For five years now, the Institute of Archeology at the Jagiellonian University has been doing archeological research at Koshary as part of a Polish-Ukrainian expedition begun in 1998 in cooperation with the NANU Archeological Museum in Odessa and the Archeological Heritage Protection Bureau in the same city. The excavation site near the village of Koshary, dating back to the Antiquity, is located about 40 km east of Odessa (Fig. 1). It comprises the remnants of a settlement (town) with some stone remains above the surface, an offering mound (Greek eschara, Russian zol'nik), and a sizeable cemetery several hundred meters to the north.
Koshary perhaps originated in the second wave of the Greek colonization of the northern shores of the Black Sea at the end of the 5,h and beginning of 4th centuries BC. From the scientific point of view, the site offers an excellent opportunity for a complex analysis. The town was probably part of the city-state of Olbia, one of the most powerful Greek colonies on the Black Sea. The research is intended to determine Koshary’s nature and position within Olbia’s structure as well as to define the relations between its Greek community and the local tribes, especially Scythians.
Annually in the five-year-long project at Koshary, the Polish-Ukrainian archeological team worked in the town, the eschara, and the necropolis. During the five yearly sessions, 800 sq.m were researched in the town, 275 sq.m in and around the eschara, and about 5000 sq.m in the necropolis, revealing over 160 structures.
Research confirmed the settlement’s time span as reaching from the early 4lh to about mid-3rd centuries. It showed that it was a sizeable Greek town with a typical Greek urbanistic layout with streets, some cobbled, intersecting at right angles. Remnant stone and stone-clay housing was unearthed which had the form of large, multi-room houses, some with basements, and sunken or semisunken cellars. Inhabitants were occupied in fanning, fishing, trade, and exchange, as is indicated by large numbers of imported items, mostly ceramics. Amphorae with wine or other products come from such Greeks Black Sea colonies as Heraclea Pontus, Sinope, and Chersonesus Taurica, but also from the Greek island of Thasos and other places. Luxurious tableware was brought in from Athens (black-glazed and red-figure pottery) and from Asia Minor. Olbia furnished coins, vessels, and other items.
The eschara is an oval barrow (ca. 20x30 m in size) composed of ash layers (with the layer sequence up to about 2.5 m thick) remaining from burned blood offerings and bloodless sacrifices. A dig revealed much valuable information about beliefs and sacrificial ceremonies.
The necropolis corresponds in time to the town. By far the prevailing skeleton arrangement is to the east, a typical practice in the Greek world. A variety of graves were uncovered: in niches, catacombs, cavities, and - very rarely - in boxes. The furnishings found in graves that had not been plundered and the number of children’s graves clearly point to a Greek nature of the necropolis. Yet traces are also found (the remains of a Scythian kurgan, west-facing body placement, characteristic grave contents) suggesting a Scythian component in what was otherwise a Greek community. Apart from tombs, items were discovered that testify to a worship of the dead: sacrificial sites, bothros cavities, sacrificial stone altars, tombstones (stelae).
The archeological yield so far is varied, rich, and highly informative, but it has not solved all the problems and questions the searchers at Koshary have asked, therefore the field work must continue for several more seasons.
