Le anfore del contesto della ruota idraulica di Ostia Antica: archeologia e archeometria
In: Archeologia Classica: 68, 2017
DOI: 10.1400/258248
Excavations carried out by the Superintendency of Ostia between 1998 and 2002 in the area of the railway station of Ostia Antica have brought to light a series of funerary structures, dwellings and a circular trench, the sides of which were lined with a double wall of amphorae. The remains of a wooden waterwheel were found on the bottom of the trench. We may conjecture that the structure was part of a reclamation project with amphorae used to drain the groundwater, as has been documented in other contexts around Ostia. Typological and epigraphic study was carried out on the 335 amphorae identified. The results suggest the trench was dug in the Augustan period and used up until the second century A.D. In order to determine the origin of the amphorae, mineralogical, petrographic and chemical analyses were made on 18 representative samples. The results point to three principal groups originating in the Betic, Tarraconensian and Italic regions, and suggest that most of the amphora material found is of Hispanic origin. Specifically, archaeometric analysis places the workshops where the Betic amphorae were produced in the Valle del Guadalquivir and the area around Cádiz, those of the Tarraconensian amphorae on the northern coast of Catalonia, and the Italic ones on the Latin-Campanian coast (with a few examples from the Adriatic). In addition to these areas, the analyses have identified Sicily as another area of importation.