Город Никоний давно и по праву является неотъемлемой частью историко-культурного наследия античной эпохи в Северо-Западном Причерноморье. В результате его археологического изучения в течение второй половины 20 в. появилась солидная историографическая база, насчитывающая не один десяток статей и монографий. Эти работы позволили выделить и охарактеризовать основные этапы исторического развития памятника, в общих чертах выяснить его историческую топографию, дать обзор основных категорий материальной и духовной культуры, предпринять попытку определить место Никония в системе политических, культурных и экономических связей Черноморского региона.
The collection of pained table wares from archaic – early classical Nikonion is analyzed in the paper. 130 items that belong to the Eastern Mediterranean imports and colonial imitations were attributed and classified in accordance with modern methodic. Nikonion collection includes table pottery and special ceramic forms that are usual for ceramic collections from the Northern Black sea sites founded in the 6th century BC. It contains some monochrome amphoriskoi produced in Miletus before and soon after the Persian destruction in 494 BC. The large assemblage of Ionian cups includes forms from the beginning of the last third of the 6th century up to the turn between the 6th and 5th centuries BC. Ionian simple waved pottery is represented with numerous fragments of closed forms – hydriae, table amphoras, olpai, oenochoe and askoi. There are also a number of different opened forms, mainly plates and dishes. Special forms are reflected in lekanai of different dimensions together with their lids. Some of them are typical for late-archaic time, some forms and ornaments were used up to the end of the 5th century BC. Chian pottery is represented with white-slipped and black-glazed ceramic – kantharos and small olpai. Corinthian production is amazingly small; there was found only one monochrome lekythos belonged to white style, usual for the 5th century BC. To summarize, the overlook of the collection of early pained pottery excavated in Nikonion permits to make a proof conclusion that this city was founded at the beginning of the last third of the 6th century BC. At present Nikonion is the earliest Greek colony between Histria and Borysthenes-Olbia, placed in the Lower-Dniester region.
