On the question of the sources for brick fortification architecture during the Khazarian period in the Don region

This article treats the investigation of the question as to the origins of thebricks from which Khazarian-Alanian fortresses were erected in the lower and middlereaches of the Don. The author challenges the point of view voiced by those scholarswho explain the appearance of brick architecture in Khazaria as a skill borrowed fromthe inhabitants of Oren-kala in Transcaucasia. There are many more grounds for assum-ing that the technology of brick production for fortifications was brought to the region bycraftsmen from Kherson and the Asiatic Bosporus, where the production of bricks with asimilar format can be traced starting from the very beginning of the 1 st millennium AD.This conclusion matches the information found in Byzantine sources regarding the routetaken by the high-ranking Byzantine official (spafarokandidat), Petrona Kamatir, on hismission to Tanais to build the Sarkel fortress and organize the theme of Kherson.