TRADITIONAL FORMS AND DECORATION OF CRIMEAN TATAR CERAMIC STORAGE VESSELS

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive characterisation of the traditional forms and decorative techniques of Crimean Tatar ceramic vessels used for food storage, spanning the eighteenth to the early twenty-first century, and to demonstrate the functional logic underlying their typology and surface treatment.
Research methodology. The study draws on materials from the «Zincir / Chain» cultural project, which produced an author’s artbook documenting eighteen traditional ceramic forms of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. These sources are complemented by archaeological findings from medieval Crimean sites, art criticism scholarship, ethnographic records, and the
lexicographic tradition, including Borys Hrinchenko’s dictionary. Comparative analysis, morphological description, and typological classification constitute the principal research methods. Results. Five principal vessel types belonging to the food
storage functional group have been identified and described: bal bardaq (honey jar), may bardagi (rendered butter and fat jar),
quza (pickling vessel), gülçerep (dry-goods container), and hum (large-scale storage jar). A clear correlation has been established
between vessel function and degree of glazing: small containers for viscous products (honey, fat, butter) were fully glazed on
both interior and exterior surfaces; medium-sized pickling vessels received full interior glazing with partial exterior coverage;
large vessels for dry bulk goods were left entirely unglazed, allowing the porous walls to ventilate the contents naturally.
Ornamentation is predominantly restrained and utilitarian, dominated by monochrome glazed coatings in traditional colour
ranges (green, yellow, brown) combined with applied horizontal ridges, incised grooves, and finger-impressed relief elements
concentrated in the upper third of the vessel body. Novelty. For the first time, Crimean Tatar food storage ceramics are examined as a distinct functional group subject to integrated art-historical analysis, uniting typological, technological, and decorative dimensions in a single study. Ukrainian-language scholarly terminology for the vessel types is consolidated and introduced into academic circulation. The glazing gradient is proposed as a systematic typological criterion applicable across the entire category.
The practical significance. The findings extend scholarly understanding of Crimean Tatar material culture and contribute to the preservation of the national heritage of Ukraine’s indigenous people. The typological framework developed in this study may serve as a reference for museum cataloguing, conservation practice, and the creative work of contemporary ceramicists engaged in the revival of Crimean Tatar craft traditions on the Ukrainian mainland.