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What an amazing first week of the course, once again! It has been fantastic for all of us involved and we are so grateful for the breadth and depth of comments coming from everyone on the course. Reading and participating in the discussions really gives us a sense of the enthusiasm people have for learning about Portus.
The step that stood out for me this week was the discussions around the Portus in the 1st Century First Century (requires login). In this step we invited you all to share your thoughts about arriving at Portus. The sheer number and variety of comments was amazing.
Above is a wordcloud showing some of the top words that learners used to describe what they believe would greet them as they arrived into Portus in the 1st Century. What is clear is that a lot of people expect to see a great number of goods and cargo being unloaded and loaded onto ships. The docks would be bustling with activity, including travelers buying and selling in the shops of the colonnaded buildings surrounding the port. However, it wasn’t only the sights of the port that were considered, but the smells and sounds of Roman life were thoroughly explored by many. Using your own experiences of life today and what you understand about Portus from Week One or through other archaeological sites you have brought together a rich mixture of facts and artistic imagination. This collection of comments can only add to our work at Portus, where try to bridge such scientific and creative divides.
Exploring the Study Groups, a new FutureLearn platform feature, has been an exciting time for all of us. We really didn’t know what to expect. My first impression is that this addition has had a really positive effect on how people interact with other learners. It seems that many of you are taking this opportunity to share your backgrounds, experiences and interests with others in a smaller group. I look forward to seeing these connections grow as the weeks progress. Your shared thoughts and ideas from exploring Portus through the Virtual Tour and the Google or Bing maps really helped me a get a better understanding of the role and use of the Tour. Both good and bad features have been pointed out and I fully intend to use this feedback to make the next version even better.
A reminder that we have a flickr group pool. If you want to create your own video or image representations of the port then please share them with us, or use other tools to share audio. Please feel free to share these imagines on the course when commenting, maybe to ask a question or even to help other learners better understand certain topics.
If you are reading this and haven’t yet signed up then please do! There is still plenty of time to join in the conversations from week one and move on to week two. You can watch the trailer and register on the FutureLearn site here. Next week on the course is the second century and the Emperor Trajan. We will see the construction of a new basin, a series of enormous structures, and what the evidence from these buildings and other historical sources can tell us about Portus at this time.
Looking forward to Week 2
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Photo: Hembo Pagi
Once again Eleonora has translated the summaries of the week one activities into Italian in order to support sharing of the course via Italian social media. As discussed previously the course itself runs in English and it is not possible to moderate the posts on the FL platform in English and Italian. This would require Italian speakers on the FutureLearn platform which is monitored 24 hours a day.
So, we will continue to provide additional resources such as this where possible, including the Italian transcripts mentioned in Eleonora’s previous post. As ever we welcome Italian contributions via other social media. Tweet Eleonora at @eleonorag1
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As part of Week Six we are today concentrating on answering questions raised on Week One. As a starting point Simon and I have created a video.
We have also added a video by Katherine where she introduces her research at Ostia and how it relates to Portus.
We have also added some additional cross-references to Hadrian’s Wall course both on the platform and on the blog for those of you who are registered on both. We appreciate that this makes it possible to become lost between the two so we have made sure that the links are reciprocal and we are also analysing movement between the courses to make it better in time for the summer when we hope that the courses may overlap.
We will continue to update this post as more information is added. As ever please comment on the FutureLearn platform so that all learners there can see. We are also going to provide another way of augmenting these videos. Watch this space!
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I am a professional software developer and also studying for a PhD part time at the University of Southampton. My main interest at the moment is in the simulation of different routes connecting Portus to the other ports of the Mediterranean – topics discussed way back in Week One of the course e.g. in the Links to Other Ports step. My work uses a combination of computational approaches. I produce maps and display them in a Geographic Information System (PostGis, QGIS and JTS Topology Suite) . These are open source tools for managing spatial data such as modern wind and tide patterns, ancient coastlines (derived in part from the kinds of bathymetric data capture referred to in Week two), locations of ports (linking to the work discussed by Leif in Pelagios: a Sea of Connections).
