Древности Семидворья I. Средневековый двухапсидный храм в урочище Еди-Евлер (Алушта, Крым): исследования и материалы [Drevnosti Semidvorja I. Srednevekovyj dvuxapsidnyj xram v uročišče Yedi-Evler (Alušta, Krym): issledovanija i materialy]
Résumé
The collective work presents the study and publication
of excavated materials of an archaeologically known twoapse
church from the first half of the 9th to the first half of
the 10th century at the top of the Tuzluk Hill in the Yedi Evler
area, Crimean Peninsula, near the village of Semidvorie
(Alushta, Crimea, Ukraine). This sanctuary was linked to
the large agricultural and pottery producing settlement that
existed in this economically developed and populous region
in the second half of the 8th/9th - first half of the 10th century.
The settlement was situated 150-250 meters to the east and
southeast from the church. Just 350 meters southeast from
the church was a medieval cemetery of the “Suuksu” type
of the 7th – 8th / 9th (?) centuries existed which was left by the
population usually identified as Crimean Goths tribes.
In 2007, an area of around 96 m2 was investigated and
church ruins and surrounding cultural layer were studied.
The stratigraphical analysis managed to identify here 44
archaeological layers or contexts, one medieval grave with
double burials, and a Bronze Age cultual place. The study
of ruins shows that the sanctuary was rebuilt multiple times.
The church consisted of two communicating compartments
of different sizes. As for characteristic features, the southern
main apse is bigger in size than the northern one, and
there was an entrance in the main part of the church through
the northern compartment as well as two other doorways
from the west and from the south. The western portal of the
northern compartment was completely open and no traces of
wall masonry here were attested. In contrast to the southern
compartment, the foundation of the northern part was cut
in natural. The three-layer masonry wall was made of local
poor faceted rectangular stones of various sizes. For building
mortar, mud solutions with clay loam as a binder element
were mostly used. The inside of the southern church
walls was plastered with lime mortar, which in some places
is preserved in situ, and painted with red linear and geometric
patterns including letters or even inscriptions that are
today illegible. The roof likely had two slopes covered by
locally made tiles of different types.
The overall dimensions of the church were: width – 5.60-
5.70 m, length - 8.50 m. The thickness of the wall was about
0.7 m. Structure remains are preserved to a height of 0.80 m.
Both apses have shoulders connecting apsidal semicircles
and walls. The external diameter of the southern apse is 2.13
m. The internal dimension of the southern main compartment
is 2.34×4.15 м. The external diameter of the northern
apse is 1.20 m, while the internal is 0.63 m. The width in the
western part of the northern compartment is 1.34 m, and in
the eastern part it is reduced to 1.26 m. The church was oriented
to the northeast. The azimuth of its central axis is 47°,
which roughly corresponds to the azimuth point of sunrise
during the summer solstice for Crimean latitude.
SUMMARY
In the first chapter, written by V. Kirilko, the building
history of the church and its architectural peculiarities are
presented. The double apse sanctuary belongs to the relatively
rare type of churches of the Middle Byzantine period
that could be described as a two-apse church with unequal
apses of different sizes. G. Dimitrokallis (1976), the author
of the most representative corpus of double apse byzantine
sanctuaries, classified them as “pseudobiconques.” There
are some examples of double apse churches in the Crimea
(Sotera near Alushta, Sudak, Funa near Luchistoe settlement,
Chembalo fortress in Balaklava). Yet, these sanctuaries
mainly date back to the 14th century, with the one exception
being the Sotera church that belonged to the period
of the 8th-10th century, and none of them provides an exact
parallel to the church of Yedi Evler.
During the short period of its history, the church was
completely rebuilt at least once. The first building period
involved the creation of the main southern church with the
apse and the three entrances from the west, south and north.
