On 'Pre-Colonial' Links, Once Again
doi: 10.2143/AWE.15.0.3167477 AWE 15 (2016) 279-301
ON ‘PRE-COLONIAL’ LINKS, ONCE AGAIN
GOCHA R. TSETSKHLADZE
Abstract Recent publication has put forward (new) pottery evidence from Berezan (Borysthenes), supposedly dated to the second third of the 7th century BC, to buttress unsustainable argu- ments about Greek ‘pre-colonial’ contacts with locals in the Black Sea despite all that has been written to rebut such interpretations. Once again, pottery equals people (or so it seems), and a single example indicates more contact than it is reasonable to suppose. Here, briefly, I revisit this theme and discuss this evidence and its interpretation.
‘One swallow does not a summer make.’
Yet again, we are coming back to so-called pre-colonial links, a theory very com- mon mainly in the last century.1 A.V. Buiskikh has recently produced two articles with similar titles on the same subject (one in Ukrainian,2 the other in Russian3): they publish a fragment of a Subgeometric skyphos from Berezan (Borysthenes), in the northern Black Sea (Figs. 1–2). It was found by V.V. Lapin in 1963 when he excavated on Berezan as Director of the Berezan team of the Olbia Expedition of the Institute of Archaeology of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Nobody was aware of the existence of this sherd, deposited with other material in the depot of the Institute of Archaeology, until it caught the attention of Buiskikh and was brought to wider attention by her articles. This piece raises more questions than it answers: 1. There is still much debate about the establishment date of Berezan. Do we believe the archaeological material or the date given by Eusebius (see below)? In this context, it is very difficult to believe that such an experienced excavator as Lapin did not pay attention to the present important fragment, or that others who worked
1 Cf. Bouzek 2013, with bibliography (not known to Buiskikh, like many other recently published works cited in this article). The Black Sea is not the only region where so-called pre-colonial contacts are discussed (see, for instance, Denti 2013, which addresses the question from a completely different perspective and angle – but what he presents does not allow us to describe the situation as proto- colonial in the way that the term is usually understood). Some have convincingly suggested that the notion of pre-colonial links should be discarded. See Ridgway 2000; 2004; etc. 2 Buiskikh 2015a. 3 Buiskikh 2015b. In this contribution I shall cite exclusively this Russian version of her paper. 280 G.R. TSETSKHLADZE
Fig. 1: Major Black Sea colonies and local peoples.
Fig. 2: Skyphos of Subgeometric style from Borysthenes (after Buiskikh 2015b, 251, fig. 1). ON ‘PRE-COLONIAL’ LINKS, ONCE AGAIN 281 with him and/or on his Berezan collection, housed at the Institute of Archaeology, never noticed it in the intervening 50 years. 2. The dating of the sherd is not as straightforward as Buiskikh presents it. Accord- ing to her, the piece was found during the cleaning of a wall of the Building with an Apse that belongs to the second building phase of Borysthenes,4 which dates to after the middle of the 6th century BC.5 It was not found in situ. Buiskikh dates the sherd to the second third of the 7th century BC and states that it was manu- factured probably in Miletus. For this dating Buiskikh uses works by M. Kerschner and U. Schlotzhauer, two scholars who made a painstaking study of East Greek pottery, especially Milesian, and formulated a new chronology based on these detailed examinations.6 They themselves have underlined in their writings that their scheme was a provisional one. Its most characteristic feature of their chronology is that previously accepted dates were shifted back by commonly 20–30 years, sometimes more. Some observers have already commented on this aspect of it.7 Furthermore, numbers of scholars have ignored the authors’ warning of the provisional nature of their findings8 and have used the new chronology as a firm framework for dating and re-dating pottery finds. Moreover, when such scholars seek to draw historical conclusions, they pay attention to the upper date in a given date range at the expense of the lower. This is the case with the dating of the Berezan skyphos. It is not the only early piece found around the Black Sea. Buiskikh uses as comparative material a fragment of a vessel from Nemirovskoe,9 previously dated to about the middle of the 7th century BC but raised by Kerschner to the second–beginning of the third quarter of the 7th century BC (Fig. 3.1). M.Y. Vakhtina dates this to ‘possibly the third quarter of the 7th century BC’. Another piece of North Ionian production, a bird bowl, was found at the Trakhtemirovskoe city site (Figs. 4–5).10 While Buiskikh accepts Kerschner’s dating of this to the first third of the 7th century BC, the literature offers dates other than Kerschner’s: second half of the 7th century BC; and middle–second half of the 7th century BC.11 Thus, not to go into further detail,
4 For the latest on Berezan, see Chistov and Krutilov 2014; Chistov 2015. 5 Buiskikh 2015b, 239. 6 See Kerschner 2006; Kerschner and Schlotzhauer 2005; Schlotzhauer 2001; etc. 7 Tsetskhladze 2012 (not known to Buiskikh), which presents a considerably enlarged and reworked version of Tsetskhladze 2007b. 8 Kerschner and Schlotzhauer 2005, 52. 9 Buiskikh 2015b, 244. On East Greek pottery from Nemirovskoe, see Vakhtina 2000; 2002; 2004a–b; 2007a–b; 2009; Vakhtina and Kashuba 2014. 10 Buiskikh 2015b, 244–46. 11 I am not giving here the bibliography for the different dating of this material. It can be found in Tsetskhladze 2012, Table 1, 354–56. 282 G.R. TSETSKHLADZE
Fig. 3: Pottery from the Nemirovskoe settlement (after Tsetskhladze 2012, 319, fig. 3). ON ‘PRE-COLONIAL’ LINKS, ONCE AGAIN 283
Fig. 4: Two fragments of a bid bowl from Trakhtemirovskoe – see Fig. 5 (after Tsetskhladze 2012, 323, fig. 9).