I also use computational methods designed to take these data and turn them into simulations of where ships might sail under given conditions (including what we know about the capabilities of ships from the work referred to by Julian post on Roman Mediterranean Shipping). Finally having calculated potential routes I simulate the ‘cost’ in terms of time that a ship might use in undertaking a particular voyage. This work is drawing on modern data and also methods use in modern navigation, and also on the diverse archaeological evidence we have from Portus and elsewhere that provides the framework of known connections. For example, the pattern of amphorae discussed by Simon and also in Pina’s PhD as discussed in her post on Ceramics as material culture: Study of the North African amphorae from Portus.
Roman merchant ships used wind power as their source of power, by simulating the possible movement patterns of a ship its possible to create a theoretical model of how goods could be distributed from Portus and other ports throughout the Empire.
With the wind blowing in the right direction the maximum speed can be achieved but to sail against the wind, a ship has to ‘tack in the wind’ by steering a zig zag course, see figure one above.
When a ship was sailing with the wind (a favourable wind) the distance covered is X (Red line figure 2) then the distance sailed against the wind( a foul wind) Y (Blue line figure two)is the horizontal length of a sine wave of length X. The ratio of the best and worse distances (X&Y) may be used to deal with the conditions when both foul and favourable winds are encountered, assuming that 90 degrees is the best wind and 270 degrees is the worst wind, then 0 and 180 degrees would be a ratio of 50% of the best speed and 50% of the worse wind.
Theoretically this creates a carotid shape, where the border represents what a ship could be, see Figure three, where:
- The red point represents the starting position of the ship.
- The blue area represents the area that could be covered from the starting point if the best possible was available in all directions.
- The yellow area presents the area that could be covered from the starting point if the worse wind blew constantly.
- The green area presents the ratio of the blue and yellow areas and represents the maximum distance that could be covered assuming the wind was blowing at 45 degrees.
The prevailing winds in the Mediterranean basin in the summer blow towards Africa, see figure four.
By tessellating the unit movement (figure three), using the prevailing wind (figure four) to orientate it creates an isotropic curve that show the possible distances that could be covered by a ship, using the best possible course, see figure five.
By extending this method to the entire Mediterranean basin, it possible to map how long it would take to distribute goods from Portus to other areas of the Empire, see figure six. Where Blue dots denote a known Roman Port (a port can be anything from a good beach to Portus) and Green lines represent different generations in 8 hour periods
To sail a ship efficiently requires constant adjustment of the sails, correct operation of the steering oar and steady winds. By assuming that a crew could capture a fix percentage of the available wind and applying to this the size of the unit movement, it’s possible to simulate the results of different movement patterns, see figure seven.
By using known sources of goods in the Roman and applying the above model, it’s possible to create a supply map for resources considering the supply points for Olive Oil, see Figure eight, where the brown area are the know supply areas for olive oil.
As would be expected oils from Tunisia and Algeria should be expected to be present at Portus because they are the nearest resource. But it is interesting to note that supplies from North Africa would supply equal supply Crete as supplies from ‘Syria’ area.
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An understanding of the manufacturing techniques and of the production sequence in terms of how pots are made provides us with an insight into the people making the ceramics. The clay, the raw material, is a plastic additive medium, allowing for traces of its manipulation by the potters, to be left in the finished ceramic product. Fashioning methods, or manufacturing techniques, used in creating a vessel are usually detectable. The traces are permanently embedded within a vessel once the firing stage is complete, meaning that the vessels carry information about the people making them, even if we study ceramics from consumption sites such as Portus.
According to academic ceramic literature, knowledge: ‘how we learn and do make things’ (Budden 2007) is socially and culturally based. It is therefore possible to look at technological variables in archaeological ceramics, the types of manufacturing techniques used for instance, to differentiate between archaeological communities. The Tripolitanian (Libyan) amphora handles, for example, are very distinctive. These are pulled and show characteristic finger indentation at the point where they attach the rim-neck or the shoulder in the case of the Tripolitana 2 type. Finger indentation is a characteristic noticed on most all of the Tripolitanian handles (Fig.1).
