Wine Cups and The Early Chronology of Ap

( )
brill.com/acss
Wine Cups and the Early Chronology

of Apollonia Pontica: Archaic Pottery
from the Island of St. Kirik
Margarit Damyanov* | : - - -
National Archaeological Institute with Museum,
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, So a, Bulgaria
[email protected]
Received uly | Accepted August |

Published online une
Abstract
In the last years, the excavations at the island of St. Kirik o fshore from Sozopol
(ancient Apollonia Pontica) on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast have yielded thousands
of fragments of Archaic Greek pottery, including a sizeable collection of drinking cups
from the last decades of the th and the early th centuries North Ionian hemi-
spherical cups (“bird bowls”, “meander bowls”, etc.) and early types of South Ionian
cups with everted rims (“Ionian cups”). The comparison with the assemblages from
Istros, Berezan, Orgame, and Taganrog, all of them presumably earlier than Apollonia
with a traditional foundation date c. , reveals practically an identical repertoire.
A couple of “anomalous” fragments that are even earlier, from the middle or third quar-
ter of the th century , have parallels only at Berezan. The paper argues that there
are grounds to suggest an earlier chronology of Apollonia’s foundation, closer to that
of the other early Ionian apoikiai.
Keywords
Greek colonisation in the Black Sea Apollonia Pontica Archaic Greek pottery bird
bowls Ionian cups
* National Archaeological Institute with Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, , Saborna

Str., , So a, Bulgaria.
Published with license by Koninklijke Brill | : . / -

, | : - (print) - (online)
When considering the traditional chronology and geography of the begin-
ning of the Milesian (or more generally Ionian) colonisation of the Black Sea,
for example as outlined in the Inventory of the Archaic and Classical Poleis
to choose a recent and authoritative source, one peculiar phenomenon
strikes the eye.
While it appears certain that the pioneers’ ships sailed up along the west
coast of the Pontos, the earliest settlements they founded were very far to the
north ( g. ). Two apoikiai have usebian dates (Chron. b) in the mid- th
century : Istros, some km from the Bosporus, in / , and
Borysthenes (the island of Berezan), another km further to the north-
east, in / . They were both founded near the large rivers after which
they were named (the Danube and Dnieper respectively), on the shores of the
Scythian steppe that should have appeared quite alien to the eyes of the new-
comers from the Mediterranean coast of present-day Turkey.
At the same time, Apollonia Pontica, only some km from the Bosporus
and o fering one of the best harbours along the entire West Pontic coast, the
rst safe one for the ships sailing north, has a historical date from another
source (Ps.-Skymnos ) only in the late th century “ years before
Cyrus”, that is c. a temptingly exact date among the synchronisms
in the periplus. The hilly landscape around Apollonia is not that di ferent from
the one of Ionia and the conditions are de nitely less harsh compared to those
in the northwest of the Black Sea.
Thus, the delayed foundation of Apollonia would appear strange, although
the sites of Istros and Borysthenes may have been more desirable for various
reasons. They had certain economic factors, like the proximity to the large
rivers and the resources they o fered including the possibility of trade with
the hinterland, or, on the other hand, the presumed absence of settled native
population in the immediate vicinity.
To add to the confusion, two more sites in the north are considered earlier
than Apollonia, this time based on archaeological grounds, meaning pottery
to be discussed below. The rst one is Orgame, somewhat to the north of
Istros (even closer to the Danube), mentioned once by Hekataios (FGrHist
Avram et alii . The same general chronology is also applied elsewhere, e.g. in Tsetskhladze
, .
Avram et alii , No. .
See Oppermann , on the role of the large rivers for the choice of the early sites.
See for example Avram , about the northern Dobrudzha; also Oppermann
, , for the northwestern Black Sea region.
( )

Wine Cups and The Early Chronology of Ap

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Wine Cups and The Early Chronology of Ap

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Wine Cups and The Early Chronology of Ap

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

( )

Wine Cups and the Early Chronology

Received uly | Accepted August |

* National Archaeological Institute with Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, , Saborna

Published with license by Koninklijke Brill | : . / -

You might also like