Bird Images on Ceramics Produced in South-Eastern Crimea from the Excavations of Azak

The paper considers the 14th century Crimean glazed ceramics with ornithomorphic design made in “sgraffito”, “sgraffito with polychrome coloring” techniques, or a combination of “sgraffito” and “engobe scraping” techniques discovered in the territory of the town of Azov. On the basies of the most preserved items, the following compositions were subdivided, according to the main or key characters, which is a bird: a long-legged bird in tall grass with wings decorated with stylized floral ornament and folded on its back; a large short-legged bird in brushwood with a large expanding tail and plumage designed with rows of scalloped lines; a bird with its wings spread over its back set against the background of spiral-shaped, wavy lines; a procession of birds in a circle, schematically arranged; a small bird widely opening its beak with spread wings over its back with a large elongated object in front of it; a feeding bird arranged inside a hexagon formed by double lines with an ornament between them; a small bird in round medallion with a floral ornament; a bird and a fish with their beak and mouth touching each other. Moreover, the variants of painting of different body parts of the bird, their ornaments, and the elements emphasized by the craftsman: drawn pupils, nasal bone, crest, additional ornaments on the neck, protuberant breast, folded or spread ornamented wings, and other features were also investigated in detail