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- BLACKSEA AMPHORAS - |
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| At the entrance of Akçakoca port, there
is a statue of a woman watching the horizon and waiting patiently.
(or maybe impatiently). On the plate of the statue, there is an information and a poem. As to the information, the Akçakoca men were seaman as Vikings. Women who sent their lovers away to the sea used to wait for their return sitting on the rocks. How a statue or sometimes a poem take people back to its own history or world an amphora takes me back to its own history. The magic of a broken handle makes me a captain fighting with the waves, makes me Merchant whose ship sank with amphoras. An amphora is not just "an amphora" for me. That is why, I have always tried to avoid writing about them as "This amphora is this and this is its history." In all my articles, what I wish is that you live its history with me and you share my feelings. As an amphora collector, I always used to wonder what was carried with the Blacksea amphoras. |
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SINOPE AMPHORA Alone itself, Sinop was the biggest centre of amphora production in the BlackSea region. According to the famous historian Herodot, Sinop was one of the biggest and most important cities of the BlackSea region. Ersin DOGER, in his book titled "Amphoras In The Ancient Ages" points out that 20000 sealed Sinop amphoras were found in many centres at the west. The Roman Empire Hadrianus writes in his book that he developed and controlled personally the Sinop Port which had economical and strategical importance at AC.2. Starting from B.C. 4 many products were sent to Europe and Russia in Sinop amphoras. The common characteristic of those amphoras is that they were very big. The opening parts were wide. They had big handles, wide bodies getting narrower towards the bottom. In some of them, the bottom part was as sharp as an arrow. The archeologist Selin Tezgor, in her article published in 1998/Skylife gives some information about Sinop amphoras. In 1993 a group of Turkish and French researchers started to search for amphora workshops. The group has found 8 of them. Since then 3 workshops belonged to Hellenistical age have been found during the researches on Boztepe Peninsula. Another big workshop has been found at Demirci Port at 13 km. east of Sinop. It's thought that this amphora workshop was in use between BC3-AC7. |
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KARADENIZ EREGLISI (HERAKLEIA PONTIKE) AMPHORAS The amphoras of this region are similar to Tasos (thasos) amphoras because this region was once a colony of Thasos. It's almost impossible to distinguish Thasos and Eregliamphoras from each other. According to the Russian researchers, in BC4, in Eregli amphora seals there was only one name written in 2-3 lines. In the second group of amphoras, there were 2 names, in the third group, there was the name of the reigner and producer, in the fourt group there was only one name and the fifth group, there were abbreviated names. Those amphoras had long necks, round, long handles and round bodies. |
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AMASRA (AMASTRIS) AMPHORAS Amasra is on a natural peninsula and like Sinop, it has two parts. The Amasra amphoras had the same forms with Taşoz amphoras. They had 2 common types as narrow and wide. Some of them could be big as Sinop amphoras. The most of important characteristics of those amphoras were the lines at the edge of the opening part and the seals at the neck part. Those amphoras were produced during BC3 only for a short period. |
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