The Lost Fresco Paintings of the Inkerman Cave Churches (“Temple with Baptistery”, “Church of Geography”, Monastery of Saint Sophia)

Introduction. Among the “cave towns” of Mountainous Southwestern Crimea, there are monuments located in the lower reaches of the Black River valley. There are no less than 9 rock-cut monastic complexes which include about 30 temples. Methods. Some churches of the 13th–15th centuries were decorated with fresco paintings. Today, frescoes have been preserved only in one church. Sources of the 18th–20th centuries indicate traces of paintings in more than five temples. Frescoes inside the “temple with baptistery”, “Church of Geography (Eugraphy)”, and the Monastery of St. Sophia have not survived. Archival materials that expose the plots and compositions are published in this work. Analysis. The frescoes of the “temple with baptistery” date back to the 13th century. The Deesis composition is reconstructed in the apse conch. In the “Church of Geography (Eugraphy)” (the 13th century), on each side of the throne, four figures of saints are depicted (The Holy Fathers composition). This is probably: John Chrysostom, Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, Athanasius of Alexandria and two more saints from among the Cappadocian Fathers. One of them is obviously St. Blaise. This painting in general terms repeats the traditional scheme of the lower register of the painting of the apses of the cave temples of the mountainous Crimea. The monastery of St. Sofia should be dated back to the 14th–15th centuries. During the period of the monastery’s functioning, there were fresco paintings in the Main Church and Church no. 3, but all the attempts to attribute them were unsuccessful. Results. The analyzed frescoes show themes of Deesis and the Great Cappadocians. They are common for altar compositions in cave temples in South-West Crimea. In the interiors of the cave temples of Inkerman, there are: simple linear ornaments, complex plant reports, linear ornaments with complex weaving and plant elements.

For a Discussion About Epigraphic Evidence of the Activities of Byzantium in the Mountainous Crimea in the 6th Century

Introduction. In the basilicas discovered on the Mangup plateau (fig. 3), in the Karalez valley (fig. 1) that begins at its foot and on Eski-Kermen (fig. 2, 1), inscriptions were found, the interpretation and dating of which caused many years of discussion. Some scientists considered them as evidence of the activities of the Eastern Roman Empire in the region in the 6th century, while other specialists doubted both such an interpretation of the inscriptions and their dating. Methods. To substantiate the chronology of the mentioned inscriptions, it is important to consider the formulas and linguistic features contained in them, as well as the stratigraphy recorded during the excavation of temples and the revealed dated closed ceramics complexes. Analysis. The text of the inscription with the name of Justinian I is correlated with the information of Procopius about the construction of the “Long Walls” in the Dory region at the behest of the emperor. Most likely, the inscription reported the construction of one of the “Long Walls” in the Karalez valley at the foot of Doros. It is possible that the stone (fig. 1) with the typical Byzantine graffiti with the formulas ΦΩС ΖΩΗ and κ(ύρι)ε βοήθ(ει...) was inserted into a wall of an apse of the basilica right after its construction in the Karalez valley in the second half of the 6th century. On a stone over the graffiti ΦΩС ΖΩΗ letters of the second graffiti “Ἰς νικᾷ” are cut out which means Ἰ(ησοῦ)ς (Χριστὸς) νικᾷ – “Jesus Christ wins”. In Byzantium the images of a cross with the formula IC XC NI ΚΑ (Ἰ(ησοῦ)C Χ(ριστὸ)C Ν(ικ)Α) appeared at the iconoclast emperor Leo III (717–741) and were distributed in later time. Results. Undisputed evidence of Byzantium’s activity in the region in the 6th century is only the fragment of a plate with a building inscription that means the emperor Justinian I found in a late slab grave at the basilica on Mangup. According to the stratigraphy, revealed in 1938 during the excavations of the Baptistry on Mangup, the graffiti (fig. 3) that caused a long discussion was carved on the back of the cornice in the second construction period not earlier than in the 9th century.