It is highly likely that the church was intentionally conceived
by priests, ktitores or the Christian community as a double
apse and two-part building. Immediately after the perfection
of the southern church, the additional northern compartment
with open western portal and separate apse was added. This
part of the church was connected to the main church via a
special doorway in the wall dividing the compartment that
previously served as the northern entrance to the southern
church. In fact, the second building period is distinguished
only theoretically as a final step in the construction of the
church. The chronology of the first two periods of the building’s
history, based mainly on the study of pottery and ceramic
materials from the complex, dates back to the first
half of the 9th century, or more precisely the second-third to
the middle of the century.
After a short period the church was completely destroyed,
most likely due to inadequate construction works
or an earthquake. The third building period is determined as
860-880s, when the sanctuary was rebuilt and reconstructed.
After reconstruction, the northern compartment was buried
by earth and ruined stones and preserved according to
canon law practices for unused sacral Christian objects. In
the third building period, the northern part was not active as
a liturgical zone. The sanctuary became an ordinary rural
Byzantine one-apse, one-nave church. A narthex was constructed
in the eastern part of the sanctuary. The doorway
between the southern and northern parts was closed off by
wall masonry. During the third building period, only two
entrances — the southern and western — were still active.
The main entrance was the southern one, which was added
by a wooden apprentice. After the second deterioration of
the church in the first half of the 10th century, no more
renovations were carried out. The ruins were reused by the local
population for ordinary purposes no earlier than in the second
half of the 14th -15th century, as pottery fragments from
the ruins show. Most probably, the narthex and apse were
used at this time as a temporary living structure in what is
regarded in the chapter as the fourth building period. The
author proposes graphical reconstruction of the sanctuary
according to fourth building periods and shows architectural
parallels to this building among contemporary churches of
the Northern Caucasus and Minor Asia.
Chapter two, author I. Teslenko, deals with the stratigraphy
of the site and description of archaeological layers.
The analysis of excavated materials provided in the chapter
allowed for the presentation of all steps of anthropogenic
activity on the Tuzluk Hill from the Bronze Age to modern
times. The description of materials is organized by archaeological
layers, with general characteristics of different finds
included. Every layer inside and outside the church is attributed
to a corresponding building period. A hypothesis
on the formation of each layer and its causes are also given.
The most important layers are linked to two dilapidations
of the church, and some of them are attributed to regular liturgical
life and different rituals practiced in and around the
sanctuary. Several layers may be left from construction and
reconstruction works. A detailed description of the archaeological
finds and a cultural and liturgical interpretation of
structures, layers and bones are given in the next chapters.
In the third chapter, I. Teslenko provides an analysis of
ceramic and pottery materials from the church. During the
excavation, 2,589 fragments of roof tiles and kalypters (55%
of all ceramic materials), 637 fragments of kitchen and table
wares (13.5%) and 1,485 pieces of pithoi and amphora (31.5
%) were recorded. Among them 9 intact rectangular roof
tiles that were still preserved and 5 kalypters can be fragmentarily
reconstructed. Several tiles have a construction
sign or craftsmen marks as tridents and Greek letters «λ»,
«ρ», «π» «В», «V». A theoretical estimation on the number
of tiles, including kalypters for covering the roof, has been
done. The amount is between 374 tiles / 376 kalypters and
396 tiles / 397 kalypters in the second and third building
period respectively. Accordingly, in the second period the
weight of the roof was about 3893-3897 kg, for the third
period – 4118-4122 kg.
Nearly all excavated ceramic materials came from local
production. The author lists the characteristics and provides
a description of clay pottery and ceramic items, which show
two craftsmen traditions. The first one emerged locally and
is characteristic of primitive treatments, the use of a hand
pottery wheel and unsatisfactory baking. The second craftsmen
tradition reflects well-organized, high-technology commodity
production oriented on the external wine trade. It is
presented specially by amphora. Today, there are more than
40 known pottery workshops with high-technology kilns in
the southern part of the Crimean peninsula. Such a pottery
tradition was most likely brought here in the 8th-9th century
from Minor Asia. The author discusses chronologies of
various types of local pottery, particularly amphora, and he
makes comparisons to groups of amphora known from different
regions of the Byzantine World. Local amphoras are
presented by so-called “Black Sea type” (second variant),
which was produced until the mid-10th century, according to
the author. At the archaeological site, only two fragments of
imported pottery have been recorded: the bottom of a high
neck brown clay jug with wide flat handles, no earlier than
the mid-9th century, and a fragment of Glazed White Ware II,
according to J.W. Hayes, from 10th century Constantinople.
