Eastern Glass in the Byzantine Material Culture of Sugdeja of the Second Half of the 13th Century

Introduction. One of the important components of the material culture of Sugdeja in the second half of the 13th – beginning of the 14th century is glassware, the production center of which is localized in the cities of the Middle East, Transcaucasia, and Byzantium. It is one of those components of the complex of finds that unite the material culture of Sugdeja and other provincial Byzantine cities of the second half of the 13th century. Small amounts of glassware were also found during excavations of other large urban centers of Taurica. The source base of the work is all glass vessels recorded during ground and underwater excavations in Sugdeja and the village Novy Svet, occurring, including from closed complexes. This is important for finding out the frequency of finds. However, in this case, only reliably definable fragments are used. Despite individual publications, they were not analyzed in the complex. Methods and materials. Standard methods of comparative morphological and stylistic analysis were used. Analysis. The use of the most complete source base allows for the first time to estimate the approximate volume of imports of glass products into the medieval city of the eastern part of the Crimean Peninsula during the third quarter of the 13th – the first quarter of the 14th century. Results. The obtained data make it possible to confidently compare all the findings used in the work with well-known groups of glass products. At the same time, we can reasonably talk about the predominance of certain types. This serves as a reliable argument in favor of the assumption that most of the glass products were not personal property but the subject of trade imports, along with glazed ceramics and other goods.