К вопросу об импорте критского вина в Причерноморье (I–II вв. н.э.)
On the Issue of Cretan Wine Import in the Black Sea Region (1st – 2nd centuries AD)

Author(s): Denis Masuta
Subject(s): Archaeology
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Crete; passum; АС4 amphorae; Roman period; Black Sea area; Tyras; Chersones
Summary/Abstract: One of the most famous and quite expensive kinds of wine produced on the territory of the Roman Empire in the 1st–2nd centuries AD was a Cretan passum. For its high-rate taste and medicinal properties, it was in great demand among the wealthy segments of the capital and provinces population. The amphorae of type AC4, produced in Crete from the first quarter of 1st century AD till the late 2nd century AD, were used for its transportation. Their production peaked in the second half of 1st – first half of 2nd centuries AD, when they entered the markets of Rome in large numbers and reached the most remote parts of the Empire. These amphorae are considered to have been distributed in the Western Black Sea region – in the territory of Moesia Inferior province. However, the fragments of transport containers from Novae, Troesmis, Tomis, Tropaeum Trajani, attributed to this type by researches, are morphologically different from Cretan amphorae and date to the 2nd – first half of 3rd centuries AD. These vessels are the products of another not yet localized center and are attributed to type Samoylova 1 (І). As a result of the archaeological research of recent decades, single finds of АС4 amphorae are known in Chersonesus and Tyras, which allows us to expand the distribution area of this variety of transport containers to the Northern and North-Western Black Sea region. Their arrival dates to the late 2nd century AD, when the producers were forced to search for new markets for their products, due to the falling demand for Cretan wine and a reduction of its consumption in the western Roman provinces and the Eastern Mediterranean.

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