Methodology

At the present time the collection of amphora stamps from the “Krutoi bereg” [Steep Shore] settlement has been published on the site: the archaeological research was carried out by the East-Crimean Expedition of the Institute of Archaeology affiliated to the Russian Academy of Sciences and led by A.A.Maslennikov (Doctor of Historical Sciences). The collection consists of 268 stamps representing the following centres of production: Sinope (73%), Rhodos (19%), Heraklea (3%), Chersonesos (2%), the Myrsileia group (0,7%), Knidos (1%), Colchis and Kos (0.4%. It has not proved possible to determine the centre of production for certain of the imprints (1%).

The general database for stamps from the settlement was drawn up on the basis of archive materials (texts of reports, field notes, collection inventories) and museum documentation (acts of acceptance of finds and inventory registers). In view of the above, the catalogue includes imprints discovered on the site but which – in view of their poor state of preservation – had not been transferred to a museum collection or accepted for one. Information about these stamps is fragmentary by nature and, as a rule, all that is known about them is their centre of production and find-spot. Despite that, material of this kind has been included in the database so as to ensure the objective distribution of finds from particular centres found at each individual site, making it possible to compare the volume of imports from different settlements.

The vast majority of stamps from Crimean settlements in the Azov Sea area are held in the East-Crimean Historical and Cultural Museum and Preserve (East-Crimean HCMP) in which a system has been adopted for listing pottery stamps in inventory registers, which fall into the category “Kerch. Stamped Pottery”.

All stamps included in the database are assigned a number, which is both the number used in the museum’s card index and the number used for entering it in the database. The card for each stamp includes the following fields:

Die (this field will include the number of the stamp die of each individual magistrate/manufacturer determined by comparing squeezes and identifying palaeographic features of the legend, its position, the size of the imprint and of the individual letters used, the location and nature of the emblem, the presence of any errors made by the engraver, abbreviations and so on.)                                                                     

Centre of Production                                                                                    

Name of the magistrate / official (in Greek and Latin)                                              

Name of the manufacturer / fabricant (in Greek and Latin)                                          

Device of the official or fabricant                                                                                           

Photograph (in certain cases the photograph will be accompanied by squeezes)                                                                                                     

Legend of the stamp (when the legend is provided, the traditional system for brackets is used: [restored letters], (extension of an abbreviated name), {incorrectly engraved letters}, <correct version of the incorrectly engraved or omitted letters>)                                                           

Settlement name                                                                                      

Year the stamp was found                                                                              

Code (find-spot of the stamp in the settlement, trench, quadrant, spit, feature, field number).                                                               

Inventory number (number issued by the museum)                                                                                         

State of the stamp’s preservation (damage, lime-scale)                            

Date of the stamp                                                                                     

Parallels (references to publications of stamps made with similar dies)                                          

Publication (reference to publications of the stamp in question)                            

Remarks (pointers to certain characteristics of the legend [retrograde inscription, corrections to the engraving, repeated imprints and so on] and of the amphora fragment [paint, dipinti et al.])