Amphorae (Archaeology)

The article is devoted to the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts collection of ceramic containers. Compared to other museums, this collection is a small one, and contains only 103 complete and archaeologically complete vessels. It includes amphorae from the excavations of Panticapaeum, Phanagoria, the necropolis of “Tyrambe”, as well as incidental finds, acquisitions and gifts. Despite its small size, the collection contains unique vessels of Paros, Mesembria (?) and Erythrai (?).

Bluefin tuna fishing in the Strait of Gibraltar was a major economic resource in Antiquity, and at certain times its by-products (salted fish and sauces such as garum) were in great demand in the Mediterranean world at the time, especially among the "gourmets" of the social elites of Classical Greece. An international project promoted by the University of Seville, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and the Fitch Laboratory of the British School at Athens, is studying the exceptional archaeological evidence of these connections between the Punics of the Straits of Gibraltar and the Aegean, and specifically with the city of Corinth.

All Roads Lead to Rome

Meet the Romans with Mary BeardEpisode (1 of 3)

We still live in the shadow of ancient Rome - a city at the heart of a vast empire that stretched from Scotland to Afghanistan, dominating the West for over 700 years. Professor Mary Beard puts aside the stories of emperors and armies, guts and gore, to meet the real Romans living at the heart of it all.

In this programme, Mary asks not what the Romans did for us, but what the empire did for Rome.

She rides the Via Appia, climbs up to the top seats of the Colosseum, takes a boat to Rome's port Ostia and takes us into the bowels of Monte Testaccio. She also meets some extraordinary Romans: Eurysaces, an eccentric baker, who made a fortune out of the grain trade and built his tomb in the shape of a giant bread oven; Baricha, Zabda and Achiba, three prisoners of war who became Roman citizens; and Pupius Amicus, the purple dye seller making imperial dye from shellfish imported from Tunisia. This is Rome from the bottom up.

An imposing amount of studies and researches in the second half of the twentieth century has focused on the productivity in Roman Africa of a variety of consumer products, along with the analysis of regions, cities and their economies. The success of  African goods during the Caesarian-Augustan age and up to the late antiquity, recorded in the written tradition and confirmed by the stratigraphy of many sites in the Mediterranean, has been the subject of a substantial amount of contributions that have accompanied for more than sixty years the study of material culture of the Roman imperial age. This session, which can not consider every product of the Maghreb, will focus mainly on the ceramic, not only on account of its large diffusion, the fossil marker for dating contexts all around the Mediterranean and well inside Europe for several centuries, but also because the evidence is more consistent than that found for other types of sources, and reflects the ability of African regions to develop a high yield agriculture, and manufacturing activities related to fisheries, as shown by transport amphorae (carrying oil, olives, wine, fish sauces), as well as crafts tied to the production of more or less valuable objects, aimed - at various levels - at regional, inter-regional and inter-provincial markets.
If during a  more or less recent past most studies were mainly focused on data collected at the sites of consumption (and thus on the indestructible ceramic), centered on the type and histories of each production (fine table ware, lamps,  kitchenware and coarse ware), recent studies have been, on one hand, directed towards a review of the known types and towards a more thoughtful analysis of the contexts of discovery, perfecting the production framework and anchoring to a trustworthy time frame certain types and classes in circulation; on the other hand they have focused on the production centers in order to get a better geographic characterization of those same types and classes, applying a wealth of suitable methodologies, surveys of large tracts of land, surveys and excavations of old and new workshops, laboratory analysis. The results draw a scenery in which a great variety of productive facies and distribution models reflect the complexity of the cultural, social and economic contexts, both micro- and macro-regional, both at the provincial and inter-provincial levels. This session aims to describe these lines of research, focusing on the organization of production and commerce in the region, their similarities and differences, and on a list of questions still unsolved, the solution of which will call for a further revision of published data, and for brand new information.

