Maxim Tiurin

Sergey Saprykin

The article is a publication of several ceramic inscriptions which were discovered during the excavations of a rural estate in the lower resches of the Belbek River on the chora of Tauric Chersonesus. They are mostly graffiti on amphoras, chiefly brought from the island of Kos. They contain the names of traders or amphoras’ owners and are dated to the first half – middle of the 2nd century BC. Judging by the names, the greatest part of the traders who left their names in these graffiti, could have come from the Eastern Mediterranean, presumably from Kos and some other places, if we take into consideration the belonging of amphoras which bear the inscriptions. Some personal names could indicate the mediators or contractors who were dealing in wine and olive oil trading on the far-distant chora of Chersonesus and the Crimean Scythia. Merchants and their local contractors or companions had constant customers and one cannot exclude the possibility that some names in the graffiti referred to those who were buying the production in imported amphoras.