The Red-Slip Amphora From Sarmatian Grave in Cherkasy Region

Abstract

Despite the presence of a representative sample of material (more than 100 whole and fragmented vessels), there is still no published work in Ukrainian science with a general analysis of red-slip ware from Sarmatian graves in the Northern Black Sea region. Such research is currently underway, and each new find is worthy of attention. The paper deals with a forgotten vessel of a rare type — the table amphora.
The vessel was found in 1956 during D. T. Berezovets’s survey along the Ros River near the Neterebkа village of Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi Raion, Cherkasy Oblast, in the Sarmatian grave within a destroyed barrow. The vessel was stored at the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (collection no. 337, inv. no. 352) and mentioned only twice in the corpuses of Roman finds by V. V. Kropotkin and O. V. Symonenko.
This is a red-slip table amphora of the Pontic sigillata group, Zhuravlev shape 1.1. This is the only such vessel found in a Sarmatian grave, but they are well represented among the neighbours and relatives of the Sarmatians: the Late Scythians of Crimea (the Ust-Alma, Zavitne, Belbek IV, and Neizats burial grounds). This shape is dated to the second half of the 1st — early 2nd centuries AD.
In the Sarmatian graves of the Northern Pontic region the red-slip ware is quite diverse. The most common forms are cups, bowls, and plates, jugs of various types (including lagynoi and pelikae), mugs, dishes, kantharoi, toilet bottles, and even a guttus. However, this is the first time a table amphora was discovered.
Thus, it should be recognised that, unlike cups and plates, table amphorae were rare in the Sarmatian milieu, since such vessels were never found in the eastern Sarmatian territories either. Apparently, they were not practical and were not in demand in nomadic life. Or, on the contrary, they were rare and therefore expensive and not available to everyone. The circumstances of the Sarmatians’ use of Ancient Greek tableware have not been studied and represent an interesting area of research.