The Tarraconensis Paradigm. Volumes, Measures, and Formal Changes in the Late Republican and Early Imperial Amphorae of the Northeast Iberian Peninsula
This paper analyzes the development of amphora production in a specific region in the northern Mediterranean coastal corner of Hispania Citerior, ancient Layetania. The purpose is to search for the aims and reasons behind the achievement of a high standardization level as seen upon analysis ranging...
| Autores: | , , |
|---|---|
| Tipo de recurso: | capítulo de libro |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2023 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya) |
| Repositorio: | Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:recercat.cat:2072/536851 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/2072/536851 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Àmfores romanes -- Tarragona (Catalunya) Tarragona (Catalunya) -- Arqueologia 90 |
| Sumario: | This paper analyzes the development of amphora production in a specific region in the northern Mediterranean coastal corner of Hispania Citerior, ancient Layetania. The purpose is to search for the aims and reasons behind the achievement of a high standardization level as seen upon analysis ranging from the first stages of production in the late 2nd century B.C. toits decline in the late 1st century A.D. The central Catalan coastal region must be regarded as a special case study due to the current large archaeological knowledge based on the amphora epigraphy, the petrographical studies, the large number of excavated kiln sites, as well as the presence of its amphorae in their most important import places and shipwrecks. This large quantity of evidence provides the foundation for an in-depth analysis of the formal and volumetric standardization achieved by Layetanian amphora production. However, we believe our study would be unsuccessful if we were not to pay attention to the essential economic, social, and politic factors that were reflected and determined the production and standardization level of these transport vessels. These factors were closely linked to the development of the western Roman economy and were much broader than the geographical limits of central Catalonia, including not only other regions in the Iberian Peninsula but Gallia Narbonensis and Thyrrenian Italy as well. The observed standardization process of the Layetanian amphorae was not a lineal development but something that we can perceive in two relevant moments. The first took place in the central decades of the 1st century B.C. when the production of Italic or pre-Roman Iberian amphora types was gradually replaces by the first provincial amphorae. These first amphorae seem to have lacked a formal and volumetric standardization and can be regarded as transitional types that developed into the Pascual type at the beginning of the Augustan era. The second moment of change took place from late Augustan times and can be regarded as something exceptional when compared with the development of amphora production in most of the Roman provinces during early imperial times. Even if the production of Pascual 1 continued for some decades, in the workshops around the recently founded colony of Barcino a new amphora type, the so-called Dressel3-2, based once again in Italian types, started to be produced. We argue that this shift in the formal production of transport vessels in Layetania was motivated by the introduction of new owners of Italian origin, who settled in and around Barcino, and also by the mutation of the main import markets, which from now on would be placed in the central area of western Italy. We are persuaded that Layetanian amphora production and its standardization is one of the most suitable examples for understanding the inter connectedness of the Roman economy of late Republican and early imperial times. Future data will surely nuance the current State of research, but in the following pages, a general overview of the standardization process can be seen, with its causes, consequences, and general repercussions on the provincial economies. |
|---|