The UseLife of Dolia
Most dolia were probably used in or around either an agricultural compound or a horrea storehouse . Two or three rows of dolia were also sometimes positioned along the keel of a merchant ship, apparently cemented in place to prevent their shifting, functioning as fixed receptacles for the transport of wine Tchernia 1986 138-40 Aubert 1994 260-61 . As has been seen, the pricing evidence indicates that their acquisition represented a very substantial investment of funds, and, given their great...
Textual Evidence
The fifth and final form of evidence for the reuse of amphorae as packaging containers is textual evidence. This consists of two inscriptions from Rome that suggests that amphorae were regularly reused in west central Italy for the packaging of wine at two different points during the imperial period and a passage from Pliny the Elder that may refer to the reuse of oil amphorae for the packaging of cabbages. The first of the two epigraphical texts is an epitaph probably dating to the period ca....
Reuse as a UrinalUrine Container
It is widely assumed by scholars that the Romans used closed ceramic vessels of various kinds as urinals, with the urine collected in these turned over to fullers, who employed it as a solvent in various dyeing and laundering operations Callender 1965 30-34 Robinson 1993 121 2 Adam 1994 325 Wilson 2001 275 van der Werff 2003 111 , and there is a modest amount of literary and archaeological evidence that amphorae were sometimes employed for this purpose. In the realm of literary evidence, there...
Reuse as a Funnel
It seems likely that amphora tops detached at the level of the upper wall or shoulder and with the handles removed and or amphora bottoms from classes that terminated in something other than a solid spike with holes drilled or punched through their bases were regularly employed as funnels. Although examples of both kinds of items are regularly recovered in archaeological contexts compatible with their use as funnels, it remains impossible to demonstrate that they were, in fact, employed for...
The Resurfacing of Dolia
Dolia employed for the storage ofwine were normally coated with a lining of pitch.1 Geoponica 6.4 recommends that newly manufactured pithoi should be pitched immediately upon removal from the kiln, while advising that old i.e., used examples should receive this treatment at the time of the rising of the Dog Star varyingly indicated in this work as occurring July 20 and July 24 , noting that whereas some people elected to renew these vessels' pitch linings every year, others did so only every...
The Economic Value of Roman Pottery
The economic value of Roman ceramic vessels presumably played a significant role in determining the ways in which they were subjected to certain of the practices here under consideration. Specifically, Romans were presumably more readily disposed to undertake maintenance operations in order to enable a pot to continue to serve its prime-use application or to employ it for some reuse application when it was a vessel of relatively great economic value. Conversely, they were presumably more...
General Considerations
From the second century B.c. onward the inhabitants of the Roman world made widespread use of amphorae for the packaging of foodstuffs. The regular consumption of the foodstuffs packaged in these containers meant that in many places commercial establishments, residential groups, military units, etc. found themselves in possession of considerable numbers of empty amphorae that they were obliged to dispose of in one way or another, either through reuse, recycling, or discard. Various forms of...
Reuse as an Element in a Drain
Amphorae with their bottoms removed, amphorae with their tops and bottoms removed, and amphora tops were occasionally employed as elements in the construction of both vertical and sloping drains.47 At Pompeii, for example, it appears to have been a regular practice to employ modified amphorae for the construction of vertical downpipes that served to transfer rain water and or bodily waste from the upper part of a building down to ground level.48 A good example comes from the house at Regio 1,...
Reuse as a Block or Beam
Amphorae were on some occasions employed as blocks or beams in the construction of structures of various kinds. The several classes of small- and figure 6.17. Wellhead constructed with Keay 26 amphorae in Semita dei Cippi at Ostia. Left general view. Right detail of corner, showing exposed mouths of amphorae. Photos JTP. figure 6.17. Wellhead constructed with Keay 26 amphorae in Semita dei Cippi at Ostia. Left general view. Right detail of corner, showing exposed mouths of amphorae. Photos JTP....
Reuse as a Storage Container
The evidence suggests that both unmodified amphorae and amphorae with their tops removed were regularly employed in many parts of the Roman world for the storage of a wide array of foodstuffs and several nonfood substances, including metal hardware, construction materials, various industrial agents, and coins. It should be emphasized, however, that in many cases the evidence that can be adduced to document the reuse of amphorae as storage containers remains to some extent ambiguous. Thus, in...