Different techniques used are indicative of societal aspects, such as organization of production. Having visited a number of traditional pottery workshops in Tunisia, it was apparent that the type of technique used was correlated to the type of pots being produced, to their size in particular, type of workshops, as well as the setting of the workshops, for instance urban versus more rural, and possibly to the relationships between workers (family businesses or more industrial), and finally the type of market which the pots were intended for.
Primary forming techniques can be categorized as being hand made or wheel thrown. However a mixture of techniques existed, and this is especially documented ethnographically in the making of large sized vessels. Coiling is one very common type of hand building. It indicates the creation of a ceramic vessel by adding sausages of clay. However, coiling and shaping of coils on the wheel – wheel shaping – occurs in workshops in southern Tunisia, where they still manufacture large vessels resembling Roman amphorae. While wheel throwing is a very fast technique used for smaller vessels, wheel shaping is much more laborious and time-consuming, and it is used to make large to very large vessels.
Fashioning techniques can be observed macroscopically. Wheel thrown pots will show characteristic ridges or rilling, which tend to be symmetrical. These are particularly evident inside the vessels (Fig. 2). Instead,wheel-shaping shows rilling which tend to be blurred and also joins of coils (Fig. 3).
The production sequence for the manufacturing of amphorae includes a number of steps, from clay procurement, tempering of the clay with organic or inorganic inclusions, wedging (removing air and unwanted particles from) the clay, building up the ceramic body, adding additional features such as handles, the drying stage and firing.
The wedging of the clay, or preparation of the clay, is an important step, and much attention is given by the potters to such operation. Poor wedging can indeed leave air pockets in the clay, which could cause bubbles in the surface of vessel during the drying and firing stages, compromising the integrity of the vessel. And perhaps leading to the vessel exploding. This skilled and important step of the production sequence is traditionally done using hands or feet (Fig. 4).
Air pockets are particular evident in the Tripolitanian vessels at Portus (Fig. 5).
In terms of the manufacture of amphorae traded with Portus, they were wheel thrown or built up by a combination of coiling and wheel shaping. Working on the amphorae, different technological variables were noticed on Africana 1A and Tripolitanian vessels, two of the most traded vessels represented at Portus with the end 2nd and beginning of the 3rd centuries AD. The first was manufactured in Tunisia while the second was made in Libya. As I was interested in the forming techniques and in understanding the people behind their production, I started photographing the inside of the vessels and recorded a number of technological variables such as types of rilling, the presence or absence of joins of coiling, the degree of skill of execution in the preparation of the clay, and so on. The aim was to gain an insight, from the evidence, about how the different archaeological communities who invested a large amount of skill and labour in supplying Portus, were organized.
The Africana 1A amphora type according to vessel typology and fabric was mainly traded to Portus from Sullecthum, and a lesser amount from Leptiminus. These are both coastal town ports located in central Tunisia. The vessels show in most of the cases full wheel thrown rilling. Evidence of wheel throwing, is also visible microscopically within the micro fabrics, through means of petrological thin sections (definition of fabrics and petrology are given in my previous blog). Indeed, the clay particles and the inclusions will assume a different orientation according to the manipulation of the raw material and the type of forming technique used. Syllecthum and Leptiminus fabrics show a sort of aligned orientation of the inclusions, which is associated with wheel throwing (Fig. 6, see also the petrological thin section of the Africana 1A in Sullecthum fabric in my previous blog post about ceramics).
Tripolitanian (Libyan) amphorae were built differently. A mixture of hand building and wheel throwing is visible, underlined by compression areas and finger imprints probably necessary to smooth the coils. Such characteristics are very apparent, for example on Tripolitanian vessels in Leptis Magna fabric (Fig. 7). In thin section, the inclusions of the Tripolitanian fabrics appear randomly distributed (Fig. 8). Also, a higher percentage of air pockets were noticed and recorded within the Tripolitanian amphorae (see Fig. 4).
