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Journal of the General Union of Arab Archaeologists

Journal of the General Union of Arab Archaeologists

Abstract

(En) The Azov museum-reserve (Azov city, the Russian Federation) holds more than 1000 examples (intact ones and fragments) of clay tobacco pipes. All of them are from the excavations carried out on the territory of the former Ottoman fortress Azak (Azov old district) and its surroundings. Until recently, this archeological material has been left unstudied and has not been put into scientific use. The great bulk of finds (over 80%) are Muslim (Turkish) tobacco pipes. These are pipes made by the ceramics craftsmen on the territory of the former Ottoman Empire (Asia Monor, the Crimea, Balkans). They were widely used by the military garrison of the Turkish fortress Azak in private daily life. All in all, Muslim tobacco pipes were discovered by the archeologists in Azov in the cultural layers of XVII – the beginning of XIX centuries. The pipes from four “closed” complexes (three pits and a burial) discovered in 1998-2004 are dated by the end of XVII – the beginning of XVIII centuries according to the coin material. The majority of the tobacco pipes are abundantly ornamented splendid examples of the Muslim ceramics art. Some of them have stamps of their makers and Ottoman inscriptions made in Arabic calligraphy. The variety of pipe “fashions” is highly considerable. A number of the pipes are flower-shaped: as a tulip, a lily, a narcissus,

a chrysanthemum. The pipes’ dimensions vary from the smallest (3.8х2.3 cm) to fairly big (6.0х4.2 cm) ones.

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