrical characteristics of their products were determined. So it became possible to estimate the volumes of the glazed pottery manufacturing of various regions of the peninsula (South-Eastern and South-Western Crimea), as well as the individual workshops, in particular in Alushta, Balaklava and Bokatash. In addition, it allowed to determine the geography, volume and dynamics of the trade by glazed pottery from Crimea. The last one began to form an appreciable part of the ceramic assemblages outside the peninsula from around the 1320s.
 At the beginning of the glazed ceramics production in Taurica the distinction in cultural traditions among the workshops were well visible. Some of them presumably may indicate the origin of the craftsmen from the territory of Anatolia, Transcaucasia, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Balkans, and possibly Central Asia, and may be even Italy. Subsequently, around the last third of the 14th century, this individuality is gradually replaced by standardization of production. The leader in this craft became the Genoese trading posts, headed by Caffa.