Fig. 5: Bird bowl from Trakhtemirovskoe (after Buiskikh 2015b, 252, fig. 2). 284 G.R. TSETSKHLADZE the dating of the Berezan skyphos seems to be too early, and it should be dated at least twenty years later.12 3. Much has been written about pre-colonial contacts around the Black Sea.13 Matters seemed settled in the aftermath of the debate between the late John Graham14 and John Boardman15 when early pottery from Histria and Berezan proved not to have been from these sites at all. Buiskikh is sceptical about how a piece from Histria kept in the Cambridge University Museum of Classical Archaeology could be mixed up with other material and other boxes, although she is aware that this was a teaching collection and those of us involved in teaching know how easy it is for students to mix up samples. Robert Cooke, who was teaching in Cambridge and made use of the collection, confirmed this to Boardman. I share with many of my colleagues doubts about the myth of the Argonauts: we regard it as a literary source, not an historical one.16 But from time to time works continue to appear that believe in such pre-colonial contacts. Vakhtina and M.T. Kashuba based their article on bronze fibulae dated to the second half of the 10th/end of the 10th–9th century BC from the north-western Black Sea and the Caucasus on them: they proposed that these objects had come from the Aegean world. First of all, they are very few in number17 – and one does not need Aegean prototypes for objects so simple that they could have appeared independently. The Caucasian examples even have parallels in Urartu and other neighbouring areas. The terms pre- and proto-colonial links imply the existence of a local population with whom contact could be established. Absent such a population and no such links could be forged by Greeks or anyone else. The vast majority of scholars, with- out reflecting, imagine that the territories around Berezan and Olbia were heavily populated by local peoples. As modern studies demonstrate, the reality was differ- ent.18 These lands were unpopulated and the Greeks were the first to settle them:
Olbia was one of the earliest colonies on the northern Black Sea coast. It is still not known exactly why Miletus, which had extensive experience of founding colonies, located this new colony at this point of the practically uninhabited Pontic shoreline. The results of our research of new sets of finds of handmade pottery, as well as repro- cessing old collections using modern methods of data-base treatment, allow us to take a fresh look at the problem of the origin and further development of Olbia. Olbia’s
12 Cf. Lemos 2002. 13 See, for instance, Bouzek 2013; Tsetskhladze 1994a, 113–15; 1998a, 10–15. 14 Graham 1980. 15 Boardman 1991. 16 See, for instance, Tsetskhladze 1994b. 17 Vakhtina and Kashuba 2013. 18 See, for instance, Melyukova 1989; 2001; 2006. ON ‘PRE-COLONIAL’ LINKS, ONCE AGAIN 285
handmade pottery (from the sectors ‘Temenos’, ‘UZA’, ‘NGS’; Berezan and chora set- tlements) of the Archaic period was divided into several groups. These were similar to the ceramic complexes of the Dniester-Danube basins and the forest-steppe of the northern Black Sea area. Museum collections and a mass material from field schedules (more than half a million pieces and unbroken vessels) were analysed. A special ‘bathy- metric’ method of analysing the mass material was developed. Handmade pottery appeared in Olbia at the turn of the 6th/5th centuries BC. A Thracian group was clas- sified; functional types of pottery and its distribution within the Archaic chora of Olbia were identified; pathways of infiltration of carriers of Thracian culture into the Olbian district were examined. The results obtained may suggest that, in the initial phase of colonisation, the principal attraction of the Berezan-Olbia hinterland was the existence of extensive, free and rich natural resources, and uninhabited territory with favourable conditions for agriculture behind the Dnieper-Bug estuary. The choice of location was strategically very successful. Within a few decades Olbia’s hinterland had expanded considerably and it became possible to develop trade with the vast barbarian world (mainly) between the lower reaches of the Danube, Dniester, Southern Bug and Dnie- per rivers and the forest-steppe under future nomadic control.19
Thus, there cannot have been any pre-/proto-colonial links in this part of the Black Sea. Even the fact that the earliest East Greek pottery from the northern Black Sea is found in the deep hinterland, sometimes ca. 500 km inland, as gifts from the Greeks20 to local chief-men, surely prompts the reflection that if there had been a local population around Berezan and Olbia, why would the Greeks have journeyed so far into the interior to establish relations and a modus vivendi with locals? The number of examples of such pottery is increasing step by step, thanks to discoveries in a tomb not far from the village Kiobruchi in Moldova, in a tomb in the vicinity of Krasnyi hamlet in the Kuban region, and at Belsk city-site.21 This situation is echoed in the eastern and southern Black Sea, but not so far in the western (Figs. 6–13; Tables 1–4).
