Images of Fishes on the Glazed Ware from Sougdaia from the Second Half of Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries

Abstract

The article supplies the information on the glazed pottery showing the images of fishes obtained during all the years of excavations at mediaeval Sougdaia and collected for the first time. According to the scholars who have analysed the zoomorphic scenes on the glazed pottery from Sougdaia dating to the Byzantine and Golden Horde Periods, there was almost complete predominance of images of birds, with a minimum number of those of animals. The images of fishes are more than four times less common than birds. In total, the collection of pottery originating from the excavations at the ancient town of Sougdaia comprises ten specimens, four of which were imported from Byzantium and the rest were locally made. This is one of the most representative collections of the kind in the Crimean Peninsula. It does not include the plates depicting fishes and belonging to the Italian group graffita arcaica tirennica from Savona, which were uncovered by the underwater researches in the bay of the modern settlement of Novyi Svet. So far, this type of plates does not occur in the ancient town of Sougdaia. In the collection in question, there is one fragment combining the images of a bird and a fish. Archaeological contexts of finds in questions vary from closed assemblages from the second half of the twelfth century to closed assemblages and stratigraphical horizons from the second half of the fourteenth century. Among the local ware, there are three groups showing specific scenes. The origins of the images of fishes on them are most likely associated with the Byzantine pottery group Fine Sgraffito Ware produced by pottery workshops of Halkis.