Typological structure and age composition of beach stands in the mountainous Crimea

The features of the typological structure, age composition and territorial distribution of beech stands in the Mountainous Crimea were studied. It is shown that nowadays beech forests grow in the range of altitudes from 400-500 to 1300-1400 m above sea level on an area of 34.9 thousand hectares, which is 13.4% of the forested territory of the peninsula. The age structure of beech stands is characterized by the cyclical process of renewal of indigenous stands, which is determined by the implementation of favorable natural factors - the level of seed yield and weather conditions during the formation of seed renewal generation, the frequency of which is 40-50 years. Based on the analysis of the ecological spectrum of the species composition of the grass layer, it is established that the forest growing conditions in the beech stands in the central part of the Main Ridge of the Crimean Mountains should be characterized as fresh sudubravas and beech forests. The density of beech young growth in ecotopes in this area varies from 0.5 to 4 thousand pieces per 1 ha. In areas where the light regime improves, the young trees grow in the form of small bunches, often forming groups of young plants around the trunks of adult trees. Using satellite images of the Landsat 8 space sensing system, it was revealed that at present, in the central part of the beech forests of the Mountainous Crimea, significant areas are completely devoid of forest vegetation, or are covered with sparse woodlands, in the phytocenotic structure of which herbaceous plants predominate.

How the Goths and Alans of the Mountainous Crimea Assimilated Greek Language

The Goths and Alans settled in the Mountainous Crimea about the mid-third century. The Eastern Roman Empire pursued the policy of integrating barbarians on the frontier in order to strengthen its northern borders. In the mountainous Crimea, the Goths and Alans assimilated Greek language in result of political and ideological interaction and trading with Cherson and other cities and towns of the Eastern Roman Empire. The earliest in this area Greek inscriptions were dipinti drawn on the light-clay narrow-neck amphorae of D. B. Shelov’s type F, which were produced in Herakleia Pontike. According to the life of St. John of Gothia who led a revolt against Khazar domination in Gothia, the correspondence of Theodore of Stoudios with the archimandrite of Gothia, and official church documents, Greek was the only language of worship in the churches and monasteries of Gothia from the establishment of the Gothic bishopric on. The priests and monks contributed to the spread of Greek language among the Goths and Alans. From the eighth to thirteenth centuries, there appeared numerous epitaphs in church burials and in cemeteries located around these churches starting with a typical Byzantine phrase: Φῶς ζωή (“Light – life”), Κύριε, βοήθει... (“Lord, help...”), Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς νηκᾷ (“Jesus Christ conquers”), Ἐκοιμήθη (“Deceased” or “passed away”), and so on. From the materials examined there are reasons to state that, by the ninth century, the Goths and Alans assimilated Greek language, which from the ninth to thirteenth centuries predominated in Gothia. There are several written sources documenting the preservation of Gothic and Alan languages in the first half of the thirteenth century. In the mid-sixteenth century, the Goths of the mountainous Crimea spoke mostly Greek. According to written sources, the functioning of Crimean Gothic dialect was restricted and started disappearing from the sixteenth century on.

Calculating the characteristics of flash floods on small rivers in the Mountainous Crimea

The maximal surface runoff from territory of the Crimean Mountains is represented as a runoff of small rivers that flow through the western and eastern part of the northern slope and from the southern coast. The materials from 54 water gauging stations (WGS) were used to characterize the maximum runoff during rain and meltwater-rain floods on the rivers in the Crimean Mountains. A modified reduction structure of a calculation formula was used for valuation of the maximal runoff of different origin flash flood for rivers at the Mountainous Crimea. The main parameters of the proposed model are summarized as dependencies on the average height of the catchments and generalized in the form of a map. It is also possible to use the second variant of the suggested method taking into account the factor of underlying surface is introduced. Comparison of the calculated values of maximal runoff shows good convergence with both the initial information, and the largest values in the observation period.

Triassic formations of Mountain ous Crimea: the first resust of U–Pb dating of detrital zircons

The first results of U-Pb dating of detrital zircons (dZr) from two samples characterizing the Taurica and Eski-Orda Groups of the Cimmerian structural complex of the Mountainous Crimea are presented. The strong similarity of the sets of ages of dZr from the Lower Taurica Formation of the Taurica Group and the Salgir strata of the Eski-Orda Group confirms the facial character of the primary relationships of these Groups. The studied Upper Triassic sandstones had a common feeding province and were formed, most likely, in different parts of the same sedimentary basin. It is most likely that this sedimentary basin was part of a continental margin of Baltica. The presence in samples of a significant number of dZr with very ancient ages >3.0 Ga (including 3 the oldest dZr grains with ages of ~3.9 Ga) makes the crystalline complexes represented in the present-day structure of the Ukrainian Shield as the very possible primary sources of these zircons. Crystalline complexes with such ancient ages are extremely rare over the world, but are widely represented in the Podolian and Cis-Azov blocks of the Ukrainian shield.