Megarian bowls

In summer 2016 the Uzbek-American Expedition in Bukhara (UzAmEB) conducted the first field season at Bashtepa. Bashtepa is the westernmost site within a cluster of about a dozen of small tepas along several now dry terminal branches of the delta system of the Zerafshan river in Western Sogdiana, outside the medieval perimeter of the oasis. Works focused on two areas: the fortifications, and the central part of the site.
Excavations of the fortifications revealed three major construction phases, adding up to a width of more than 10 m at the base of the fortifications. There is no evidence for towers or bastions. In the central part of the site we encountered a monumental masonry block into which was cut a series of pits of varying dimensions. The larger pits seem to represent pit-houses, while others seem to be economic pits. C14 data range between the end of the 5th century BCE and the very beginning of the 2nd century CE. The ceramic inventory from the site – including the first known imitation of a Megarian bowl in Sogdiana – features a few Yaz III examples, but has otherwise strong parallels with the complexes of Hellenistic and post-Hellenistic sites in Central and Southern Sogdiana, Choresmia, Bactria, and Margiana. Bearing in mind the early stage of our investigations, we suggest that the site was first established as a border fortress on one of the main routes between Sogdiana and Chorasmia, most likely during the very end of the 4th or the first half of the 3rd century, that is during the early Seleucid period. During its last occupation phase the summit of the site seems to feature a small agro-pastoral settlement, dating to the 1st century CE or – at the very latest – to the very beginning of the 2nd century CE. Although preliminary in character our results from 2016 shed new light on the Hellenistic and post-Hellenistic periods in western Sogdiana, which are – up to now – poorly investigated.
The appendix is devoted to the finds of Hellenistic coins in the Bukharan oasis: a drachm with the types of Alexander, coppers of Antiochus I and Antiochus II/Diodotus, silver coins of Diodotus, Euthydemus, Demetrius, Eukratides, and Heliocles as well as Takhmachtepa hoard containing tetradrachms of Diodotus, Euthydemus, and Agathocles. Although the sample of Hellenistic coins is still very small, its composition suggests that the history of the Bukharan oasis followed the same path as the rest of Sogdiana, which was controlled by Seleucids until the middle of the 3rd century and then passed for a short time to Bactrian Greeks, who lost it no later than at the very beginning of the reign of Euthydemus (ca. 230 BCE).

This paper presents briefly the table ware from three Hellenistic deposits, uncovered recently in the north-eastern district of Tauric Chersonesos. The filling of the well demonstrates a range of 3rd-century BC pottery shapes, both imported and local. Analysis of the finds confirms that it was filled simultaneously after 210–200 BC. The other two assemblages were deposited almost a century later.  Presumably, they indicate massive rearrangements in the city that took place in a period prior to its affiliation to the Pontic Kingdom of Mithridates VI. Comparing the material, a century-long evolution in morphology of local plain pottery is traced. Priority is given to imported fine ware, especially rare forms of mouldmade bowls. The deposits widen the information on the building history of Chersonesos and illustrate its diverse trade connections.

Among the Greek cities of the Northern Black Sea littoral, the production of relief hemispherical mouldmade bowls has been until recently identified only at several Bosporan centres. In view of the absence of finds of moulds for manufacturing of such vessels, the question of the production of “Megarian” bowls in the Tauric Chersonesos remained open. In 2021, in the course of the rescue archaeological excavations conducted in the Southern Suburbs of Chersonesos, The Rescue Archaeological Expedition of the Institute of the History of Material Culture RAS in cooperation with a team from the State Museum-Preserve “Tauric Chersonese” there was found a fragment of a ceramic mould for manufacture of relief hemispherical bowls of the Bosporan type (Fig. 1, 1). The object is made from a dense ceramic mass with inclusions of glittering particles of mica, some red particles and lime; the colour of the clay varies from light grey (5Y 7/1) to orange (7.5Y 6/6) (Fig. 1, 2–4). This matrix was intended for manufacturing of long-petal bowls characteristic of the Bosporan workshops of the Mithridates’ time. The morphology and ornamentation of the object generally find close parallels among the materials from excavations of Pantikapaion.
Finds of bowls of the Bosporan group of relief pottery are rather rare in Chersonesos and its close surroundings. At present, the authors are informed about only nine examples of similar ware (Fig. 2). The closest analogues to the decoration on the mould here published are represented on fragments of a bowl (Fig. 2, 5) from the fortified complex in Berman’s balka (rural house in ancient area 347). Apparently this vessel was manufactured using a matrix or a mould made using the same set of stamps. Thus our find is an evidence of the ma facture of relief mouldmade bowls of the Bosporan type in Chersonesos.
Possibly, the initiative for the making of these bowls can have been issued from one of the Bosporan workshops; such an ergasterion quite probably was represented by the Pantikapaion workshop of Demetrios. It cannot be ruled out that some ware now attributed to workshops of Pantikapaion could have been produced at an ergasterion situated in Chersonesos. Like in Bosporos, the manufacture of bowls in Chersonesos probably was taking place in the final 2nd — first decades of the 1st cen. BC when the two centres both were part of the state of Mithridates VI.

Многолетние полевые исследования дали обширную информацию о памятниках сельскохозяйственной ок-руги Херсонеса. Однако если о размежеванной территории Гераклейского полуострова мы имеем достаточно обильные сведения, то устройство восточной границы "ближней хоры" остается малоизученным. В особенно-сти это касается позднеэллинистического и римского периодов истории полиса. Херсонеситы, освоив территорию Гераклейского полуострова, уделили значительное внимание защите сво-их земель. Аграрная межевая структура на полуострове была организована с великолепным знанием топогра-фии, с учётом рельефа глубоких балок, с возможностями выходов в верховья полуострова к перевалам на кромке плато, вздымающейся над Балаклавской и Инкерманской долинами. Верховья полуострова над этими долинами представляли собой естественный оборонительный рубеж. Здесь херсонеситы поставили свои опор-ные пункты. Некоторые из таких укреплений существовали и в римское время.