What does this evidence or difference in the technology used suggest? Archaeological studies in North Africa show that the pottery workshops of Sullecthum and Leptiminus were located on the outskirts of the towns; these were semi-urban workshops. Evidence for olive oil production, such as standing olive oil presses, is, on the other hand, more evident inland from the towns. It appears that two specialized and separate economic sectors were going on: the pot-making and agricultural practice. Therefore, people may have specialized in the making of vessels, reaching a high level of skill in mastering the wheel. Studies have attempted to define skill, and one of the definitions is that skill is the outcome of time spent in performing an activity. Moreover, contracts would have existed between those who produced olive oil, those who manufactured the vessels and those who exported produce to Rome. Good, solid batches of amphorae had to be purchased by third parties, and to be filled with olive oil.
In Tripolitania, by contrast, settlement studies show that sites were equipped with oil olive processing facilities and pottery kilns, highlighting the rural and self-sufficient nature of production. All production, from olive oil, to amphora manufacturing, and bottling took place on site. It is very possible that people who harvested the olives, a seasonal job, could have made their own vessels. In this case, manufacturing error such as air pockets noticed on the vessels, did not matter, because there was no necessity to buy containers from a third party.
You might want to look back at the following sections of the Archaeology of Portus course:
- The links to other ports (Portus-1), (Portus-2), (Portus-3)
- The value of ceramics (Portus-1), (Portus-2), (Portus-3)
- Find of the Week – amphora sherds from Leptis Magna (Portus-1), (Portus-2), (Portus-3)
- Scientific Finds Analyses (Portus-1), (Portus-2), (Portus-3)
- Find of the week – fineware (Portus-1), (Portus-2), (Portus-3)
Reference cited in the text:
Budden, S. (2007) Renewal and Reinvention: the role of learning strategies in the Early to Late Middle Bronze Age of the Carpathian Basin. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Southampton.
More information is contained in Appendix 1: Technology as a Social Tool’ with relevant bibliography on technology and society, in my e-thesis:
(2012) African amphorae from Portus. University of Southampton, School of Humanities, Doctoral Thesis, 864pp.
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s Lost City May Never Be Found – The Daily Beast
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Week Two
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Week Three
Week Four
Week Five
Week Six
| 6.4 | Palazzo Imperiale II – Portus Project | (Link to Comment) |
| 6.17 | No title available | (Link to Comment) |
| 6.17 | Silex – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia | (Link to Comment) |
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I provided a link to my PhD thesis early on in the course in Week One on the Find of the Week – amphora sherds from Leptis Magna step. In addition to this step I thought you might be interested to follow through from other steps to my thesis and vice versa. The “direct links” *should* take you to specific pages in the thesis, but the behaviour varies according to your device and setup. You can access the whole thesis in any case from the reference below.
I would welcome your comments on the FL platform or via this blog post.
(2012) African amphorae from Portus. University of Southampton, School of Humanities, Doctoral Thesis, 864pp.
| WEEK 3 | ||
| TOPIC | CHAPTER/PAGES | STEP |
| Roman Empire in the later second century (first run of course) | (second run of course) | 3.2 | |
| Emperor Septimius Severus and policies of the Severan emperors. | Chapter 1, pp5-6(Direct link to page 5) | |
| Olive oil traded to Portus. On the importance of the link between Portus, Leptis Magna and Septimius Severus, and between Portus and other identified commercial North African partners. | Chapter 8, pp 308-354 (Chapter 8 is very important)(Direct link to page 308) | |
| On the different Tripolitanian (Libyan) producers supplying Portus identified through fabric and petrological analysis of the amphorae from Portus | Chapter 6, pp244-248 (technical language is used)(Direct link to page 244) | |
| Political cohesion | Chapter 2, pp34-35(Direct link to page 34) | |
| WEEK 4 | ||
| TOPIC | E-THESIS CHAPTER/PAGES | MOOC STEP |
| Portus and the Roman world in the 3rd century AD (first run of course) | (second run of course) | 4.2 | |
| Chronology and nature of the excavated contexts | Chapter 5, pages 141-155 (an important section)(Direct link to page 141) | |
| Explosion of the commercial activity at Portus | Chapter 7, pages 292-295(Direct link to page 292) | |
| On the 4th and 5th centuries AD at Portus | Chapter 7, pages 295-299(Direct link to page 295) |
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Some of the learners on the course have requested more information about the types of ships in the Roman Mediterranean. The diverse ships and boats at Portus itself would have ranged from giant long-distance merchant ships, through vessels engaged in coastal trade, to small fishing boats capable of travelling only a few miles. In addition, there would have been many different types of vessel present, dedicated to the service of the port itself. Barges and lighters would have been used for moving cargoes from the ships to the quays, or on up the canals and river to Rome. Meanwhile, tugboats powered by teams of rowers provided a service pulling vessels in and out of the harbour basins and dredging vessels would have kept the harbour free from silt, allowing the largest vessels to use the port.
