ახალი მასალები ფოთის/ფასისის კოშკიდან

Abstract

From 2016-2017 conservation works were conducted at the Tower of Poti. During restoration of the 19th century tower, a small trench was excavated by workers against the tower’s east side. They found over 250 artefacts which were excavated from the trench with an absence of archaeological methods and consideration of stratigraphy. Poti Tower was built on the northern gate of a previous fort, which had been controlled by the Ottoman Empire. After Imperial Russia took over of the fort, most of the fortified walls were looted for secondary use and only small sections remained in the north, which partly survived as a basement for the 19th century tower. Turkish archive documents name this fort as Fash, although at present the city were the tower is located, is called Poti. Ambrogio Contarini names the area Fasso in the 15th century, which may refer to the old Greek name Phasis, but does not necessarily mean that the ancient Greek city of Phasis corresponds to this location. The materials found during this conservation work were studied by Emanuele E. Intagliata (Aarhus University, Denmark) and Davit Naskidashvili (Tbilisi State University), under the Rioni Survey project. Most of the materials recovered are ceramic roof tiles, which make up more than 75 percent of the assemblage and have few diagnostic features, but differ in thickness and fabric from medieval tiles in the region. Metal nails and hooks, which make up most of the remaining finds mean that the assemblage likely consists of roof tiles and their attachments from the Ottoman fort, which fell while wall material was looted for reuse. A few sherds of pottery, three of which are glazed, may also date to Ottoman occupation of the site, but could represent earlier use of the area. This preliminary study therefore shows that the Ottoman era fortification was not completely destroyed and may have a potential for further archaeological study to prove the scale and use of this fortification.