19 Gavrylyuk and Tymchenko 2015. See also Gavriljuk 2010. 20 On gift-giving in the colonial world and the items used in this relationship, see Tsetskhladze 2010. 21 See Tsetskhladze 2015, 21–23. 286 G.R. TSETSKHLADZE
Fig. 6: Early East Greek pottery from Belsk, found after 2000 (after Tsetskhladze 2012, 324, fig. 10).
Fig. 7: Map showing location of the tumulus at the village of Krasnyi (after N. Shevchenko 2013, 101, fig. 1). ON ‘PRE-COLONIAL’ LINKS, ONCE AGAIN 287
Fig. 8 Fig. 9
Fig. 10 Fig. 8: Kurgan at the village of Krasnyi, large oinochoe (after N. Shevchenko 2013, 113, fig. 9). Fig. 9: Kurgan at the village of Krasnyi, large oinochoe, detail (after N. Shevchenko 2013, 114, fig. 10). Fig. 10: Kurgan at the village of Krasnyi, smaller oinochoe (after N. Shevchenko 2013, 111, fig. 8). 288 G.R. TSETSKHLADZE
Fig. 11: East Greek pottery from the village of Fig. 12: East Greek pottery from the village of Kiobruchi, Moldova (courtesy V. Banaru). Kiobruchi, Moldova (courtesy V. Banaru).
Fig. 13: Map of the northern Black Sea littoral and the Kuban region showing settlements and tombs which have yielded East Greek pottery of the last third of the 7th century BC. Not to scale (after Tsetskhladze 2015, 24, fig. 28). 1. Nemirov/Nemirovskoe; 2. Trakhtemirov/Trakhtemirovskoe; 3. Zhabotin/Zhabotinskoe; 4. Ivane- Puste; 5. Zalesya; 6. Motroninskoe; 7. Belsk/Belskoe; 8. Pozharnaya Balka; 9. Alekseevka/Alekseevskoe; 10. Burial ground Krasnogorovka III. Kurgan 14, grave 5; 11. Kurgan Temir-Gora; 12. Burial Boltyshka; 13. Kurgan 1 near the village of Kolomak; 14. Destroyed tomb, Kiobruchi village; 15. Filatovka; 16. Bolshaya; 17. Krivorozhie; 18. Krasnyi. ON ‘PRE-COLONIAL’ LINKS, ONCE AGAIN 289
Table 1: Earliest East Greek tableware from the settlements of the local population of the northern Black Sea littoral (adapted from Tsetskhladze 2012, 354–56; 2013, 71).
No. Site Region Greek Pottery Date
1. Nemirov/ Upper South Bug About 70 pieces of Nemirovskoe Archaic East Greek pottery, mainly painted. Or 100 including amphora fragments and probably 6th-century material
1. Three fragments of 1. Possibly third quarter a cup, possibly of of 7th century BC bird-bowl type
2. Fragment previously 2. 650–630 BC identified as of an oinochoe, now believed to be of an amphora
3. Fragment of 3. Second half of Milesian(?) cup 7th century BC/ middle–second half of 7th century BC (South Ionian)
4. Vast majority belong 4. 630–600 to oinochoai BC/650–630 (round-mouthed and BC/630–610 trefoil) of MWG I–II BC/610–580 BC produced in southern Ionia
Pottery of 6th century is not so numerous 2. Trakhtemirov/ Middle Dnieper 1. Fragment of North 1. First third of Trakhtemirovskoe Ionian bird bowl 7th century BC/second half of 7th century BC/ middle–second half of 7th century BC
2. Fragment of Samian 2. Last quarter of WG krater/South Ionian 7th century BC oinochoe 3. Zhabotin/ Middle Dnieper Fragment of East Greek Last quarter of Zhabotinskoe vessel/fragment of an 7th century BC/late oinochoe frieze 7th–early 6th century BC 290 G.R. TSETSKHLADZE
No. Site Region Greek Pottery Date
4(?). Ivane-Puste Middle Dnieper Fragments of Chian Second half of painted pottery 7th century BC/end of (number not given) 7th–first half of 6th century BC/second half of 7th–first half of 6th century BC 5(?). Zalesya Middle Dnieper Fragments of Chian Second half of 7th–first painted pottery half of 6th century BC (number not given); fragments of spherical bowls, bowls and Ionian cups 6. Motroninskoe Middle Dnieper One fragment of 640–600 BC Milesian oinochoe 7. Belsk/Belskoe Vorskla basin BEFORE 2000 1. Fragment of a bird 1. Middle/last quarter of bowl, North Ionian 7th century BC
