Amphora

One of the evidences of the regular trade relations of ancient Rus Kyiv with Byzantium and its colonies are finds of clay amphorae. Excavated materials from various areas of the city (Upper City, Podol, suburbs) document the arrival of Byzantine amphorae during the 11th – 13th centuries. Especially many of them were found in the cultural layers of the second half of the 11th – 12th centuries. Such a wide distribution of amphorae in the cultural layers of Kyiv of the 11th – 13th centuries, their presence not only in wealthy complexes, but also in ordinary ones, indicates a large influx of this type of tableware into the domestic trade market. Many specimens of amphorae have different labels, monograms, individual words, phrases and whole sentences. For example: " Havrylo", "Dobrogost", " Mstyslavl’s korchaga". Amphora graffiti are mostly made with a sharp cutter on a burnt shard, but there are also cases of inscriptions on raw clay.
Just such amphora of the 11th – 12th centuries with the graffiti of the male name "PETRO" was found in 1968 during construction in the European Square and donated to the museum. The amphora has a pear-shaped fluted body, covered with engobe, graffiti is scratched in the upper part of it.