THE EARLIEST CERAMICS FROM BORYSTHENES (on materials from V. V. Lapin’s Excavations)

Abstract

The paper examines the earliest materials from the excavations conducted by V. V. Lapin in Borysthenes (the settlement at Berezan Island). The collection is stored in the Scientific Repository, the Institute of Archaeology, the National Academy of Sciences, Ukraine. The earliest ceramic items belong mainly to oenochoes and kraters produced in Miletus. In accordance with the modern typology, these vessels belong to the group MilA Ib (after Käufler) or to the group SiA Ib (after Kerschner — Schlotzhauer) with the dating from the 650s to the very beginning of the 630s BC. Together with another famous imported vessels that were found at Borysthenes, f. e. Ionian cups of the early type and subgeometric scyphos, these vessels prove the time of its founding at the third quarter of the 7th century BC. Thus, the information by Eusebius (Euseb.Chron. can. / Helm B., 1984, p. 95b) becomes a proof on a basis of archaeological collection. Its number and quality allows speaking not about rare items, but about the import of mass materials in general. Moreover, the earliest Milesian import found at Borysthenes, permit to conclude that namely this emporion was used like a center of a transit trade with barbarian world. Milesian pottery in the earliest time-span appeared in Forest-steppe area, Eastern Taurica and Kuban estuary via Borysthenes.