Towards a definition of early medieval pottery: amphorae and other vessels in the northern Adriatic between the 7<sup>th</sup> and the 8<sup>th</sup> centuries

Negrelli, Claudio

doi:10.1484/m.scisam-eb.1.101100

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…If we assume that plant ash glass was also re-melted during the period while the furnace was active, the presence of plant ash glass together with mixing practices in Comacchio as well as in other Northern Italian archaeological contexts (Verità et al 2002;Uboldi and Verità 2003) represents an important marker for trade with the Middle East, since it was occurring in parallel with its reintroduction in its primary production areas (Henderson et al 2004). The trading parallel with eighth century globular amphorae of Aegean production found at Villaggio San Francesco (Negrelli 2012) also ties in well within the same narrative: Comacchio was not only was a place for receiving and redistributing long-distance goods (Gelichi 2017) such as oil, wine, and spices but it might have become a crucial nodal point to import fresh glass directly from the primary production sites in the Levant such as Bari was at the time in southern Italy. Based on the circulation of compositions in Comacchio (Fig.…”

Section: The Comacchio Workhop: Recycling or Import Of Fresh Glass?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The role of Comacchio as a key Northern Italian trading centre is clearly stated in the Liutprand capitulary (Montanari 1986), an eighth century port tax that offers indirect evidence of the type of goods that were available at the site at the time (Gelichi 2017): in addition to local goods, the people of Comacchio had access also to nonlocal products (such as oil and garum), potentially even some of oriental origin (such as pepper). Ceramics give indirect evidence for trade from southern Italy and the eastern Mediterranean to Comacchio: a flat-bottomed unglazed ware of local production specifically made for river transportation (Negrelli 2012) is almost exclusively associated with globular amphorae in deposits from the eighth and part of the ninth century in Comacchio (Gelichi 2017).…”

Section: Archaeological Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Seventh to eleventh century CE glass from Northern Italy: between continuity and innovation

Bertini

Henderson

Chenery

2020

Archaeol Anthropol Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Previous analytical studies show that most of Northern Italian glass has been heavily recycled and that mixing of natron and plant ash glass was occurring (Verità and Toninato 1990; Verità et al. 2002; Uboldi and Verità 2003; Andreescu-Treadgold and Henderson 2006; Silvestri and Marcante 2011). The re-use of "old Roman glass" has been interpreted as stagnation in glass trade from the primary production areas. However, the reintroduction of plant ash glass on sites such as Torcello, Nogara, and in Lombardy at the same time as it was reintroduced in the Levant, strongly indicates long-distance contacts with the Levant at least from the eighth century CE. This paper addresses the key issue of recycling by focusing on the compositional nature of glass traded and reworked in Northern Italy after the seventh century CE set in a broad Mediterranean context by analysing major, minor, and trace elements in eighty-nine glass samples (seventh to the eleventh century AD) from the glass workshop of Piazza XX Settembre, Comacchio. Five major previously proposed compositional groups of glass have been identified from Comacchio (Levantine Apollonia and Jalame types, HIMT, Foy-2, and plant ash glass). The impact of recycling and mixing practices in Comacchio glass is also discussed with the help of known recycling markers and selected ratios (major and trace elements). The mixing between Levantine, HIMT, and plant ash glass is highlighted and end-members of potential natron to natron mixing compositional groups have been identified. The compositional nature of plant ash glass from Northern Italy is discussed in light of their trace element content and production areas.

show abstract

Section: The Comacchio Workhop: Recycling or Import Of Fresh Glass?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Archaeological Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seventh to eleventh century CE glass from Northern Italy: between continuity and innovation

Bertini

Henderson

Chenery

2020

Archaeol Anthropol Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…123 Ceramic evidence (in particular globular amphorae) points to good degree of local production as paired with import for Comacchio soon became a point of reference for the lagoon itineraries and for the fluvial trade routes which linked the mainland to the sea. 124 As built on a set of mounds surrounded by canals and marshes it eventually developed (at least partially) urban functions framed by a vital economy based upon trade relationship between the western and Byzantine worlds; in fact, its landscape and fabric remind us of the so-called north European emporia. 125 Indeed, although magistri militum are documented in the settlement, its political ruling class was generically described as habitatores in a diplomatic treaty with the Lombards dated to 740.…”

Section: Conclusion (Or Best Of An Island Is When You Get There You mentioning

confidence: 99%

“No Island is an Island”: The Byzantine Mediterranean in The Early Middle Ages (600s-850s)

