Cross-Cultural Interaction in the Northern Black Sea Region during the Late Middle Ages from the Perspective of Glazed Ceramics Study (20 min)

Presenters

Iryna Teslenko, Collégium de Lyon, France, and Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, and Yona Waksman,CNRS/Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée

Abstract

The period from the middle of the 13th until the end of the 15th century in the northern Black Sea region saw intensive political, economic, and cultural contacts between the eastern and western worlds. New geopolitical realities led to economic expansion in this region, including both the recovery of old urban centers and the growth of new ones along major trade routes. Among these urban settlements were Solkhat (Staryi Krym), Caffa (Theodosia), Soldaia (Sudak), and Chembalo (Balaklava) in Crimea. These sites became centers of international trade and highly developed craft production. One of these new local industries involved the manufacture of glazed ceramics. The appearance of glazing technology in Crimea was probably due primarily to the arrival of newcomers who had traditionally used this technology in their homelands. The aim of this study is therefore to analyze technological innovations that were introduced to these Crimean cities, identifying their possible origins and the ways in which they were incorporated into local ceramic craft traditions. To achieve this goal, we synthesize archaeological and archaeometric data concerning glazed pottery from Crimea obtained over the last two decades of collaborative research of the Institute of Archaeology of the NAS of Ukraine (Kyiv) and the Archéologie et Archéométrie laboratory (Lyon, France) under the direction of the authors, and set these data beside comparative material from Anatolia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Balkans, and the eastern Mediterranean.

The outcome of this research is the clarification of the social and technological factors that led to the emergence and development of the local glazed ceramic tradition in Crimea from the late 13th century to the last quarter of the 15th century, when Crimea was conquered by the Ottomans and ceramic craft traditions on the peninsula were again transformed, and the elucidation of the timing and mechanisms of this process.