MINAI” CERAMICS FROM AZAK

The article contains publications of the patterns of "Minai" Kachina ceramics, with overglaze polychromatic painting and gilding over white opaque enamel from the excavations of the Golden Horde Azak (XIII-XIV centuries). A total of 35 fragments of 21 vessels were described; they are given in a small catalogue presented at the end of the article. The following issues were analyzed on the basis of the available material: the vessels. morphology, a piece, colour spectrum and ornamentation stylistics, chronology and quantitative data of the "Minai" finds from Azov. The analysis of the patterns testified that this ceramics is very rare and scanty for Azak; it is diverse in its stylistic peculiarities; its circulation in Azak is limited by 1350-1360 years. In view of the aforesaid, M.G. Kramarovsky's supposition of the Golden Horde manufacture of "Minai" ceramics is called in question. An opinion of the majority of researchers, which this article's authors subscribe to, is the most probable and consists in manufacture of this ceramics in Iran wherefrom it could be brought a single time to Azak by a group of emigrants, or as war trophies, or as a result of the commercial intercourse intensified for a short period of time.