The kitchen pottery which were in use in Khazar kaganate
is also absent. Ceramic finds in the church date back mainly
to the end of 8th-10th century; only several fragments of two
red glazed sgraffito bowls and one fragment of a brown unglazed
pot come from the 14th-15th century.
The fourth chapter presented by I. Teslenko and A.
Musin describes and studies the collection of glass lamp
fragments (342 items) that are partially not indentified.
The bulk (91%) of the lamps comes from the third building
period and is concentrated near the southern entrance to
the church, where the liturgy should start. Precisely within
the same zone, micropieces of flint made by strike-a-light
for making “liturgical fire” were recorded, and kitchen and
bone remains from community meals were also attested.
Glass lamps are presented by two main groups: polycandelon
or beaker-shaped lamps with hollow stems, and single
lamps with handles on the rim. All lamps have close parallels
among glass finds from other Middle Byzantine sanctuaries,
for instance, Myra-Demre in Turkey, Thessaloniki in
Greece, Chersoneses in Crimea, etc. The glass is mainly colored
light green and blue. A slowly increased percentage of
potassium oxide recorded by optical emission spectroscopy
may point to glass production centers in the southeastern
part of Asia Minor or Levant.
Chapter five, written by A. Musin, analyzes and classifies
metal crosses found in the church. The excavation recorded
at least 30 crosses and their fragments. Crosses were
used throughout the entire period of the church’s existence.
Crosses are regarded as an ex-voto offering. Most of them
were concentrated in the altar zone of the sanctuary and
near the southern entrance to the church. Two crosses were
put in wall masonry that closed the doorway between the
northern compartment and the main church during the third
building period, evidently with apotropaic magic purposes.
Presumably, crosses were suspended on the church wall or
on elements of the church’s interior, or inserted in them. The
corpus of crosses is divided into five typological groups.
The main group consists of iron crosses with an extended
lower branch made of two plates connected with a rivet that
derived from individual processional crosses and turned in
ex-voto. Some crosses with splayed arms were cut from thin
sheet-metal, including copper alloy and probably silver,
and decorated with punch ornamentation. Two crosses were
made of silver coins: Umayyad dirham (661 – 750 AD) and
imitation of Arab-Sassanian half-drachma of the Sassanid
king Kosrou II (590-629 AD).
The two last groups of crosses can be compared to the
crosses of the type 1.2.2 according to J. Staecker found in
Early Rus’ and Scandinavia in the 10th – 11th century, especially
known to be in graves in Birka (Sweden), Gnezdovo
near Smolensk, Timerevo near Yaroslavl (Russia), Kiev,
Iskorosten (Ukraine) and other political and economic centers
of the formation of early medieval states in Russia and
Sweden. Several scholars have insisted that the crosses have
an Anglo-Saxon origin and appeared in Sweden around
930-940s AD with the mission of bishop Uni from British
Islands. However, after the Yedi Evler excavation, the Byzantine
origin of these crosses is quite clear. Crosses from
Eastern and Northern Europe may have been created using
a Byzantine example or brought directly from this region
in several cases. During the cultural transformation of the
Christianization period, crosses that initially belonged to liturgical
public culture were turned in barbarian society into
private devotion objects and used as an element in burial
customs.
Nearly all crosses found in the Yedi Evler church have
parallels in other regions of the Byzantine Empire and the
neighboring region in the Black Sea coastland, Mediterranean,
Asia Minor, Northern Caucasus and Balkans. Such
ex-voto crosses illustrate a special feature of post iconoclastic
culture in the beginning of the Middle Byzantine period,
as well as large distribution of personal reliquary-crosses
of the end of the 9th – 11th century. However, prior to becoming
an ex-voto offering in church interior, both types of
crosses were generally used in private Christian devotion.