2. Fragment of MWG 2. Last quarter of I–II vessel/South Ionian 7th century BC/ vessel (oinochoe?) 630–610 BC/ 610–580 BC)
AFTER 2000 About 15 pieces dating from the last quarter of 7th–first half of 6th century BC including 1. Two fragments of 650–615 BC bird bowls
2. Several fragments of 640–630 BC MWG I oinochoai
3. Fragment of MWG II 615–600 BC oinochoe 8(?). Pozharnaya Balka Vorskla basin Fragment of ‘Early Rhodian-Ionian ‘Rhodian-Ionian vessel’ group’ 9. Alekseevka/ Not far from Fragment of bird bowl 630/620–590 BC Alekseevskoe Greek Gorgippia (modern Anapa) ON ‘PRE-COLONIAL’ LINKS, ONCE AGAIN 291
Table 2: Local kurgans of the northern Black Sea littoral and the Kuban area with the earliest East Greek pottery of the 7th Century BC (adapted from Tsetskhladze 2015, 23).
No. Site Region Greek Pottery Date
1. Burial ground Lower Don Transport amphorae: Krasnogorovka 1. One Samian Third quarter–end of III. Kurgan 14, 7th century BC grave 5 2. One Clazomenian 650–620 BC 2. Kurgan Crimea Milesian painted 640–630 BC/ Temir-Gora oinochoe 650–630 BC 3. Burial Boltyshka Tyasmin basin Neck of East Greek 650–630 BC/end of oinochoe 7th–first third of 6th century BC/late 7th century BC/ ca. 630–610 BC 4. Kurgan 1 near the Vorskla basin Two Chian Third quarter of village of (or Clazomenian?) 7th century BC Kolomak transport amphorae 5. Destroyed tomb, Dniester 17 fragments of three Last quarter of Kiobruchi village (Moldova) vessels produced in 7th century BC Miletus 6. Filatovka Crimea North Ionian oinochoe 635–625 BC 7. Bolshaya River Tsutskan Neck of East Greek vase Last quarter of in the form of a 7th century BC panther’s head 8. Krivorozhie River Kalitva Neck of East Greek vase Late 7th century BC in the form of a ram’s head 9. Krasnyi Kuban Two East Greek Last quarter of oinochoai 7th century BC 292 G.R. TSETSKHLADZE
Table 3: Greek pottery predating the establishment of Greek colonies in Colchis (adapted from Tsetskhladze 2013, 72).
No. Site Region Greek Pottery Date
1. Batumis Tsikhe South-west 1. Fragments of banded End of 7th–first half of Colchis oinochoe 6th century BC
2. A few fragments of End of 7th–first half of Chian banded amphora 6th century BC 2(?). Pichvnari South-west Fragment of Ionian kylix Allegedly first half of 6th Colchis century BC 3. Simagre West Colchis 1. Small number of Beginning–first half of (not far from fragments of rosette 6th century BC Poti/Phasis) bowls
2. Fragment of amphora First half of 6th century neck decorated with BC wide red bands
3. Foot of Chian First half of 6th century amphora BC 4. Vani Central Colchis Fragment of Chian First half of 6th century. chalice-style bowl BC 5. Chognari Central Colchis Fragment of rosette bowl First half of 6th century (12 km from BC Kutaisi) 6. Krasnyi Mayak North-west ‘Fragments of a Greek ‘End of 7th century BC’ (next to Colchis vessel’ found in the Sukhumi/ 1930s, since lost Dioscurias) 7. Eshera North-west 1. Three fragments of Beginning/first third of (Fig. 14) (inland site, 10 Colchis closed vessel, North 6th century BC km north of Ionian LWG centre of Sukhumi/ 2. Several fragments of 600–540 BC Dioscurias) rosette bowls
3. A few fragments of Second/third quarters of Ionian cups 6th century BC ON ‘PRE-COLONIAL’ LINKS, ONCE AGAIN 293
Fig. 14: Early East Greek pottery from the local Eshera settlement not far from Dioscurias, Colchis (after Tsetskhladze 2012, 348, fig. 18).
Table 4: Early Greek pottery from the Halys bend (adapted from Tsetskhladze 2013, 74).
