Contents of an Early Byzantine Amphora from Kruglaya Bay, the Black Sea

Contents of an Early Byzantine Amphora from Kruglaya Bay,
the Black Sea

doi:10.17746/1563-0110.2023.51.4.105-113

N.Y. Sipkina¹, A.A. Bukatov^{2, 4}, and D.I. Sipkin^3
1Saint Petersburg State Chemical Pharmaceutical University, Professora Popova 14/A, St. Petersburg, 197376, Russia
²Sevastopol State University, Universitetskaya 33, Sevastopol, 299053, Russia
³Scheltec AG, Leninsky prospekt 38A, Moscow, 119334, Russia
⁴State Historical Archaeological Museum-Reserve “Tauric Chersonese”, Drevnyaya 1, Sevastopol, 299045, Russia

A fragment of an amphora found in the Kruglaya Bay near Sevastopol was filled with an unknown brown substance with a strong smell of tar. On the vessel’s neck, there is a round stamp ~30 mm in diameter, depicting the bust of an emperor encircled by an inscription. It resembles stamps on amphorae made in Alexandria and the Geronisos Island. The inscription reads, “’ftem nrnAejuawv enapxou”. The gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis revealed dehydroabietic acid, methyl dehydroabietate, norabietatrienes, retene, and other phenanthrene derivatives, suggesting that the substance resulted from dry distillation of wood of the Pinaceae family. The headspace analysis yielded components of turpentine oil such as a-pinene, camphene, limonene, cymenes, and others terpenes. To establish the sample’s origin, the amphora’s content was compared with modern pinewood tar obtained by the traditional method. Given nearly identical chromatogram profiles of the amphora’s contents and of tar in areas relating to resin acids, similar values of peak areas of biomarker components, and the presence of turpentine oil components in the sample, it is highly probable that the amphora indeed contained tar.

Keywords: Late Roman amphorae, Black Sea, tar, pitch, gas chromatography, mass spectrometry