sehepunkte 7 (2007), Nr. 7/8

Alla I. Romančuk: Studien zur Geschichte und Archäologie des byzantinischen Cherson

"Chersonesos is the Russian Pompeii", so it was said at the end of the nineteenth century. There has been no complete survey of the Byzantine city in a western language before the study by Professor Romančuk of Jekaterinenburg University. The present book is an updated translation from Russian made especially for Colloquia Pontica and published by Brill in 2005. A virtue of the work is that it reviews both the archaeological and literary evidence. Furthermore it explains the history of the excavations. Professor Romančuk has been in charge of these since 1973 and she has transmitted her experience clearly to the text. Chapters are as follows: 1) The history of excavations; 2) The fortification of Cherson; 3) Sacred buildings in Cherson. Chapters 4 and 5 both deal with commercial buildings. The sixth chapter concerns the living quarters and the last chapter the port. Romančuk's study is groundbreaking for the sheer quantity and accessibility of material clearly presented. One hopes that in the future she will present a comparative study that may place the city Chersonesos within the wider frame of other Byzantines sites and finds and that she may point out norm and exception.

The first chapter deals with the discovery of the site and the beginning of excavations in 1827. After discussing briefly the period till 1888, she describes in detail how the excavations became more specialized and better informed especially with the growth of interest in Byzantine archaeology as signalled by the foundation of the Russian Archaeological Institute (1894-1914). The early soviet period is very briefly discussed since she appears eager to describe the situation after the 1950s. A biographical sketch of the most prominent archaeologists invoked as well as an historical outline of Byzantine Cherson based on written material concludes the outline.

In the second chapter Romančuk carefully attempts to broaden interpretations of the site rather than limiting them to a material interpretation. In this she is - as she states - following in her professor's, the late Sjuzumov, footsteps. After the theoretical introduction she helpfully describes the general characteristics of the landscape of the site and refers to a useful map included in the volume. In order to point out the military feature of the site and its walls she elegantly quotes the military engineer A. L. Bertie de la Garde (1842-1920). Furthermore, she summarises the view of Jacobson who sometimes represents the opposed view to the author's: 1) the circuit of walls follows the ancient one; 2) the greatest part was constructed by Justinian I; 3) no major wall construction was undertaken after the sixth century. Romančuk disagrees and points out that a more complex and open dating must be applied. She says the middle Byzantine period (9th - 11th centuries) was important for the fortifications and gives ample and literary arguments. However, she is also interested not only in the dating but also in illustrating the multitude of functions exercised by these walls: 1) observation of the barbarian region; 2) trade with barbarians; 3) dealing with missions to surrounding areas.

The third chapter deals with the religious buildings in Cherson. There Professor Romančuk argues that Procopius' De Aedificiis has focused scholars attention too narrowly. She proposes to reconsider the dating of the churches. She points out that stratigraphy should be valued more than it has been in the past, e.g. it was not employed before 1932. Her discussion implies that the buildings are difficult to date objectively. Coin finds help to redefine the picture. For example, the north basilica has five building phases according to Ryžov. The coin finds in the cisterns point to the seventh century. The cross-formed churches date to the late tenth century at the earliest. Romančuk proposes corrections to the dating of various religious buildings based on archaeological evidence, and then places the results side by side to the textual and historical evidence thus proving an interesting and strong case.

Chapter four deals with trade in the Chersonesos both in archaeological and written sources. The author emphasizes the importance of the trade of salted fish through ancient (Strabo) as well as Byzantine (Constantine Porphyrogennetos) literary evidence and places this in relation to the material finds of fishhooks on the site. Indeed the importance of fish salting was such Professor Romančuk believes one may associate the cisterns in Cherson with this production. She uses the parallel of the nearby site of Tyritake with over 800 cisterns and the study by Marti to prove her point. She also uses Julian of Askalon in describing Palestine in the sixth century. According to that, the cisterns could have been used for the preservation of a fish sauce (the roman "gaurum"). This hypothesis is interesting and could be correct but seems to be weakened by the scarce literary evidence.

The fifth chapter deals with archaeological and ceramic remains of the city. Initially, she indicates that Sjuzumov's reading of Julian of Askalon can and may be applied to Cherson, the reason being that though it describes local building techniques applying to Palestine, the described rules were subsequently spread throughout the empire. This point is important for the distance in which ceramic factories could stand in relation to the city. In the beginning, she describes the workshops of the whole of the Crimea and then focuses on the factories of Cherson of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. From the position of the factories Romančuk deduces that in the middle Byzantine period there was no longer any restriction on factory location as there had been in the early Byzantine period.

Later in the chapter she also discusses the ceramic production summarizing the views and dates attributed to the finds. She points out that the largest number of ceramic ware can be found in the middle Byzantine period, though finds are not absent from the sixth to the ninth century. Her detailed analysis of the different types of wares reveals the difficulty of the subject due to dating the material as well as locations since Cherson underwent much destruction from the eleventh century onwards. However she addresses well the problem of the origin of those who worked with the material. Stylistic analysis has argued that designs may have originated in types found in Georgia, Russia or Romania, although these are only some of possible explanations.

Chapter six starts with the presentation of Jakobson's point of view that the lack of artistic production is a sign of the decadence of Cherson during the eighth and ninth centuries. Earlier in the book, Romančuk had pointed out that Sjuzjumov had disagreed with such a theory. Indeed, if artistic material could be re-dated to the period concerned then the collapse at the end of late antiquity would rather become the transition from the early to the middle Byzantine city of Cherson. The chapter is a detailed discussion of each of the quarters of the city. It deals mainly with the dating of the buildings. This is very useful, since for each quarter she presents the common opinion and provides the new material for dating or reconsideration. Subsequently, she discusses the seventh century finds of the port area pointing out the destruction, which must have happened during the seventh century. The next long discussion is on the north district and the northeast district of Cherson. She dismisses Jacobson's view that the buildings were larger in this area thus denoting a special type of residence.

The seventh chapter deals specifically with the port, its properties and finds. Again she follows her method of discussing the discoveries by grouping them into the groups of early, middle and late Byzantine. Such work is hazardous since the port was destroyed relatively often and seems to have occupied varying spaces during its many lives. However it provides detailed statistical backing for one of the major themes of the book, the continuous, though varied, building activity throughout the history of Byzantine Kerch.

Romančuk's conclusion is fitting. It refers to Sjuzjumov's theory of the continuity of Byzantine civic life, in contrast with the disruption of the barbarian invasions of the west, and employs Cherson as a tangible proof for such a hypothesis. It does not neglect Cherson's role as being a focus for many cultures that left their traces in archaeological remains and possible influence in local building techniques. She correctly emphasizes the role of Cherson as a border town separating the Byzantine Empire from the great plains of Russia. Overall Romančuk manages to endorse Sjuzjumov's theory of continuity by analysing detailed points and finds of archaeology, though never loosing the sense of the overall picture. A further merit is that the work is not aimlessly polemical: it is interested in assessing the value of Cherson's role in material history rather than focusing entirely on correcting details in secondary literature. It will therefore remain a useful reference book for everyone who wants to deal with the transition from late antiquity to the middle Byzantine period in material terms rather than generalisations. One may note that her interest in the site emerges from Romančuk's study and that Cherson is lucky to have someone careful and attentive to uncover its mysteries.