No. Site Greek Pottery Date
1. Akalan Fragments of two Milesian End of 7th century BC (18 km inland of Amisus) jugs, MWG II 2. Village of Dalsaray near Complete North Ionian bird Third quarter of 7th century Mecitözü bowl BC 3. Alişar Fragment of Milesian vase Early 6th century BC 4. Boğazköy Small number of Milesian Mid-7th century BC and Corinthian pottery 5. Kaman-Kalehöyük 1. Some pottery fragments of 1200–800 BC Protogeometric period
2. Fragment of Attic krater 6th century BC 294 G.R. TSETSKHLADZE
The situation appears to have been similar in the Cimmerian Bosporus: according to recent works there was practically no local population in either the Taman or the eastern part of the Kerch Peninsula, making Greek colonists the first settlers of these lands.22 Buiskikh believes that the Milesians who brought the skyphos to Berezan were ‘pioneers’, and that there settlements were ‘temporary’, which is why, of course there are no archaeological remains of them for the second third of the 7th cen- tury BC.23 I have already questioned what is meant by a ‘temporary settlement’.24 Does it mean that the Greeks were coming and going? If so, how practical was this when the distances are quite large? Why would they be sailing back and forth? Were they looking for foodstuffs or natural resources (including metals)? But they had no need to do so: be they Ionians or other Greeks, they were quite well fur- nished with natural resources and fertile agricultural territory, having all that they needed available to them in Ionia and Anatolia.25 Moreover, how would they have secured these commodities when there were no locals with whom to trade and exchange? Buiskikh states that the idea of pre-colonial links and the chronology of them have already been accepted. She cites D.A. Machinskii,26 whose article and arguments are very difficult to understand and several of whose statements are impenetrable.27 To sum up, it is impossible to be convinced by either Buiskikh’s or Machinskii’s articles or arguments.
22 Tsetskhladze 2007a; 2015, 29–34. 23 Buiskikh 2015b, 248. 24 Tsetskhladze 2012, 344–46. And we have no ‘temporary’ settlements in any other area of Greek colonisation. What we have are Greek settlements and mixed settlements (see Tsetskhladze 2006a, xxxviii–xlii). 25 For mainland Greece, see Descœudres 2008; for Ionia/Anatolia, see Tsetskhladze and Treister 1995. 26 Buiskikh 2015b, 246. 27 To give just one example: ‘… an Ionian oinochoe with a graffito, published by S.P. Tokhtasev, shouts for the arrival of the Greeks in Berezan at such an early date. Before publication and after, he was telling me confidently that the graffito written from right to left is dated on palaeographical grounds to the 8th century BC, but during publication he was supporting the artificial foundation of Borysthenes formulated by S.L. Solovyov. He [Tokhtasev] dated the fragment and inscription “ca. 625–600 BC” (this should be “610–600 BC”) [the catalogue contains no indication of the contradictory dating]. Despite this, written below in smaller print is “based on palaeography, the inscription is most probably the most ancient discovered to date on Berezan or in any Milesian colony or in Miletus itself”. Thus, two contradictory dates are juxtaposed – the 8th century BC ( possibly its end – ca. 725–700 BC) and 625–600 [BC]’ (Machinskii 2011, 417). ON ‘PRE-COLONIAL’ LINKS, ONCE AGAIN 295
4. Three pieces of pottery (from Berezan, Nemirovskoe and Trakhtemirovskoe) supposedly dating from the third quarter of the 7th century BC are used to justify what Eusebius writes about the establishment of Histria and Borysthenes (mid-650s– mid-640s BC).28 There is nothing new in citing Eusebius, but there is a large ques- tion about his reliability,29 one which some scholars do not want to ask because his dates are so convenient for them. It is very difficult to establish precise foundation dates for many colonies.30 Often, there is no ancient written evidence or, if there is, it proves incompatible with the archaeological evidence. I have already mentioned the date of establishment of Berezan based on Eusebius, but if we turn to the latest studies of East Greek pottery, the earliest found on Berezan dates back no further than the 630s BC, which is a strong indication of the date of foundation of Borysthenes.31 Histria shared the same foundaton date. Another problem is Olbia: 15 foundation dates have been suggested, added to most recently by Buiskikh with 620/10–590 BC32 (Table 5):
Table 5: Different Dates for the Establishment of Olbia as suggested by scholars (adapted from Rusyaeva 1998, 161).
