Ancient Glass, Pottery Typology

Protohistoric ambers from Sardinia: new data on typology and possible indicators of local
working - In the frame of the national research project on the earliest italian amber artefacts, in 2006 many samples
have been taken from objects from protohistoric contexts of Cagliari, Oristano and Nuoro provinces. Analyses of the
amber artefacts and of the provenance contexts and the comparison with what is known on the italian protohistoric
ambers, allow to outline a complex picture of nuragic Sardinia, where import of inished products typologically similar
to the peninsular ones, is joined during the Final Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age by the import of raw materials
and the production of artefacts in locally developed types. Archaeometric researches (see Ivana Angelini’s contribution)
document, beside the baltic succinite, a considerable component of ambers of currently unknown origin.

R.M. Reida, A.V. Heiko, S.V. Sapiehin
BURIAL WITH
«
CHARON’S OBOL» FROM SHYSHAKY CEMETERY OF CHERNYAKHIVSKA CULTUREPublished is the burial 39 from Shyshaky burial ground of Chernyakhivska culture (Poltava Oblast). Buried was a 25—30-year-old woman put in a grave along the east-west line, extended and with her head to the west. Western part of the grave is destroyed by a trench for the pipe leading to sewage treatment structures.The buried was accompanied by a glass transparent cup with profiled bottom and grinded ovals on the body (two rows of  big ovals placed vertically on the cup and two rows of small ovals placed horizontally). The direct analogy for the cup is an example from Setvedt burial ground on the territory of Norway. This example is dated by E. Straume back to the stage D 2 according to Scandinavian chronology. I.O. Gavritukhin refers their usage to the 5
th
c. On the authors’ opinion, the date of the cup from the burial 39 can be narrowed to the first half of the 5
th
c. A coin was situated under the bottom of the cup. It was a denarius of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius to which a small cloth  was adhered preserved owing to oxidizing process on the coin. The coin and the cup were put into the right hand of the buried. The authors consider such location to be not occasional and apparently corresponding to the notions about the journey to the world of the dead. A coin put into the hand can be preliminary interpreted as a Charon’s obol and the glass cup as a sign marking the participation of the dead in the feast in the other world.Both coins, and glass cups are found in the Late Roman burials at both Barbarian and Ancient Greek sites, though direct analogies of the recorded element of the burial rite in the grave 39 of Shyshaky burial ground is not known yet. Such combination in one burial is unique for Chernyakhivska culture to which Shyshaky burial ground belonged, and this fact complicates interpretation.Uniqueness of the burial 39, as well as the late as for Chernyakhivska culture date of the 5
th
c. Setvedt series (Luhy type) glass cup usage enlarges the number of Chernyakhivska culture sites on the territory of the Dnipro River left bank forest-steppe area which belong to the period after the Huns arrival. Discovering the new sites can indicate that invasion of the Huns could have no catastrophic consequences for forest-steppe population on the left bank of the Dnipro River represented by Chernyakhivska culture, which existed after this event for a certain time.

The paper treats fragments of blue-glass beakers with inscription ΚΑΤΑΧΑΙΡΕ ΚΑΙ ΕΥΦΡΑΙΝΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΕΥΦΡΑΙΝΟΥ found in the Tyras excavations. They are quite rare finds in Northern Pontic area; analogies are known only in Panticapaeum. Most beakers previously were revealed in Cyprus. Nowadays their major concentration exists in the northern provinces of Rome. Researchers suggested that they were produced in Syro-Palestinian region and on Cyprus. Having applied numerical approach and mapping, authors argue that there were two possible production centers – Cyprus and Northern Adriatic region.
The beakers were mostly distributed along major watercourses – Rheine and Danube in the camps of Roman military forces. It suggests that they entered Tyras in the combined way: they were brought along the rivers and/or by Roman legionnaires.

The article contains information about materials of archaeological excavation on the burial ground of Chernyakhiv culture. The materials can be dated to the 2nd half of the 4th - first half of the 5th centuries AD. Discovering the new materials can indicate that invasion of the Huns could have no catastrophic consequences for ForestSteppe population on the Left Bank of the Dnipro river represented by Chernyakhiv culture, which existed after this event for a certain time.