Investigating the origins and development of the Black Sea colonial system: archaeological excavations in the early Greek colony of Sinope, Turkey

Support is being sought for a three-year investigation into the impact of the ancient Black Sea economy on social, economic and cultural formations in the hinterland of classical Sinope, one of the most important ports in the region. The primary goal of the proposed research is to determine whether the establishment of a network of Greek colonies in the Black Sea caused a fundamental change in regional social and political structure or whether Greek colonists took advantage of the knowledge and relationships already present among Black Sea (?Pontic?) communities by the early first millennium BC (Figure 1). A secondary goal is to clarify to what extent social and economic structures persisted and transformed by the Greek colonial process. The proposed research constitutes a substantial contribution to the humanities in that it clarifies an important colonial process in the establishment of a Greek-based trade system at the crossroads between Eurasian, Near Eastern and Mediterranean regions.