North African Amphorae in Roman Britain: A Re-Appraisal

Abstract

By DAVID WILLIAMS and CESAR CARRERAS INTRODUCTION A lmost two decades ago, David Peacock 1 documented for the first time on a systematic basis the presence of North African amphorae in Roman Britain. Since then, additional finds of similar material from recent excavations of Romano-British sites have greatly increased the initial number of examples listed by Peacock, bringing about a more complete picture of these imports. North African amphorae were produced in large numbers in the Roman provinces of Mauretania Tingitana, Mauretania Caesariensis, Numidia, Africa Proconsularis, and Cyrenaica (present-day Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya), covering the period from the first to the seventh centuries A.D. 2 Strictly speaking, they should not be regarded as a homogeneous group, since the term 'North African amphorae' includes a wide variety of forms that were made in widely separated production areas, had different chronologies, and may on occasions have carried different contents. 3 However, the term is nevertheless a useful one, since the majority of these amphora forms share a roughly similar range of fabrics, some of which can be difficult to allocate to a particular production zone within the above mentioned North African coastal strip without detailed analysis. 4 Unfortunately, many of these diverse North African types are only represented on British sites by small non-diagnostic sherds. A consideration of the fabrics involved is often the only means of identifying the general type represented and, possibly, the likely date range, as well as trying to give a more specific location for the origin. The present paper is an attempt to re-evaluate the role of North African amphorae in the economy of Roman Britain, on the basis of new evidence collected since Peacock's initial article. Olive-oil is generally supposed to have been the main content carried in the majority of these vessels. 5 This being the case, it will usefully provide a basis for allowing us to link these North African imports to another olive-oil carrying amphora which is

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“…Wiethold 2003;Carroll 2005: 367;Carreras 2006;Cool 2006;Ciaraldi 2007;van der Veen et al 2008;van der Veen 2008;Eckardt et al 2014: 542-544;Livarda and Orengo 2015. 3 See also Williams and Carreras 1995;van der Veen 2008;van der Veen et al 2008;Livarda 2011;Pagnoux et al 2013;Livarda and Orengo 2015;Orengo and Livarda 2016. 4 See also Sutton 2000;: 7-9, 2008Holtzman 2006;Korsmeyer and Sutton 2011.…”

The Atlantic Roman Trade During the Principate: New Evidence From the Western Façade

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