It is largely accepted that the 9th -11th century was a period
of increasing individualism, social atomism and growing
emphasis on personal piety. With that in mind, individual
crosses were evidence of the new post-iconoclasm Orthodoxy
as a manifestation of personal activity in church life
and a sign of the victory of polis community tradition over
imperial tyranny.
The process of donating personal crosses to churches
should be regarded as a special way of reconciling personal
devotion with the liturgical needs of the local community
encouraged by Church hierarchy. The present hypothesis
is confirmed by information in the Byzantine Monastic
Typikons, especially that of Empress Irene Doukaina Komnene
for the Convent of the Mother of God Kecharitomene
in Constantinople founded between 1100 and 1118, which
prescribed that each Saturday laymen would offer crosses-
stauria in the sanctuary for the commemoration of the
deceased, and that other crosses must be brought similarly
each Sunday on behalf of the living who are recorded on the
diptychs. Crosses from the Yedi Evler church and in other
cases should be regarded as an archaeological illustration of
such a ritual.
Other small finds from the church like nails, chain links
for the suspension of lamps, fragment of bronze wire, lead
plates from a wick holder, buttons of bronze, small green
glass beads, and an iron arrow-head characteristic of Eastern
Europe military culture in the 10th/11th - 13th century are
described and analyzed in chapter six by I. Teslenko. Two
amulet-pendants found in the church that are made of clam
shell of Cerithium vulgatum and tooth of deer of Cervus
elaphus, which could also be offered in the sanctuary as
ex-voto, are presented in chapter seven by G. Gavris and I.
Teslenko.
Chapters eight to twelve compiled by G. Gavris, V.
Logvinenko, and S. Leonov deal with bones and faunistic
remains including birds, mammals, fishes, marine mollusks,
and land snails recorded during the excavations. As a result,
information is exhausted on the repertoire of animal sacrifices,
a normal practice in rural parish Byzantine churches,
and the composition of church festive meals has been determined.
Among 139 identified bones of mammals, 64% belong
to Ovis aries and Capra aegagrus hircus, 16% to Sus scrofa
domesticus, 6% to Lepus europaeus and 2 % to Bos Taurus.
Birds are presented with 148 individuals of 19 species,
including 78% of Gallus domesticus and Gallus domesticus
sm. and an insignificant quantity of bones of Otis tarda,
Cygnus olor, Perdix perdix etc.
It is quite interesting to note that fishes are nearly absent
from the collection, and consequently, on the table of parish
men who lived along the sea coast, only 13 bones of
Acipenser gueldenstaedtii and Perciformes were recorded.
Evidently, bones from the excavation present the remains
of a festive meal and not an everyday diet. However, shellfishes
are recorded here in 1900 fragments of Mytilus galloprovincialis
(95% of mollusk) and a small number of
Patella ulyssiponensis and Ostrea lamellose. Eriphia spinifrons
presented in 4-5 individuals should also be noted. Terrestrial
gastropods mollusks are mainly presented by Helix
albescens (72.4%), Monacha fruticola (24.2%) Chondrula
tridens (3.2%), and only one shell of Brephulopsis cylindrical.
Some remarks on the distribution of animal bones
in the excavated complex will be provided in the following
chapters.
In chapter thirteen, I. Teslenko proposed and argued
the chronology of the site based mainly on pottery analysis.
Coins from the 7th – mid-8th century that were used for
the manufacturing of crosses give only large terminus post
quem for the church building. Amphora with small horizontal
multiple grooves on the surface well-known in Crimea
not later than the beginning - first half of the 9th century are
not recorded among the excavation materials; so the beginning
of the church complex must date back to the second
third-middle of the 9th century. The find of the fragment of a
high neck jug with wide flat handles in layers of the second
building period, and their absence later on, puts the date of
the rebuilding of the church at 860-880 AD. The presence of
local “Black Sea type” amphora of the second variant and
the absence of forms similar to amphora of types I and IIb
according to N. Günsenin allow to propose the first half –
mid of the 10th century as the final stage of the church’s existence
and that of surrounding settlements. Another find is
the fragment of Glazed White Ware II, dated no earlier than
the beginning of the 10th century. The history of the church
actually spans about 100 (± 20-25) years.