LA SCOPERTA Nell'estate 2009, a c. 500 m a nord-est della costa di Acireale, ai confini tra i comuni di Aci Castello e Acireale (Catania), nello spec-chio di mare antistante Capo Mulini (figura 1), Giancarlo Camaggi e Giuseppe Tomasello scoprivano un cumulo di anfore. La segnala-zione alla Soprintendenza fu seguita da una prima ricognizione nel giugno 2010 (Tisseyre 2010) ma, a causa delle condizioni particolari del giacimento del sito-profondità, correnti, lontananza della costa-, una prima vera cam-pagna approfondita fu realizzata solo nel 2016. Si è provveduto a operare su tre direzioni: una prima campagna di rilievi fotografici in due immersioni, al fine di ottenere un rilievo foto-grammetrico completo del sito, una verifica con un robot sottomarino (Remotely Operated Vehicle-ROV) del Nucleo sommozzatori della Guardia Costiera di Messina, comandante Giuseppe Simeone, effettuata fino a 90 m di profondità e su un raggio di 100 m intorno al relitto e infine un'operazione di recupero di reperti già rilevati fuori del cumulo principale, a scopo diagnostico. Le immersioni si sono svolte nei mesi di luglio e fine agosto 2016: si tratta dunque di presentare qui le osservazioni preliminari. Tutte le conclu-sioni sono per lo più parziali e saranno oggetto di complemento d'indagine. [PT] IL TERRITORIO E IL CONTESTO DEL NAUFRAGIO La zona di rinvenimento del relitto s'inserisce in un ben più ampio contesto di ritrovamen-ti archeologici che evidenziano l'importanza storica della città di Catania in età antica e l'intensità dei traffici commerciali marittimi che in ogni epoca hanno caratterizzato questo tratto di costa siciliana. Nella fattispecie lo scalo di Capo Mulini, a sud del relitto, fu oggetto, tra il 1995 e il 2001, di una sistematica ricognizione archeologica effettuata dall'Università degli Studi di Catania, a cura della cattedra di Topografia antica della Facoltà di Lettere, presieduta dal professor Edoardo Tortorici (Tortorici 2002). L'esito di suddette analisi consentì di identifica-re, nei fondali del golfo in oggetto, un'ingente mole di ritrovamenti coerenti, dal punto di vista cronologico e tipologico, con i materiali rinve-nuti nei livelli di occupazione della terraferma, a conferma di quanto già noto dalle fonti a partire dal XVI-XVII secolo in merito al riconoscimento di un insediamento costiero di grande interesse sviluppatosi, senza soluzione di continuità, dall'età preistorica ai nostri giorni. Prossimo a quest'ultimo in direzione sud è l'altro importante scalo di Aci Castello e il piccolo approdo di Punta Aguzza, individuato nel 2012, che ha consentito di portare alla luce un'ingente mole di materiale. Qui, tra il 2012 e il 2016, oltre a 4 anfore di tipo Corinzio A e B ritenute appartenenti a un relitto del VI a.C (Tis-seyre 2010), in aree e a batimetrie eterogenee, sono stati scoperti molti altri reperti di epoche differenti: un dolium frammentario, contenitori da trasporto di epoca romana e bizantina, un numero imprecisato di ancore 'a gravità' litiche e in ferro del tipo 'a presa' e in piombo, nonché varie attrezzature di bordo, testimoni imperituri di una continuata attività antropica all'interno della baia (in fase di pubblicazione). I materiali recuperati in località Punta Aguzza rientrano

We report the preliminary results of the petrographic analysis conducted on fifty-five eastern Aegean amphorae found in Roman settlements in Pannonia. These amphorae belong to the Rhodian, Dressel 4, Knidian, Kapitän 2 and Dressel 24 types. We compared the thin sections made from all collected samples to those from other sites and to previous archaeometric studies. Based on this information, except for the Dressel 24 amphorae, we assigned them to known petrographic classes. By doing so, and by cross-referencing with regional geological data, we were able to identify possible production sites of the amphorae. The majority of the Rhodian type amphorae was presumably imported from western Kos. The rest probably arrived from Rhodos, the granitic territory situated east of Ephesus, the Rhodian Peraea excluding Nisyros and two unidentified locations. The Dressel 4 amphora was possibly imported from eastern Kos. The Knidian type ceramics probably arrived from the western Datça peninsula. The Kapitän 2 amphorae were supposedly manufactured on Samos or in the Büyük Menderes valley and on Chios or around the Gulf of Çandarlı. The Dressel 24 vessels could have been made on Chios or around the Gulfs of İzmir, Kuşadası and Çandarlı.

The publication is devoted to archaeobotanical studies of the Maslyanaya Gora fort as well as to issues related to it`s household features. The fort is located in the lower reaches of the Belbek River (Southwestern Crimea), in the contact zone between Chersonesos and the local barbarian population. Two stages of the object`s existence have been distinguished: the early, Chersonesian (late 4th - third quarter of the 3rd centuries BC), and the late Hellenistic one, associated with the period of Mithridates VI (ending with the destruction of the fort in the first half of the 1st century BC). Among the material found in the samples from the cultural strata of the early horizon of the site, the grains of barley (Hordeum vulgare) are the most common. Millet (Panicum miliaceum) and emmer (Triticum dicoccum) were also recorded. For this period, large grain pits are also characteristic, as well as fragments of saddle querns. In the late 2nd – early 1st centuries BC the fortification was rebuilt; profound household complex has been investigated in the eastern part of the fort. The grain was stored (barley, common wheat, millet, oats) in amphorae here, and its fur-ther processing took place too (stone mortars, hopper rubbers, hearths and oven were recorded). The find of oat grains in the amphora is of great importance as it allows us to suggest the cultural cultiva-tion of oats in the vicinity of the fort in the Late Hellenistic period.
For samples 1-3, reflecting the early fort`s phases, the archaeologisation of the grains was relatively random, whereas samples 4-13, illustrating the economy of the inhabitants of the Fort of Mithridatic period, are taken from the fillings of well-preserved amphorae.