Vessels anchored alongside a quay are shown in reliefs and mosaics from Ostia and Portus, with a gangplank running from the bow to the shore to allow teams of stevedores to unload the cargo. For those vessels moored away from the quays in the harbour basins, everything would have to be unloaded into small vessels known as lighters, carried to the shore and then unloaded again. Both these kinds of operation would have been very time-consuming and required a lot of organisation to ensure that everything ran smoothly.
In terms of the Roman ships themselves, we know from archaeological discoveries at Portus, Ostia and elsewhere across the Mediterranean, that most of them were built in a similar way. The builders constructed the outer planking of the vessel first; each plank joined to the one above with hundreds of mortise-and-tenon joints, locked in place with small pegs. A framework to provide additional reinforcement was then added to the inside of the vessel. Although it was time-consuming to build ships and boats in this way, it resulted in very strong, durable vessel and this construction method was used in the Mediterranean for many centuries.
Roman ships built in the mortise-and-tenon tradition could reach huge sizes. The largest excavated comes from the site of Madrague de Giens in the south of France, was over 40m in length and could have carried a cargo of around 400 tons. On its last voyage in the 1st c BC it had 7-10,000 Italian wine amphorae on board, destined for southern Gaul. The average Roman ship was far smaller, perhaps around 15-20 metres and capable of carrying 75 tons of cargo. Finally, the one of the fishing boats excavated at Portus, was only a few metres in length; (see the Navis website at http://www2.rgzm.de/navis/home/frames.htm)
Although the method of construction was similar across the Roman Mediterranean, the shapes of the hulls were not. Some vessels were quite flat-bottomed so that they could work in shallow water and up and down rivers, canals and estuaries. Meanwhile, other vessels had very deep keels, shaped like a wine glass that allowed them to sail more effectively. Many vessels carried a birds head on the stern of the vessel and some ships had an underwater projection at the bow, like the bow of a modern tanker, to cut through the water more efficiently.
All of the ships of the Roman Mediterranean were powered by rowing or by sailing, as can be seen from many mosaics and carved reliefs. Remains of the sails themselves are very rare in the archaeological record, most of the known finds come from the Roman Ports on the Egyptian Red Sea coast. But the mosaics and reliefs show us that the majority of vessels were rigged with a square sail, usually a single large sail, or sometimes two square sails on two masts. Some smaller vessels, such as the tugboats and harbour boats found at Portus used a different type of sail called a sprit-sail, that was better for working in the more confined spaces of the harbour basins.
The rigging used on the Mediterranean square-sail is unique to this period in history. It consisted of many small rings, made from wood, lead or horn, that were sewn onto the face of the sail. These rings, called brail rings, guided a series of lines that could be hauled on from the deck in order to change the shape of the sail, reduce the size of it in stronger wind and to furl the sail when needed. Unlike on vessels in later periods, no crew needed to climb the rigging to trim or take in the sails.
Sailing ships in the Roman period did not need a large crew. The square-sail that was used by the majority of vessels was efficient to use and archaeological remains, along with experimental archaeology, tell us that a crew of four or five people could operate a ship with a single-mast of about 150 tons. Sailing vessels were therefore the most favoured for carrying cargo because they were much cheaper to operate. Warships were usually powered by oars which meant that they were not reliant on the wind. But their large crews were expensive to maintain and their need for food and water meant that the range of warships was limited.