Chapter fourteen by A. Musin discusses liturgical rituals
practiced in the sanctuary against the large background of
Byzantine church culture and shows parallels from related
territories. To explain the meaning and origin of the two unequal
apse church building in the Yedi Evler area, the author
provides a thorough account of the phenomenon of double
apse churches with unequal apses from Transcaucasia and
the Northern Caucasus through Asia Minor and the Greek
Islands up until biapsidal churches were recorded in medieval
Italy in the 9th-13th century. As a result, a conclusion
has been made that the Mediterranean World did not have
a unique genesis of double apse churches. Late Antiquity
churches with two symmetrical naves and apses cannot be
regarded as a direct prototype for the Yedi Evler church and
related building. The architecture of Transcaucasia and the
Northern Caucasus sometimes gives similar features, for
example Mgvimevi, Georgia, the end of the 13th century,
but all of them were built later than the monument under
consideration.
The “pseudobiconques” churches with a reduced
northern apse are also known in medieval Italy and Corsica
of the 10th-12th century (see for example: San Venerio,
La Spezia-Migliarina, Liguria; San Tommaso al Poggio,
Rapallo, Liguria; Santa Maria della Chiappella, Rogliano,
Haute-Corse; Santa Maria di Sibiola, Serdiana, Sardegna).
However, they hardly could be a source of inspiration
for builders of the Yedi Evler church for cultural and
chronological reasons. The Italian architecture of the “chiese
biabsidate” did, however, deeply influence the appearance
of two apse churches in Crimea and Muscovite Russia in
the end of the 14th-15th century. Nevertheless, early Italian
two apse sanctuaries, especially with different apses and an
additional northern entrance, could initially reflect the same
process of the change of liturgical planning as in the Yedi
Evler church.
It should be acknowledged that “pseudobiconques”
churches are not very characteristic for the Greek Island.
Some indirect parallels can bee seen in the planning of
the church of St Spyridon – Panagia Protothroni Halkia,
Halki, Naxos Island; church of St Pantaleon, Kotraphi,
Peloponnesus; church of St Athanasius, Phaturu, Patmos
Island; church of St Athanasius, Phaturu, Patmos Island. In
all cases, it is difficult to say whether the additional reduced
compartment was initially intended for this or that particular
liturgical ritual. It is quite possible that both naves were
used for the Eucharist. However, in the Middle Byzantine
period, the appearance of double churches of Sts John and
George, Sarakini, Samos, and the Monastery of St John
Chrysostomos at Koutsovendis, Cyprus can be attested.
The double apse church was renewed in the 10th century in
Üçayak, near Kirşehir, Central Anatolia, Turkey. The most
notable fact is that the high density of two apse middle
byzantine churches, including the “pseudobiconques”
sanctuary, is known to have existed in the ancient Pont
province and near Trabzon, Turkey, for example in Koralla,
Görele Burunu fortress or Gantopedin fortress (Matzouka,
Zana Kale), Labra, Maçka Dere, near Köpruna Köy. This
region always had direct ties with the northern Black Sea
coast and Crimea during Antiquity and Middle Ages.
At the same time, the closest parallel to the Yedi Evler
church can be seen in the 10th-11th century double apse
church in the Upper City of Middle Byzantine settlement
in Boğazköy (Hattusa, Asia Minor), Turkey, excavated by P.
Neve in the early 1980s. At the small northern compartment
that served as the principle entrance in the southern main
church, obviously meant for the Eucharist, a considerable
number of metal ex-voto crosses was recovered. The
combination of such features attested both in Yedi Evler
and Boğazköy and the chronological coincidence cannot be
accidental.
