Abstract
The building inscription of the topoteretes Tsulabege (IOSPE³ V 172) is located on the western wall of the A.XI fortification tower (Tabana-Dere ravine, Mangup, Crimea). This epigraphic document, previously dated to 1503, was recently transferred by A.Yu. Vinogradov on the basis of an updated reading to the date as ͵ϚΦΓʹ (6503 AM = AD 994/5). This dating, accepted by a number of researchers, raises a number of questions, which this article, based on the methods of epigraphic, paleographic, literary, linguistic and comparative historical analysis, is intended to resolve. Attribution of the inscription to the end of the 10th c. does not explain the following features of its text: 1) the absence of an indict along with the date from the creation of the world; 2) an indication of the reign of one topoteretes, without mentioning the emperor or theme’s strategos; 3) the dating formula ὑπὸ ἡμερῶν. Dated official and building inscriptions drawn up on the territory of the Byzantine Empire regularly contain an indict until the 12th c. The rank of topoteretes in the 10th–11th cc. was a secondary military position, but in the 12th–14th cc. this was a name for governors of diff erent levels of authority, including autonomous rulers. Barbarism ὑπὸ ἡμερῶν is rare, but recorded in the Crimean inscriptions of the 14th–15th cc. At the same time, there are no irrefutable paleographic grounds for dating the inscription with the 10th c.: almost all letters can be found in inscriptions of the 13th c. as well. The topoteretes’s name (Tsoulabege, son of Poletas) also does not provide a narrow chronological reference. Finally, the published results of archaeological studies of the A.XI fortification allow us to conclude that there are no significant complexes at the turn of the 10th–11th cc. in Tabana-Dere. A satisfactory solution is given by reading the year as ͵ϚѠΓʹ (6803 AM = AD 1294/5). This places the inscription in the chronological context of other Mangup archaeological sites.
Keywords
Byzantine Empire, Golden Horde, Crimea, Mangup (Doros, Theodoro), inscriptions, topoteretes, Tsulabege son of Poletas, indict.
Pavel V. Kuzenkov, Sevastopol State University, Sevastopol, Russia, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Yuriy M. Mogarichev, Institute of Archaeology of Crimea of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Simferopol, Russia; Crimean Republican Institute for Afterdyplomas Pedagogical Education, Simferopol, Russia, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Andrey V. Sazanov, Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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