Interdisciplinary Research on the Antiquity of the Black Sea. Światowit Supplement Series C: Pontica et Caucasica. Volume II

The second volume of series C of supplements to the "Światowit" yearbook, "Pontica and Caucasica", contains 33 papers that present the results of archaeological and interdisciplinary research conducted by scholars from various countries on the Black Sea seaside. Texts are devoted to research issues relating to various chronological periods (from the early stages of Greek colonization in the region to the presence of the Genoese and Ottoman garrisons).

Greek mercenaries in Sais Egypt

This article is dedicated to examination of the history of emergence of Greek mercenaries during the riling time of XXVI Sais Dynasty. The author reviews the status and role of Greek mercenaries in the armed forced of Sais rulers, organization of their service and living conditions. Considering the fact that the use of Greek mercenaries in Egypt army was a part of the traditional policy of Sais rulers and carried mass character, the author refers to the problem  of social origin of the phenomenon of mercenarism in the Greek society of Archaic era. The research applies comparative-historical method that allows viewing the phenomenon of mercenarism in the historical context – based on the comparative data analysis of ancient written tradition. By the time of Sais Dynasty, control over regions that traditionally provided mercenaries to the Egypt army was lost. Under the circumstances, in order to compensate such losses, Egypt conscripted into military service the hailed from the Greek world. Mercenaries became the first Greeks settled on the Egyptian land. The conclusion is made that the Greek colonization, in absence of other ways to enter the formerly closed to the Greeks Egypt, at its initial stage manifested in such distinct form.

Christian mission in Northern Black Sea region and its geopolitical significance

The spread of Christianity in the Northern Black Sea Region was a continuation of the vector of cultural expansion into this region, outlined in Antiquity and opposing the region’s stable geopolitical ties in the latitudinal direction, with the steppe world of the nomads of Eurasia. The stages of this process were: the Great Greek colonization on Pontus Euxinus; the spread of Pax Romana to the territory of Crimea; the Christianization of the region and the strengthening of Byzantium in the Northern Black Sea Region through an alliance with the Khazaria and the creation of the Klimata-Cherson thema; finally, the emergence of Italian trading posts and the emergence of Genoese Gazaria. The success of the Christian mission of Byzantium would not have been possible without the oncoming movement from the north, which determined the reception of the Byzantine civilization by Rus’-Russia and predefined the geopolitical contours of the modern world. In the opposite direction there was an advance to the south of Rus’ and the formation of the path “from the Varangians to the Greeks”, sea voyages of the Rus’ princes to Constantinople, the capture of Korsun’Cherson by Vladimir the Saint and the baptism of Rus’, the inclusion of Russia in the system of the Byzantine church administration. At the new historical stage, after the fall of Byzantium, the role of the Christian Orthodox empire passed to Russia, and the processes of intercivilizational interaction in the region changed their vector. But even in the new conditions, the meridional dimension remains incomparably more important than the latitudinal dimension: a fact that determines the future geopolitical perspective.

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINESE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

The article briefly gives an analogy of the natural and climatic conditions of Greece and the southern coast of Crimea (SCC). A brief historical reference is given to the colonization of the southern coast by the Greeks, the emergence of the resort city of Yalta and the role of the Nikitsky Botanical Garden in the distribution of wood introducents to the SCC, its architecture and organization of space in front of the main building. Brief descriptions are given: sites with a Tea House in Alupkinsky Park; the spaces of the eastern and northern facades of the palace of Count Mordvinov; the park space of the eastern and southern facades of the Livadia Palace; gazebo in the Haraks estate and on Catherine Street in Yalta. But special attention is paid to the modern park of the Aivazovskoye sanatorium in Partenit, in which the motive for the Greek colonization of Crimea determines the main part of the park space.

Coastal lowland and floodplain evolution along the lower reaches of the Supsa River (western Georgia)

In the southernmost part of the Colchian plain (Georgia), the Supsa and Rioni rivers represent important catchments for reconstructing Holocene landscape changes. Using granulometric methods, geochemical analyses and radiocarbon dating, we demonstrate that significant palaeoenvironmental changes have taken place in the surroundings of the Supsa fan since at least 4000 BCE. The initial foothill fan accumulation was prolonged by delta plain progradation. Due to continued fluvial sediment supply, mainly from the Rioni, the lagoon silted up and extended peat bogs formed east of the beach ridge complex. The Supsa fan first prograded northwards (since the third millennium BCE) and later shifted westwards, eventually following an avulsion of the Rioni. While Supsa deposits remain limited to the area of the fan and the modern estuary, the alluvial fines of the Rioni dominate the surrounding areas. The relative sea-level (RSL) index points of the region suggest a gradual RSL rise from ∼-9 m between 4000 and 3500 BCE to −3/−2 m below the modern sea level in the second half of the first millennium BCE, the period during which Greek colonization and Colchian settlements are attested by archaeological remains.