Abstract
Since the 1830s Athenian red-figure vases from the Northern Black Sea area have been the subject of special study. The Classical philological education of the first Russian scholars to analyse these vases caused a certain distortion in the study of them throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Athenian red-figure vases were treated above all as elements of the culture of the Northern Black Sea area, separate not only from the context of those Athenian pottery workshops where they had been made but from the whole context of the wider ancient world. Subjects on the vases were interpreted within the mythological and religious contexts of the Northern Black Sea colonies, while grave contexts, problems of dating and attribution, as well as the distribution of similar vases in other parts of the inhabited world were neglected. Yet a cultural approach, applied properly, allows us to draw conclusions regarding the distribution of Athenian red-figure pottery, the preferences of the Northern Black Sea colonies and the perception of the imported pottery by citizens of the Bosporan kingdom.
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