Manufacture
As defined in Chapter 1, manufacture is the fabrication of a vessel from one or more raw materials. There were several more or less distinct modes for the manufacture of pottery in the Roman world, ranging from individual potters working on a part-time basis within the context of rural households turning out small amounts of cookwares and utilitarian wares both for domestic consumption and for sale on the market, to small urban, suburban, and rural workshops staffed by a few full-time craftsmen...
Packaging Facilities
Given the evidence provided by shipwrecks such as Grado 1 and San Rossore B, it should be anticipated that it would be possible to identify facilities for the packaging of fish products, fruit, etc. that employed used amphorae in connection with their operations. To date, evidence of this kind is known almost exclusively from Pompeii, where it has been possible to identify three or possibly four such facilities. The value of the evidence provided by these four establishments is, unfortunately,...
Amphorae from Shipwreck Sites
Two forms of evidence either demonstrate or suggest that an amphora recovered from a shipwreck site was being reused as a packaging container the presence inside the amphora of the remains of an irregular content, and the presence of damage or wear indicative of one or more previous episodes of use. In addition, a high level of heterogeneity among a group of amphorae recovered at a shipwreck site in form and or fabric may point to the reuse of some or all of the vessels in question as packaging...
Reuse as an Amphora Stopper or Removable Lid Stopper
There is a considerable amount of archaeological evidence that amphora sherds reworked into a disk shape were regularly employed as amphora stoppers.18 This involved setting the reworked sherd into the mouth of the container and then covering it with lime plaster, gypsum, clay, or some other substance that would then set, sealing the opening and holding the stopper in place. Stoppers manufactured in this way were perhaps known in Latin as obturamenta singular obturamentum .19 Unreworked amphora...
Figures
i. i Flow diagram representing general artifact life cycle. page 7 1.2 Flow diagram representing the life cycle of Roman pottery. 9 2.1 Representative dolium. 21 2.2 Representative amphorae. Top Dressel 2-4 amphora. Bottom left Dressel 20 amphora. Bottom right Late Roman 5 amphora. 22 2.3 Representative lamps. 23 2.4 Representative cookware vessels. Left Palestinian Cookware cookpot. Right Campanian Cookware casserole. 24 2.5 Representative utilitarian ware vessel. Mortarium with 2.6...
Reuse as a Basin
Logical considerations suggest that various amphora parts, including amphora bottoms particularly from classes having a rounded, flat, or ring-footed base , amphora halves, and large amphora sherds, were regularly employed in a more or less casual manner as basins in connection with a variety of domestic, craft industrial, and agricultural activities throughout the Roman world. This assumption receives support from a modest amount of literary, representational, and archaeological evidence. In...
Amphorae
In contrast with dolia, there is considerable direct evidence regarding the use-life of Roman amphorae. Interestingly, the Roman jurists, when considering legal issues connected with legacy, uniformly regarded wine amphorae as incidental packaging rather than as containers intended for ongoing use. Proculus, a jurist active during the first half of the first century, furnishes a clear articulation of this view, contrasting the status of amphorae with that of dolia Digesta 33.6.15 Proculus libro...
Tituli Picti
In rare instances Roman amphorae bear multiple tituli picti that indicate in a clear and unambiguous fashion that they were filled on more than one occasion. Although in some cases it seems possible that both texts served as packaging labels, and thus demonstrate that the vessel on which they appear was reused as a packaging container, in other cases it cannot be excluded that one or both were storage labels that represent either the vessel s prime use or reuse as a storage container. Somewhat...
The Repair of Dolia
The repair of dolia often involved a combination of both filling and bracing operations, and for this reason these two forms ofrepair are here considered together. There are three passages in the Roman literary sources concerning the repair of dolia. The most informative of these is Cato De agri cultura 39.1 Dolia plumbo vincito vel materie quernea vere sicca alligato. Si bene sarseris aut bene allegaveris et in rimas medicamentum indideris beneque picaveris, quodvis dolium vinarium facere...