The work is the first generalizing study of amphora import and an attempt to reconstruct the trade connections of Lower Dniester population in the 1st – 4th centuries AD. The directions, condition and intensity of trade contacts between the population of this region and exporting centers of goods in amphorae have been determined. The sources of the study are findings of amphorae, discovered during archaeological excavations of Tyras, settlement and cemetery at Mologa II, settlement of Vesele III. In addition, the published transport ware from fortified settlement Nikonion was used in the work.
In the study, the transport amphorae which came to Lower Dniester settled population in Roman times were divided into two groups. The first group includes vessels made in Adriatic (Dressel 6A, Dressel 6B, and Forlimpopoli) and Eastern Mediterranean pottery workshops (Camulodunum 184, АС4, Samoylova 1 (I), Opaiţ VIII, MRA 3 Benghazi, Robinson М 273, Dressel 24, Kapitän II, Zeest 80, and brown clay narrow-neck amphorae, identified for the first time). The exotic goods contained in these amphorae were imported mainly by Tyras. An exception is ware of types Dressel 24, Kapitän II, Zeest 80, which in a small number reached Nikonion and unfortified Late Scythian settlements.
More numerous second group of transport ware contains amphorae of Black Sea production. It is predominantly a production of Heraclea Pontica, which started to come to Lower Dniester area already at the turn of the 1st century AD. Heraclean wine had been being exported to Tyras continuously until the city’s destruction in ca. the mid-3rd century AD. Thus, the pottery complex from the city includes amphorae of types S I, S II, variants S IVA – S IVC, S IVJ, and sub variant Vnukov S ІVD1. Having appeared in the Lower Dniester area, the Late Scythian settlements began importing ware as well, starting with vessels of variant S IVB. From the late 2nd till mid-3rd centuries AD the Lower Dniester area received goods in Bosporan amphorae. While the transport ware of types Zeest 72, 73, 75 are found everywhere, the red clay narrow-neck amphorae, united by author of the dissertation into a separate type, are known in Tyras and Mologa II, and the vessels of type Krapivina 27 – only in Tyras. Having been revived, Tyras imported wine in the transport ware of type Zeest 72, late Heraclean amphorae of variant S IVF, Sinopean type Kassab Tezgör C Snp I. Products of non-localized Pontic centers – amphorae of types Samoylova 5 (II) and 6 (II), also came to this city.
