The Millstones of Ancient Pompei: A petro-archaeometric study

Mediterranean trade of the most widespread Roman volcanic millstones from Italy and petrochemical markers of their raw materials

“…The data confirmed Peacock's suggestion and revealed the local use of this rock for some oval saddle-querns already in the ninth century BC. Later on, several petro-archaeometric works (Renzulli et al, 2002a;Buffone et al, 2003;Santi et al, 2004;Antonelli et al, 2005) showed unequivocally that the leucite phonolite quarried near Orvieto is the most widely used lava for manufacturing millstones in the Roman period. It was also inferred (Antonelli et al, 2001) that at ca 10 km ESE of the Orvieto quarries, at the confluence of the Tiber and Paglia Rivers, the fluvial port of Pagliano was the main collecting point for the millstone trade (they were probably shipped as ballast with wheat loads) along the River Tiber.…”

“…Rotary millstones hourglass-shaped are also known as Pompeianstyle millstones after the site where they occur so frequently and were first discovered (i.e. Pompeii-Naples; Peacock, 1989;Buffone et al, 2003). Other famous Italian archaeological sites where well-preserved examples have been discovered include Ostia Antica (Rome) and Aquileia (Udine).…”

“…Fortunately, seeing that volcanic complexes occur in few regions of the Mediterranean basin, volcanic rocks exploited for millstones may be very important markers for reconstruction of ancient commercial and communication routes. Old and recent works (Peacock, 1980(Peacock, , 1986(Peacock, , 1989Ferla et al, 1984;WilliamsThorpe, 1988;Williams-Thorpe and Thorpe, 1989, 1990, 1993Lorenzoni et al, 1996Lorenzoni et al, , 2000aOliva et al, 1999;Antonelli et al, 2000Antonelli et al, , 2001Antonelli et al, , 2004Antonelli et al, , 2005Renzulli et al, 2002a;Santi et al, 2004;Buffone et al, 2003) have combined to establish a useful petrographic, geochemical and historical database on the source areas for the grinding tools used in Mediterranean countries from the Neolithic to the Roman periods.…”

Roman lava quarries in the Eifel region (Germany): geochemical data for millstone provenance studies

“…The few petrological analyses of millstones with supposed Eifel origin were made on early medieval to medieval finds (Hö rmann and Richter, 1983;Kars, 1980). Previous archaeometrical research on Roman millstones is mainly confined to the Mediterranean (Antonelli et al, 2003;Buffone et al, 2003;Peacock, 1980Peacock, , 1986Renzulli et al, 2002;Volterra and Hancock, 1994;Williams-Thorpe, 1988;Williams-Thorpe and Thorpe, 1989, 1990, 1993; only one study presents the provenance analyses of three donkey-mills in Roman Britain (Williams-Thorpe and Thorpe, 1988). A detailed map of Roman millstone trading areas and routes in Central Europe based on mineralogical-geochemical provenance analyses, such as those which exist for the Mediterranean thanks to the detailed work by Williams-Thorpe and Thorpe (see above), is completely lacking.…”

Querns and mills during Roman times at the northern frontier of the Roman Empire (Belgium, Northern France, Southern Netherlands, Western Germany): Unraveling geological and geographical provenances, a multidisciplinary research project

“…Archaeometrical research on Roman millstones is mainly confined to the Mediterranean (we cite some examples after Gluhak & Hofmeister (2009) Antonelli et al 2001, Renzulli et al 2002Buffone et al 2003). Thanks to the recent detailed analytical geochemical-statistical methodology developed by Gluhak (2010) it is possible to link Roman querns and millstones made of volcanic rocks to particular extraction sites, even to an individual quarry or lava flow.…”