Wheel-made pottery from the Bolgar fortified settlement: new studies of ceramics

In 2013 a selection of pottery attested to group I (as classified by T.А. Khlebnikova) was collected from the materials obtained in the course of the archaeological research carried out at the Bolgar fortified settlement. The task was set was to trace the development of pottery-making technology from the pre-Mongol time until the late Golden Horde period. It was established that during the Golden Horde period the proportion of drawn pottery decreased almost two times as much in comparison to what it had been in the pre-Mongol period. There was also a decrease to be noted in the variety of finish for the vessels manufactured: decoration became monotonous and repetitive and many decorative motifs disappeared altogether. There was an increase in the number of big vessels (amphora-like containers and jugs). Analysis of quantitative data made it possible for the first time to form an objective idea on the changes taking place in pottery used by the city's inhabitants in the course of almost four centuries.