THE CASE STUDY OF ONE SIGN ON UCH-BASH POTTERY
Authors: Kravchenko E. A. 
Published: June 2020

Pottery of Uch-Bash settlement (the end of the 12th — beginning of the 7th century BC) has a variety of decors. Ornamentation on ceramics is represented by different methods of decoration — channeled, cut or pressedlines, stripes formed by various shaped stamps, as well as a variety of appliques. Most of the «negatives» and «positives» are part of the compositions that form the motif of the ornament.
But there are a number of images that do not fit into these compositions existing separately even on ornamented vessels.
There are traditional solar symbols — crosses, swastikas, anthropomorphous, as well as several images in the form of an inverted crescent moon with a shoot in the middle or a bird’s paw.
The paper deals with one of the signs on a ceramic ware found on the fortified settlement of Uch-Bash in South-West Crimea. This is the image of inverted crescent moon or a three-edged symbol generally referring to anthropomorphic images.
Chronologically the artefacts are divided into two groups: the early (Ithaca, Troy) and the late (Sborianovo, Sergen-Yurt, Uch-Bash, Kyzyl-Koba, Bulakhivka, Bystrica). The early group generally dates to the final of the Late Helladic period, the later one dates since the 10th till the 8th century BC. Cumulatively the early artefacts in their region (Mediterranean basin) as the late ones in their (the Black Sea basin) coincide with the change of epochs — transition to the iron production and use. The presence of pottery with a three-edged symbol in the necropolises with innovations in custom such as in Sborianovo and Ferigele (Bystrica) testifies to certain changes in the ideology of the population linked with these sites. According to the researchers numerous finds of items with anthropomorphic features are found on the sites where pottery with the three-edged symbol have been found and the three-edged symbol itself is an anthropomorph. Given the fact that such sign on artefacts is not combined with solar symbols, and in the structure of ornamentation the oddness (unlike the parity in the previous horizons) prevails, we can assume that the process of disseminating knowledge and skills in the manufacture of iron and use of iron objects was underway with certain innovations in ideology. However, the fact of such ideological transformations cannot be overlooked because just the Iron Age was the time which eventually formed the main monotheistic concepts and world religions. Absolutely spontaneously this conclusion coincided with the concept of «Axial Age» (Gem. — Achsenzeit) by the German existentialist philosopher K. Jaspers. He defined the beginning of the Iron Age (as a historical era) as the so-called axial time which was marked by the change of outlook that led to the formation of a new ideology of the modern world. In general, the conceptualisation of existential searches is directed at the humanitarian, anthropocentric definition of social order, so, the object and subject of these searches is a human. Considering the absolute difference between the methods and sources used by archaeologists and philosophers we anyway note the quite not coincidental coincidence of the philosophical concept and the conclusion made on the basis of the analysis of the sign system — the most abstract source that has come to us since that time.