Ekaterina A. Armarchuk^1,*, Vasily D. Gukin^2,**

¹Institute of Archaeology RAS, Moscow, Russia
²State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

*E-mail: katherine-arm@yandex.ru
**E-mail: kabirbek@rambler.ru

Keywords: Black Sea littoral, temple, pottery, attribution, morphology, basins, bowls, votive offering, purpose.

The article considers a series of ceramic basins from the excavations of a Christian church of the late 9th – the first half of the 11th century at the village of Veseloye near Adler. Their characteristic feature – massive high bottom of a small diameter – shows typological similarities with an accidental find from the vicinity of the Crimean Feodosia. A comparison of these materials allowed the authors to assume the existence of a special group of medieval ceramics in the Black Sea littoral. Concerning the Crimean find, apparently, it is possible to regard it as a new type of clay vessels for Crimea intended for temple service and its preparation. They could be used in rural Orthodox communities on the periphery of the Byzantine world of the 8th–11th centuries. At the same time, being a formal reflection in clay of expensive (urban) vessels made of metal and stone, these clay vessels could have a certain cult function. The comparatively small basins from the temple in Veseloye, in contrast to the Crimean vessel, probably, had an auxiliary function. It is not impossible that a monastery existed on the temple site, however, everyday use of the vessels cannot be rejected either.

DOI: 10.31857/S086960630013720-1