Zavagno¹

2020

legends

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Large islands of the western and eastern Byzantine Mediterranean are often caught in a historiographical vacuum because they are regarded as isolated and marginal places at the peripheries of Constantinopolitan empire. In fact, although literary and sources dismiss them simply as places of exile or distant military outposts along maritime frontiers, archaeology and material culture have recently shed light on the role they played as "spaces of connectivity". This is due not only to their strategic locations along the commercial shipping routes crisscrossing the Mediterranean but also because islands often presented peculiar adaptive administrative strategies molded by the military and political exigencies of the hour. In fact, this paper will argue that archaeology and material evidence (like coins, lead-seals and above all ceramics) as paired with the rather scarce literary and documentary sources give us enough evidence pointing to a certain degree of economic prosperity on the abovementioned islands during the period under scrutiny as they continued to play an important role in the political, fiscal, administrative and religious structures of the Byzantine empire. Indeed, this paper will also try to show that a resilient insular economy paired with the continuity on local production of artefacts entailed by the persistence of levels of demand on the part of the local secular and religious elites and regular if not frequent regional and sub-regional contacts with other areas of the Mediterranean (Carolingian or Muslim) as well as remaining part and parcel of the a Byzantine political, sociocultural and economic "coastal" koiné.

show abstract

“…Globular amphorae point to what Vroom describes as an intra-regional long-distance or cabotage movement […] as well as an active interregional exchange between shipping zones (with overlapping networks of production and distribution) 64 . Easy to handle during loading and unloading, often in simply equipped harbors (like the wooden docks of Comacchio), globular amphorae were manufactured between the seventh and the tenth century across the territories of the koine (with different types, styles, and morphology) and circulated extensively within the Byzantine exchange network 65 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“The Navigators”. Mediterranean Cities and Urban Spaces in the Passage from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (ca. 600 – ca. 850 CE)

Zavagno

2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The aim of the paper is to reassess urban trajectories in the Mediterranean during the passage from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages. This will be done by focusing on the sites of Amorium, Gortyn, Eleutherna, and Comacchio, places which transcend both the terrestrial and maritime, and the political and military frontiers of the Byzantine empire and the Umayyad Caliphate. Archaeology and material culture will be used – in a comparative perspective – to dissect urban bodies in terms of use of space and function of spatial relationship. This is in order to document the construction of urban models, structures, and infrastructures, which, although often stemming from diverse centralized political and administrative policies, nevertheless accommodated common, cross-cultural developments, including the creation of commercial and artisanal facilities, construction or restoration of religious buildings as foci of settlement, and resilience of local elites as a catalyst of patronage and levels of demand. Particular attention will be given to the role of public spaces as the frame of reference. Indeed, such spaces will be used to show how artistic and architectural displays operated, cultural assumptions could be (re-) discussed, and different types of buildings coexisted. In this respect, the paper will also explore the continuous importance of civic infrastructures and religious buildings as pillars of a yet coherent urban fabric, representatives of the power and wealth of local city-oriented elites, and conveyors of political, artistic, and spatial symbolism, as mutually recognized and experienced by the communities frequenting seventh-to-ninth century eastern Mediterranean urban spaces.

show abstract

Towards a definition of early medieval pottery: amphorae and other vessels in the northern Adriatic between the 7^th and the 8^th centuries

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Seventh to eleventh century CE glass from Northern Italy: between continuity and innovation

Seventh to eleventh century CE glass from Northern Italy: between continuity and innovation

“No Island is an Island”: The Byzantine Mediterranean in The Early Middle Ages (600s-850s)

“The Navigators”. Mediterranean Cities and Urban Spaces in the Passage from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (ca. 600 – ca. 850 CE)

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Towards a definition of early medieval pottery: amphorae and other vessels in the northern Adriatic between the 7th and the 8th centuries

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Seventh to eleventh century CE glass from Northern Italy: between continuity and innovation

Seventh to eleventh century CE glass from Northern Italy: between continuity and innovation

“No Island is an Island”: The Byzantine Mediterranean in The Early Middle Ages (600s-850s)

“The Navigators”. Mediterranean Cities and Urban Spaces in the Passage from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (ca. 600 – ca. 850 CE)

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Towards a definition of early medieval pottery: amphorae and other vessels in the northern Adriatic between the 7^th and the 8^th centuries