1. 655/4 or 645/4 BC 2. Second third of 7th century BC 3. Second half of 7th century BC
28 Buiskikh 2015b, 248. 29 ‘... the tendency to move away from giving foundation dates of colonies in the form of chronol- ogy relative to another Greek or Near Eastern event, or a king (Hdt. 4.144 on Kalchedon (no. 743)/ Byzantion (no. 674); Ps.-Skymnos 730ff, on a string of Pontic colonies), and towards the practice of using Olympiads and their four-yearly cycle. Eventually, in the Christian writers of the later Roman Empire, the era of Abraham was added as well. The dates in Eusebius and Jerome have an aura of exactness about them that is misleading (Chron. 95b), being based on a chain of previous pagan tradi- tion that was very late in finding its tabular form. For colonies within the Pontos three dates have gained common acceptance: Istros in 657, Olbia in 647, Sinope in 631. But these should be regarded as dates arrived at by being put belatedly into tabular form, and not as a canon, sanctified by the Christian Fathers. A fourth date, found in the Armenian version of Eusebios, relating to Trapezous (757, ann. Abr. 1260) is to be discounted as a mistake, referring to the city of Kyzikos (no. 747) in the Propontis... Setting aside the exaggerated numbers of Milesian colonies and the (misleading) seem- ing exactitude of the few colonial dates provided by the chronographers, we may now turn to the distribution, character and development of the poleis in the Pontic region’ (Avram et al. 2004, 924–25, with bibliography). 30 For the Mediterranean context, see Tsetskhladze 2006a, xxxi–xlii. For the Black Sea context, see Tsetskhladze 2012, 335–38. 31 Posamentir 2006; 2010. See also Posamentir and Solovyov 2006; 2007. 32 Buiskikh 2013, 223. See also Buiskikh 2007. 296 G.R. TSETSKHLADZE
4. 620/10–590 BC 5. Turn of 7th/6th century BC or beginning of 6th century BC 6. Beginning of 6th century BC 7. 590s–580s BC 8. Beginning or first quarter of 6th century BC 9. Beginning or first half of 6th century BC 10. First quarter of 6th century BC 11. Second quarter of 6th century BC 12. First half of 6th century BC 13. Second quarter–middle of 6th century BC 14. Middle of 6th century BC 15. Second half of 6th century BC
We encounter problems of dating for other Black Sea colonies. To take the example of Phasis in Colchis (Table 6):
Table 6: Different Dates for the Establishment of Phasis as suggested by scholars (adapted from Lordkipanidze 2000, 61).
1. End of 7th/beginning of 6th century BC 2. First half of 6th century BC 3. Second half of 6th century BC 4. Middle of 6th century BC 5. End of 6th century BC 6. 6th century BC 7. Middle/end of 5th century BC 8. Not earlier than end of 5th/beginning of 4th century BC
Our estimates of foundation dates keep changing as new archaeological evidence comes to light. Table 7 gives the dates for the major Greek colonies of the Black Sea and indicates the presence or otherwise of a local population (as far as we know them currently). ON ‘PRE-COLONIAL’ LINKS, ONCE AGAIN 297
Table 7: Main Archaic Greek Colonies and Settlements in the Black Sea.33 34
Settlement Mother City/ Literary Dates for Earliest Earlier Local Cities Foundation Archaeological Population Material
Amisus Miletus and Late 7th century ca. 600-575 Yes Phocaea Apollonia Pontica Miletus ca. 610 Late 7th century Yes (Ps.-Scymnus) Berezan Miletus 647 ca. 630 Yes Callatis Heraclea Pontica Late 6th century. 4th century Refoundation by Heraclea Pontica in late 5th century. Initial coloniser is not known Chersonesos Heraclea Pontica 42133 525–500 Yes Taurica Dioscurias Miletus ca. 550 Early/first third Yes 6th century Greek pottery (local inland settlement)34 Heraclea Pontica Megara and 554 (Ps.-Scymnus) Yes Boeotians (Strabo) Hermonassa Miletus and 575-550 Mytilene Histria Miletus 657 (Eusebius) 630 Yes Kepoi Miletus Mid-6th century 580–560 Mesambria Megara, 493 ca. 500 Yes Byzantium, Chalcedon Myrmekion Miletus or 575–550 No Panticapaeum
33 The establishment of an earlier Chersonesos in the second half of the 6th century, before Dorian Chersonesos was founded by Heraclea Pontica, is now less certain than it once seemed. The lid of a black-figure lekane initially identified as Boeotian and dated to the third quarter of the 6th century BC, the starting point for moving back the foundation date of Chersonesos, in reality dates to the middle/beginning of the third quarter of the 5th century and is not from Boeotia but from Attica or an Asia Minor workshop (A. Shevchenko 2014). Boardman (1998, 203–04) had earlier expressed doubts about both its supposed Boeotian origin and date. Other materials (amphorae, other pottery, etc.) are also no earlier than the 5th century BC, and the earliest ostraca also date to the second half of that century (A. Shevchenko 2014 [with bibliography]). 34 See Fig. 14 in the present article. 298 G.R. TSETSKHLADZE
Settlement Mother City/ Literary Dates for Earliest Earlier Local Cities Foundation Archaeological Population Material Nymphaeum Miletus 580–570 Yes Odessus Miletus 585–539 ca. 560 Olbia Miletus 647 575–550 ? Panticapaeum Miletus 590–570 Yes Phanagoria Teos ca. 545 ca. 540 ? Phasis Miletus ca. 550–530 Yes Sinope Miletus 1. pre-757 Last third ? (Ps.-Scymnus) 7th century 2. 631/0 (Eusebius) Theodosia Miletus 550–500 580–570 Yes Tieion/Tios35 Miletus Four pieces of East Greek pottery dating from the end of the 7th– early 6th century BC Trapezus Sinope 757/6 (Eusebius) Yes Tyras Miletus Mid-6th century Second half 6th Yes century
This note aims to draw scholarly attention back once again to so-called pre-colonial links, the dating of pottery, the earliest stages of Greek colonisation, local peoples, etc.
