Garum or Grain? Crimea and the Provisioning of Constantinople (7th to 9th centuries)
Journal: Studia Ceranea Journal of the Waldemar Ceran Research Centre for the History and Culture of the Mediterranean Area and South-East Europe
Year: 2023

Historians have relied for too long on written sources (the letters that Pope Martin I wrote from Cherson, as well as De Administrando Imperio) to assess the economic situation in the Crimea, especially in Cherson, during the so-called Dark Ages (7th to 9th centuries). Many still believe that that city could not have survived without shipments of grain from the outside, particularly from the lands along the southern coast of the Black Sea. Seals of Byzantine officials found in Cherson tell a dif