The author argued that different liturgical functions of two
church compartments and the subsidiary role of the northern
part may be stressed by their sizes and architectural volumes
and expressed in the exterior of churches in an architectonic
way and by means of architecture. An additional means of
special organization of two parts of liturgical space involved
the arrangement of a separate doorway to the main church
via the northern compartment as a supposable place of initial
worship rituals.
Such a change in liturgical planning finds its possible
explanation in the reform of Prothesis/Proskomedia,
which took place in Middle Byzantium during and right
after the iconoclasm period. The Euchologion Barberini
gr. 336, the oldest Orthodox liturgical book of the end of
the 8th century, reported the appearance of the first priest’s
prayer for the preparation of bread and wine as gifts for the
Eucharist. There was a time when the clergy and monks
established control over the expression of community and
individual piety within the bringing of liturgical gifts. The
chapter argues in support of a hypothesis on the Prothesis
function established in the northern compartment in Middle
Byzantine churches with two unequal apses such as Yedi
Evler, Sotera, Boğazköy, several sanctuaries of Pont and
Trabzon, etc. as a materialization of church reforms at that
time. It is quite possible that contemporary Italian churches
with two unequal apses were also influenced by the same
architectural and liturgical innovation in the beginning of the
Middle Byzantine period, especially since the Euchologion
Barberini is a manuscript of southern Italian provenance,
which reflects, however, practices of Constantinople.
Architectural studies let us assume that initially, for a
newly performed ritual, the northern annexes or nave of
church could be reserved, but later such liturgical planning
innovation did not catch on in church practice. Both preanaphora
and anaphoric rituals were concentrated in the
altar zone.
The architectural implementation of the Prothesis
reform could be reflected in another way, for example, in the
construction of rectangular annexes to Middle Byzantine
church as monastery Kisleçukuru, Antalia, and in İnişdibi
fortified settlement, Istlada, near Kekova – Myra/Demre,
both in Turkey provide examples. In fact, the Middle
Byzantine period is generally characterized by the rising
of additional architectural volumes and a compartment
around the main church building within the multiplication
of liturgical rituals and “Privatisation” of Liturgy.
As proof for the given hypothesis, a find of liturgical
equipment in the church can be added. At the central part
of the northern compartment just opposite the doorway to
the main church, an almost rhomboidal flat stone with dimensions
of 0.5 х 0.7 m (weight 75 kg) was attested. Its
horizontal position in situ was fixed by two roof tiles and
fragments of amphora. A considerable number of pottery
and glass fragments was concentrated around the stone, as
well as some animal bones. At the east end of the northern
apse, the bottom of pithos and fragmentary sheep skull
were also recovered, which indicate some unknown ritual.
It is quite possible that such flat stones laying directly on the
church floor and serving as the Prtothesis table for offering
liturgical bread and wine were typical for rural Byzantine
churches, as the information of Pratum spirituale by John
Moschus suggests.
No remains of the altar table or distinct elements of the
altar screen were recorded during the excavations. This implies
that the Holy table in the church could be made of
wood and the altar screen existed as a cloth curtain or katapetasma.
However, the altar zone was separated from the
naos by a terrace cut in natural as a kind of bema. Near the
bema, there was a pit, most likely for a water reservoir used
for church needs and ritual purification purposes. Beside this
pit within the altar zone, several roof tiles were stocked as a
special construction associated with finds of metal crosses
and glass lamp fragments that may be regarded as an element
of an unpreserved altar barrier.
Such liturgical elements as the offering of ex-voto crosses
and new arrangement of the Prothesis ritual may suggest
a monastic influence in the area. Additionally, this possibility
is confirmed by some features of burial custom of the
grave excavated near the church to the southeast from the
main apse, i.e. the fixation of the head of one buried senilis
man with the help of small stones or a special head-support
known in the practice of Mont Athos monasteries and in the
Typikon of Studios monastery in Constantinople. This observation
allows for a revision of the role of Byzantine monasticism
in the development of Crimean Christian culture
of the iconoclasm and posticonoclasm period, especially
since an erroneous hypothesis on the “mass migration” of
Byzantine monks-iconodoules to the Crimean peninsula
based on an uncritical review of the information of the Life
of Saint Stephen the Younger has been abandoned after new
research.