The Mediterranean square-sail allowed vessels to sail at a steady speed day and night. In good weather, with a favourable wind from the side or behind, a vessel could reach average speeds of between four and six knots. If the wind was blowing in the wrong direction progress was very slow and only the most well-maintained vessels with the best crews were able to sail against the wind at an angle of no more than sixty or seventy degrees. Literary sources suggest that most sailors preferred to wait in port for better weather.
Navigation in the ancient world was based on careful observation of the environment; the sun, stars and weather conditions. By doing this, and drawing upon many centuries of learned knowledge, sailors could navigate their way comfortably around the Mediterranean. They could sail on courses that took them out of sight of land and they were able to sail through the night, finding their way by the stars. The most common piece of equipment was a lead sounding weight. This allowed the depth of the water to be established, but it also recovered a sample of the seabed and an experienced navigator could use this extra information to help maintain a course or sense when land was approaching, but still out of sight.
The strong hull construction and effective, flexible sailing rigs meant that Roman ships could sail the whole length of the Mediterranean if required. There are literary records of voyages from Alexandria to Marseilles and in the Indian Ocean, Roman ships could sail directly from Africa to India across the open sea. Because of this, the Mediterranean Sea acted as major means of travel and communication, as well as for connecting trade routes, to the land around the sea. Ships could sail straight from one place to another, or they might go from port to port along the coast, picking up new cargo and unloading old cargoes as they went.
It is estimated that in the Roman period, the Mediterranean was better connected than at any point until the 19th century. The ships, boats, method of construction and the sailing rigs used were partly responsible for making this possible, but the biggest contribution came from the maritime skills and seamanship of Roman sailors and navigators.
You might want to look back at The links to other ports.
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]]>Inscriptions from the site mention the existence of a guild of ship builders at Ostia and Portus, the corpus fabrum navalium ostiensium and the corpus fabrum navlium portuensium, indicates that commercial ships were built and repaired somewhere at or close to Portus. Indeed, if our identification of Building 5 as being involved in the construction or repair of ships of some kind proves to be correct, then it may have been here. Even though very few ships have been found at Portus, representations on reliefs from the site, such as the famous Torlonia relief of the late 2nd/early 3rd c AD, provide us with an idea, as do the representations on the mosaic floors from the Piazzale delle Corporazione at Ostia. Since the tonnage of these kinds of craft are known from elsewhere, it is possible for us to get an idea of which kind of ship or boat might have used different water spaces at the port by matching the estimated tonnage and draught of known Roman ships and boats with the depth of the basins and canals calculated from our sedimentary cores.
In addition to commercial ships, the evidence of inscriptions tells us that warships from the Imperial fleet base at Misenum (Bay of Naples) also visited the port in the course of the 2nd c AD.
You might want to look back at the sections of the course on The Great Basin of Claudius and the Portico di Claudio, The Trajanic ports and The types of cargo that were imported through Portus.
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Ceramics are a very important type of archaeological evidence at sites, with the potential to inform us about chronology and society. They come up at various points in the Archaeology of Portus course and this blog posts provides some extra information based on my research. If you want to check back (or forward!) to relevant pieces of the course I would start with the following:
- The value of ceramics (week one)
- Find of the Week – amphora sherds from Leptis Magna (week one)
- Specialisms in studying the past (week two)
- Find of the week – fineware (week five)
One of the main applications of typological studies (study of a vessel’s shape) is to provide a chronological framework for excavated archaeological contexts upon which to base our understanding and interpretation of past activities taking place at an archaeological site. Study of the fabrics, that is the fired clay with its geological inclusions, allows us to provenance the ceramic materials. Typology, fabric, and petrological analysis represent standard methodologies for the study of ceramics, allowing us to make sense of a large amount of material found on archaeological sites.
The first step in any ceramic analysis is typological classification, including study of vessel shape and its morphological characteristics. This involves for example categorizing sherds from the site based upon similarities in their profile or shape, and comparing these with existing typologies from previous studies. This allows us to identify different types of vessel.