Bibliography
Atasoy, S. and Yıldırım, Ş. (eds.) 2015: Zonguldak’ta bir Antik Kent: Tios. 2006–2012 Arkeolojik Çalışmaları ve Genel Değerlendirme/An Ancient City in Zonguldak: Tios. General Assessment of Works Between 2006 and 2012 (Istanbul). Avram, A., Hind, J. and Tsetskhladze, G. 2004: ‘The Black Sea Area’. In Hansen, M.H. and Nielsen, T.H. (eds.), An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis: An Investigation Conducted by the Copenhagen Polis Centre for the Danish National Research Foundation (Oxford), 924–73. Boardman, J. 1991: ‘Early Greek Pottery on Black Sea Sites?’. OJA 10.3, 387–89. —. 1998: ‘Olbia and Berezan: the Early Pottery’. In Tsetskhladze 1998b, 201–04. Bouzek, J. 2013: ‘Pre-colonisaton in the Black Sea: the first Greek pottery finds in the Black Sea’. In Tsetskhladze et al. 2013, 19–21 Buiskikh/Bujskikh, A.V. 2007: ‘The Earliest East Greek Pottery from Olbia Pontica’. In Cobet et al. 2007, 499–510. —. 2013: Arkhaicheskaya raspisnaya keramika iz Ol‘vii (Kiev).
35 See now Atasoy and Yıldırım 2015. ON ‘PRE-COLONIAL’ LINKS, ONCE AGAIN 299
—. 2015a: ‘Keramika pershoi polovini VII st. do n.e. Ta pitannya dokolonizatsiinikh zv’yazkiv u pivnichnomu prichornomor’i’. Arkheologiya (Kiev) 1, 3–11. —. 2015b: ‘Subgeometricheskii skifos iz Borisfena (K voprosu o dokolonizatsionnykh svyazyakh v Severnom Prichernomor’e)’. Antichnyi Mir i Arkheologiya (Saratov) 17, 238–52. Chistov, D.E. 2015: ‘The civic centre of Archaic Borysthenes: a new approach to localisation’. In Tsetskhladze et al. 2015, 403–13. Chistov, D.E. and Krutilov, V. 2014: ‘The archaic town on the Berezan island: new studies on the chronology and urban planning of the Berezan settlement’. In Povalahev, N. (ed.), Phanagoreia und darüber hinaus… Festschrift für Vladimir Kuznetsov (Göttingen), 209–30. Cobet, J., von Graeve, V., Niemeier, W.-D. and Zimmermann, K. (eds.) 2007: Frühes Ionien: Eine Bestandsaufnahme (Mainz). Denti, M. 2013: ‘The Contribution of Research on Incoronata to the Problem of the Relations between Greeks and Non-Greeks during Proto-Colonial Times’. AWE 12, 71–116. Descœudres, J.-P. 2008: ‘Central Greece on the Eve of the Colonisation Movement’. In Tsetskhladze, G.R. (ed.), Greek Colonisation: An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas, vol. 2 (Leiden/Boston), 289–382. Gavriljuk, N.A. 2010: ‘Handmade potterty’. In Lejpunskaja, N.A., Guldager Bilde, P., Højte, J.M., Krapivina, V.V. and Kryzickij, S.D. (eds.), The Lower City of Olbia (Sector NGS) in the 6th Cen- tury BC to the 4th Century AD (Aarhus), 335–54. Gavrylyuk, N. and Tymchenko, N. 2015: ‘The Hinterland of Archaic Olbia: Handmade Pottery’. In Tsetskhladze et al. 2015, 535. Graham, A.J. 1990: ‘Pre-colonial Contacts: Questions and Problems’. In Descœudres, J.-P. (ed.), Greek Colonies and Native Populations (Oxford), 45–60. Kerschner, M. 2006: ‘Zum Beginn und zu den Phasen der griechischen Kolonisation am Schwarzen Meer. Die Evidenz det ostgriechischen Keramik’. Eurasia Antiqua 12, 227–50. Kerschner, M. and Schlotzhauer, U. 2005: ‘A New Classification System for East Greek Pottery’. AWE 4.1, 1–56. Lemos, I.S. 2002: The Protogeometric Aegean (Oxford). Lordkipanidze, O.D. 2000: Phasis: the River and City in Colchis (Stuttgart). Machinskii, D.A. 2011: ‘Vremya osnovaniya poseleniya Borisfen na ostrove Berezan’ i drevneishie etapy osvoeniya ellinami severnykh beregov Ponta’. In Vakhtina, M.Y. et al. (eds.), Bosporskii Fenomen: Naselenie, yazyki, kontakty (St Petersburg), 408–21 Melyukova, A.I. (ed.) 1989: Stepi evropeiskoi chasti SSSR v skifo-sarmatskoe vremya (Moscow). —. 