However, rituals practiced in the Yedi Evler church were
linked not only to monastic practices but also to popular
Christianized rituals, as finds of animal bones in and around
the church suggest. Without a doubt, these kitchen remains
testify to animal sacrifice and parish community or family
festive meals organized in the church. The finds of ox
remains, an animal usually offered as a sacrifice in rural
Greek communities during sanctuary consecration, near
the western and southern entrances to the church may refer
to rituals of dedication of the church after its construction
and reconstruction in the second and third building periods.
Other bones and faunal remains are relatively proportionally
spread out in the church complex. It is difficult to
determinate where exactly the common meals took place.
Most likely, during the first period of church life it was the
northern part of the church; the joint offering of gifts for
the Eucharist and ordinary meal in the same place near the
flat stone in the northern part of the church shows a kind
of syncretism of liturgical and popular rituals. During the
last period, when the northern compartment was buried according
to canon law postulates the main part of the kitchen
remains was concentrated near the southern entrance to the
sanctuary.
The practice of animal sacrifices and parish meals was
largely in use in Byzantine popular religion, or so-called
“parish Orthodoxy.” In spite of prescriptions against such
practices, which can be found in canon law, it was regarded
as a norm in society, and even hagiographical texts, for example,
the Life of Saint Nicolas of Sion in Asia Minor, tell
about such rituals without any fulmination. Rituals of animal
sacrifices are also known in the North Caucasus, Transcaucasia,
and the Balkans and are still preserved in ethnographic
practice until the beginning of the 20th century and
on several territories up until the present age. For example,
in the Farassa area, Cappadocia, modern Feke, Adana Province,
Turkey, in the Greek parish the ritual of animal sacrifices
was recorded in the church opposite the main altar on a
big stone. This parallel may suggest that the flat stone in the
northern part of the Yedi Evler church, apart from its Prosthesis
function, could have also served as archaic sacrifice.
The remains of rituals of church consecration are also
known from the excavations. They have been attested
thanks to one-time concentrations of charcoals and fireplaces
as well as kitchen remains opposite to the entrances of the
sanctuary. For the first church consecration, three fireplaces
were recorded to the north, west and south of the church.
The second consecration left one fireplace to the south from
the church according to the position of the main doorway
during the third building period.
Within the last zone, micropieces of flint made by strikea-
light were found. It is obvious that there was a special
place here for making ‘liturgical fire’ before the beginning
of office of vespers. Evidently, the celebration in the church
was not conducted every day, but on special days including
Feast and Sunday Liturgies. Today the ritual of making
new fire before offices is still preserved in Latin and
Greek parish life, only on the eve of Easter Day when the
liturgical light for the ceremony is normally lit from a bonfire
burned outside the church. In Russian and Ukrainian
Orthodoxy, such practice has been abandoned. A specific
derivate of such practices is the ritual of ‘Holy Fire’ in the
church of Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem on Great Saturday,
the day before Orthodox Easter, presented in mass mentality
and church propaganda as a miracle. However, the practice
of making ‘new’ or ‘holy’ fire, especially at the beginning
of spring, is well known thanks to ethnological research in
Western and Central Europe, and relations between church
rituals and folklore customs are difficult to establish. Multiple
fragments of glass lamps in the same zone hardly refer
to any rituals, nor do presented remains of lamps accidentally
broken during manipulation. Only one church custom
that involves the intentional breaking of wedding glass cups
of wine was first attested in the Euchologion Paris Coislin.
213 in 1027 AD. However, until the 12th century, the church
blessing of wedding was practiced in the aristocratic milieu
and was not very widespread in rural society.
In sum, the local parish community had enough cultivated
level of religious life and combined innovations of
liturgical mainstream of Byzantine society issued from cultural
centers and archaic practices belonging to the provincial
rural population.
The conclusions presented by I. Teslenko and A. Musin
summaries research results and give future perspectives.
