Archaeological Studies of Pottery Hearths at Bolgar Fortified Settlement in 2016 (Excavation CCXVI)

Excavation CCXVII was investigated in 2016 within the framework of a complex project Cultural Heritage - the Island Town of Sviyazhsk and Ancient Bolgar. The total area of the exposed cultural layer was 256 square metres. A total of 14 structures (5 pits, 4 hearths for ceramics firing, 2 pre-hearth pits, 2 platforms for accessing heating chambers of the hearths and a single auxiliary structure) of the late Golden Horde period were identified in the excavation. The presence of four hearths for ceramics firing, which operated in the period of 1330–1360, can represent a direct evidence of pottery production in Bolgar settlement during the late Golden Horde period. The hearths were destroyed in the early period of the Great Troubles in the Golden Horde (1359–1380) circa the second half of the 1360s. The author suggests that a sanitary burial of 7 people was arranged in the previously abandoned hearth No. 6 (structure 6) during the period in question. As a result of the excavations, the researchers obtained a collection of 741 individual findings, including defective ceramic vessels of a spherical shape, pitchers and an unfired band used for ceramic moulding. The collection of mass material amounts to 8,334 fragments of locally manufactured Bolgar ceramics.