2001: ‘Novye dannye o Skifakh v Dobrudzhe (K voprosu o “Staroi Skifii” Gerodota)’. RosA 4, 20–32. —. 2006: ‘Po povodu skifskikh pokhodov na territoriyu Srednei Evropy’. In Petrenko, V.G. and Yablonskii, L.T. (eds.), Drevnosti skifskoi epokhi (Moscow), 25–40. Posamentir, R. 2006: ‘The Greeks in Berezan and Naukratis: A Similar Story?’. In Villing, A. and Schlotzhauer, U. (eds.), Naukratis: Greek Diversity in Egypt (London), 159–67. —. 2010: ‘Archaic Greek Culture: The Archaic Ionian Pottery from Berezan’. In Solovyov, S.L. (ed.), Archaic Greek Culture: History, Archaeology, Art and Museology (Oxford), 66–74. Posamentir, R. and Solovyov, S.L. 2006: ‘Zur Herkunftsbestimmung archaisch-ostgriechischer Keramik: die Funde aus Berezan in der Ermitage von St. Petersburg’. IstMitt 56, 103–28. —. 2007: ‘Zur Herkunftsbestimmung archaisch-ostgriechischer Keramik: die Funde aus Berezan in der Ermitage von St. Petersburg II’. IstMitt 57, 179–207. Ridgway, D. 2000: ‘The First Western Greeks Revisited’. In Ridgway, D., Serra Ridgway, F.R., Pearce, M., Herring, E., Whitehouse, R.D. and Wilkins, J.B. (eds.), Ancient Italy in its Mediterranean Setting. Studies in Honour of Ellen Macnamara (London), 179–92. —. 2004: ‘Euboeans and others along the Tyrrhenian Seaboard in the 8th century B.C.’. In Lomas, K.H. (ed.), Greek Identity in the Western Mediterranean: Papers in Honour of Brian Shefton (Leiden/Boston), 15–33. 300 G.R. TSETSKHLADZE
Rusyaeva, A.S. 1998: ‘K voprosu ob osnovanii ioniitsami Ol’vii’. VDI 1, 160–70. Schlotzhauer, U. 2001: Die südionischen Knickrandschalen: Eine chronologische Untersuchung zu den sog. Ionischen Schalen in Milet (Dissertation, Bochum)
—. 2004b: ‘O nachale raspostraneniya yuzhno-ioniiskogo keramicheskogo importa v varvarskom mire Severnogo Prichernomor’ya’. In Zuev, V.Y. et al., Bosporskii Fenomen: problemy khronologii i datirovki pamyatnikov, Part 2 (St Petersburg), 204–11. —. 2007a: ‘Archaic East Greek Pottery from Nemirovo (Preliminary Survey)’. In Cobet et al. 2007, 511–18. —. 2007b: ‘Greek Archaic Orientalising Pottery from the Barbarian Sites of the Forest-steppe Zone of the Northern Black Sea Coastal Region’. In Gabrielsen, V. and Lund, J. (eds.), The Black Sea in Antiquity: Regional and Interregional Economic Exchanges (Aarhus), 23–37. —. 2009: ‘Archaic Greek Painted Pottery at the Sites of Local Population of the Black Sea Coastal Region in the Period of Forming of “Scythian Animal Style”’. Il Mar Nero 6 (for 2004–06), 203–09. Vakhtina, M.Y. and Kashuba, M.T. 2013: ‘Ob osobennostyakh greko-varvarskikh kontaktov nachal’noi pory kolonizatsii Severnogo Prichernomor’ya v svete izucheniya materialov Nemirovskogo gorodishcha’. In Vakhtina, M.Y. et al. (eds.), Bosporskii Fenomen: Greki i varvary na Evraziiskom perekrestke (St Petersburg), 371–78. —. 2014: ‘Nakhodki rannei grecheskoi keramiki v varvarskhikh pamyatnikakh Severnogo Prichernomor’ya i vremya poyavleniya postoyannykh antichnykh poselenii v regione’. In Zinko, V.N. (ed.), Bospor Kimmeriiskii i varvarskii mir v period antichnosti i srednevekov’ya. Aktual’nye problemy khronologii (Kerch), 69–81.
Universities of Oxford and Nottingham The Gallery Spa Road Llandrindod Wells LD1 5ER UK [email protected]