For the first time in the history of excavations of Crimean
medieval churches, thanks to careful digging and field
fixation, architectural archaeology managed to record many
liturgical features and everyday life elements characteristic
of Byzantine rural churches. It allowed for determining a
characteristic of the material culture of the local population
during the “demographic boom” and establishing of themata
administrative division in Byzantine Empire in the 8th-9th
century. Church planning kept the very important step in
the development of the initial part of East-Christian Liturgy
as ritualisation of Prothesis. Archaeological contexts
preserved intact bones of animal sacrifices and community
meals appropriated to Byzantine popular religion, traces
of making of ‘holy’ or liturgical fire as micropieces of flint
made by a light-a-strike, and ex-voto offering in the form
of metal crosses, and amulets pendants that at the same
time could serve as interior church decoration. Such finds
allowed us to establish byzantine origin of several types
of Christian devotional crosses pendants from the 10th-
11th century originated from the territories of Early Rus’
and Scandinavia. The church in Yedi Evler is an example
monument of the Middle Byzantine period for the study of
liturgical devotion, rural sacral architecture and everyday
life of provincial settlements, which should be useful for
the understanding of both Crimean medieval culture and the
history of other parts of the Byzantine World.
The study of the Yedi Evler church permits us to
draw some conclusions about the historical development
and cultural situation in the southern part of the Crimean
peninsula at the end of the 8th – mid 10th century. The material
culture of the local population known from the result of
the church excavation and investigation of surrounding
settlements and pottery workshops suggests important
innovation, such as stone housebuilding using roof tiles,
high-technology pottery production with very effective
kilns, winemaking oriented to local and long distance
trade, and ecclesiastical architecture of basilica-type parish
churches. All these improvements were previously unknown
for the autochthonic people, which may be indentified to
the Crimean Goths. The settlement archaeology in the area
shows that the above-mentioned innovations were brought
here with the wave of mass migration, and newly-established
residences of the new population existed quietly side by side
with previous habitations. This situation may demonstrate
the process of mutual integration and even acculturation of
autochthonic people in higher organized society. Most likely,
the main group of migrants came from Asia Minor and
brought the mentioned traditions of Byzantine-Rhômaios
civilization, including high technology in pottery and
liturgical innovations reflected in ecclesiastical architecture
and devotional practices.
Undoubtedly, the colonization of the southern part of the
Crimean peninsula was organized by the administration of
the Byzantine Empire in the framework of the establishing
of the themata system. The theme ta Klimata in this area
was constituted in 841 AD, and later in the 850s it was
reorganized in the theme of Chersoneses. In the same vein,
the new church administration was established here. The
region under question had probably been included in the
metropolitan of Ghotia or Doros, whose eastern border
separating it from another one new diocese of Sougdaia or
Sourozh, now Sudak, was exactly across from the Yedi Evler
valley. The Goths diocese is referred to as “a certain region
along the coast there called Dory,” mentioned by Procopius
of Caesarea in his panegyric on the building activity of the
emperor Justinian De Aedificiis.
The chronology of pottery materials suggests that the
church in Yedi Evler and the local agglomeration, as well
as a considerable part of settlements in Southern and South-
Western Crimea, ceased to exist at the same time in the first
half of the 10th century. Such a social collapse may be linked
to the politically unstable situation in the area caused by the
conflict between the Byzantine Empire and Khazar kaganate
and active military raids of the Rus’ from the Middle Dnieper
area to the Black Sea and Caspian Sea regions, Asia Minor
and Constantinople. The local population moved to more
secure regions or fled behind city walls for protection.
This publication is supplemented by appendixes with
catalogues of finds of various categories including metals,
glass, and faunal artifacts (I. Teslenko, N. Turova), pottery,
ceramic and stone materials (O. Ignatenko, I. Teslenko),
architectural elements (V. Kirilko), find of Bronze Age
period (I. Teslenko), description and results of optical
emission spectroscopy of glass finds (A. Egor’kov) and
study of flint finds (V. Chabai).
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