The second step in ceramic analysis is to look at the fabrics, based on the clay and inclusions used in making the pottery. A ceramic fabric consists of the fired clay matrix and its mineral or organic inclusions. These may occur naturally, or may be intentionally added to the clay by the potters. Fabric analysis, or fabric characterization, takes into account a number of variables, such as the colour, the degree of coarseness, the type of the main inclusions occurring in the fabric, and their frequency and distribution. This is generally carried out with a lens or a binocular microscope. The main application of fabric analysis is to provenance the archaeological ceramics, allowing us to delineate areas of exploitation or workshops of production, and to distinguish between local and imported pottery at an archaeological site.
A further stage in fabric analysis is that of petrological analysis. Petrology is the study of a cross-section of a ceramic sherd under a petrological microscope. By using a petrological microscope it is possible to identify geological inclusions according to their optical properties, and rock fragments where present, which may be distinctive of geological areas. This work requires the grinding down of a ceramic sherd to obtain a completely flat ceramic layer of ideally 0.03mm thickness, which is then fixed to a glass slide.
But what are Roman amphorae, and what can this type of vessel tell us? Roman amphorae are large to very large-sized vessels used for moving agricultural foodstuffs from one province to another. They carried mainly olive oil, wine, different kinds of fish products (salsamenta), and dried fruit. Amphorae are therefore very important evidence for studying the vital link between production and consumption in antiquity, and topics related to the Roman economy.
My study at Portus focused on North African amphorae, and in particular on those manufactured in Africa Proconsularis, which fall within modern Tunisia and western Libya. North African amphorae form the bulk of all ceramic materials at Portus, emphasizing the role of this province in supplying its ceramic and agricultural products to Rome. From the end of the 2nd century AD and in the 3rd century AD, a large amount of amphorae, carrying olive oil, reached Portus from central Tunisia and above all from Tripolitania (modern Libya).
One of the main aims of the research was to tie the amphora vessels down to their workshops and areas of production with the aim of providing a more defined view of the links between the North African suppliers and Portus. Based on an understanding of the principals of typology, fabrics and petrology, and on previous academic work within this field of research, the study identified a number of important workshops that worked in commercial partnership with Portus in the late 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, such as Sullecthum (central Tunisia), Leptis Magna and Tripoli and their rural hinterlands, and in the 4th and 5th centuries AD, such as Nabeul (northern Tunisia).
Focusing in particular on Sullecthum, a coastal port-town in central Tunisia, the pottery workshops manufactured most of the Africana 1A amphorae excavated at Portus. Sullecthum fabric is a very distinctive one. It is usually fired to produce two colours; red and greyish, while it contains numerous small white specks of limestone (Fig. 1 above).
A cross section of the sherd analyzed under the petrological microscope shows that this fabric is essentially a limestone-quartz fabric (limestone are the rounded and brownish inclusions, the quartz are white and rounded). It may contain small grains of pyroxenes, or volcanic minerals (these latter are very colorful under the petrological microscope, under crossed polars) (Fig. 2).
The Africana 1A carried olive oil, underlining the importance of this type of economy, based on olive trees growing in central Tunisia, as well as the commercial export activity to Portus.
Sullecthum fabric occurs also on the Africana 2A and on the Keay 25.1, although in a smaller amount (the full profile of the aforementioned vessels can be accessed on the AHRC Southampton amphora website: http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/amphora_ahrb_2005/cat_amph.cfm). According to the current amphora literature, the Africana 2A traded fish sauce. This emphasizes the importance of a fish-based economy at the site, where fish-processing tanks have been excavated. Such produce from Sullecthum seems therefore to have been complementary to that of olive oil. The Keay 25.1 amphora is a later vessel, dating to the 4th century AD, and it is associated with wine, although other produce could be carried in this vessel.
The importance of Sullecthum to Ostia-Portus, and to Rome, is visible in comparative material from different types of archaeological evidence. At the Merchant Square in Ostia, the trading guild of Sullecthum is represented in the mosaics as one of Rome’s commercial partners (Fig. 3). A certain P. Caesellinus Felix, a citizen from Sullecthum, (from the latin civis Sullecthinus), was buried at Ostia, as recorded by a funerary inscription. He may have been involved in the trading activities taking place between Sullecthum and Portus as testified by the amphorae.
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