Chersonesos “Barracks”: A Large Urban Estate of the 1st - 3rd Centuries AD

Abstract

In 1993-1999, a joint expedition of Kharkiv State University and the Tauric Chersonesos National Preserve carried out a study of the “barracks” — an extensive architectural and archaeological complex within the boundaries of the Chersonesos city-site. This group of buildings and other structures with a total area of over 500 square meters is located near a 4th-century BC city gate and the sixteenth curtain wall. In the first centuries AD, a large economic and residential complex arose and functioned here. The area of the “Barracks Center” and Room 38 accommodated an atrium. Production facilities were located in the northern and eastern part of the “barracks” on the site of medieval rooms. In Roman times, two cisterns were cut into the rock on the site of Rooms 35 and 36, and a press platform with a large lever stone was constructed. Thus, the structural remains, stratigraphic features, and artifacts found in the area of Rooms 35 and 36 all indicate that a fairly powerful winery operated in the northern part of the “barracks” during the 1st to 3rd centuries. The filling of the winery cisterns yielded a rich collection of red-lacquered pottery of the 1st to 3rd centuries, which is extremely rarely found in such amounts in the complexes of Chersonesos. The finds illustrate the great diversity of ceramic wares used in Chersonesos. Imported vessels predominate. Fragments of an oinophore from the city of Knidus in Asia Minor, for example, are of considerable interest. Most similar oinophores from the Eastern Mediterranean date to the 2nd century AD, as do most of the ceramic imports from Knidus to the Northern Black Sea coast. Epigraphic and anepigraphic stamps on red slip plates represent a special subset of finds. In Roman times, the estate included a home sanctuary. This is evidenced by the finds of a fluted limestone column, a damaged female sculpture, fragments of a frieze-free entablature, and copious remnants of polychrome plaster. Rare finds include a ring with a gem of Athena and an elegant miniature pendant made of Egyptian faience, which depicts Cybele or Isis on a throne. Excavations of the “barracks” show that in the first centuries AD there was a significant change in the functional purpose of the port area of Chersonesos. Numerous immigrants from the Balkan and Anatolian provinces of the Roman Empire appeared among the city’s inhabitants. The changes in the social and ethnic makeup of the local population should be connected with the prolonged presence of a Roman garrison in the city citadel.