Aprile 2005

Maria Teresa D'Alessio: Editoriale
  
Olof Brandt:
The AIAC web site

ISTITUTI

Massimiliano Ghilardi:
Per gli 80 anni di vita dell'Istituto Nazionale di Studi Romani

Allan Klynne:
The Swedish Institute in Rome; L'Istituto Svedese di Studi Classici a Roma

CONVEGNI

Federica Chiesa:
"Offerte dal regno vegetale e dal regno animale nella dimensione del sacro"

INCONTRI  AIAC

Eleonora Fossile:
La topografia di Aricia, Lanuvium e del Nemus Dianae tra antichità e medioevo

Sabrina Cimini:
La Valle del Sangro tra tardo-antico ed alto medioevo: note di topografia

Isabel Sànchez Ramos:
La cristianizzazione della topografia cimiteriale a Cordoba nella tarda antichità

Kristian Göransson:
The transport amphorae from Euesperides (Benghazi) Libya. Patterns of trade 400-250 BC

Tehmina Bhote:
Where did they come from? The medieval 'southern Italien' collections of the British Museum

Kristian Göransson

The transport amphorae from Euesperides (Benghazi), Libya. Patterns of trade 400-250 BC

    The ancient Greek city of Euesperides is situated in the suburbs of the modern city of Benghazi in eastern Libya. It is not known exactly when Euesperides was founded or by whom, but the earliest finds of fine pottery from the current excavations date back to the last quarter of the 7th and early 6th centuries BC. The city was abandoned around 250 BC, and  the inhabitants were settled in a new city closer to the coast, Berenice.

    The current excavation project was initiated in 1999 and is organised jointly by the Society for Libyan Studies, London and the Department of Antiquities of Libya (For details see Wilson et al. 2004, the latest preliminary report with further references), and directed by Paul Bennett, Andrew Wilson and Ahmed Buzaian.  The excavations of the ancient settlement have yielded a substantial amount of pottery from Hellenistic and late Classical houses and streets. With the exception of surface finds, the pottery comes from excavated, mainly well-stratified deposits.

    The study of the amphorae is aimed at investigating Euesperides’ involvement in what appears to have been a set of complex interregional trading networks, both to the East and to the West. The shipping contacts between Euesperides and the rest of the Mediterranean were clearly undertaken on a large scale to provide the city with wine, oil and fish products. Euesperides imported amphora-borne commodities from various parts of the Mediterranean, for example from Corinth, Mende, Thasos, Kos, Magna Graecia and Sicily, and not least from the Punic Western Mediterranean. There is also evidence of local production of amphorae in clays which are similar to locally produced coarse wares and local fine pottery. Petrographic analysis is done on the various fabrics and a full quantification of the stratified sherds is undertaken.

    The most common amphorae found at Euesperides are the so-called Corinthian B amphorae, which appear to have been made in the Corinthian dependency Corcyra. Corinthian pottery also constitutes the largest group of imported coarse wares found at the site. These facts suggest that Corinth played an important role for the trade with Cyrenaica in the late 4th and early 3rd centuries BC. We also see Punic amphorae in levels from the 5th to the 3rd centuries BC, indicating a well established trade with the Punic cities in the West. In North Africa Corinthian B amphorae have been found in in the commercial port at Carthage (Wolff 1986), and at variuos Tripolitanian sites (Bisi 1969-70, Figs 7, 11, and 18; De Miro & Fiorentini 1977, 17-18 (Figs. 14-15), and 25 (Fig. 28). In the case of Carthage, Syracuse has been suggested as a possible entrepôt for the distribution of Corinthian products to Carthage. At Euesperides, I would argue that the Corinthian amphorae came more or less directly from Corinth, since there are relatively few Sicilian sherds in the total ceramic assemblage. Given the presence of Punic amphorae at Euesperides I would suggest that Euesperides, with its good location between East and West, might have served as an entrepôt in the long-distance trade between the Aegean east and the Punic areas in the western parts of North Africa.

    The study of the other classes of pottery reveal that around 90% of the finewares and 35% of the coarse wares at Euesperides were imported. This raises some interesting questions about the nature of Greek trade in the late Classical and early Hellenistic periods. Do we expect a city on the North African coast to rely so heavily on imports? If Euesperides was an entrepôt in the Mediterranaean trade, did it also export Cyrenaican products? If so, what kind of products? The Cyrenaican plant silphium may be one answer. Silphium, which grew wildly on the slopes of the Green Mountain and on the pre-desert steppe to the south of Euesperides, was exported from the early 6th c. BC until it became extinct in the 1st c. AD. Euesperides probably provided a good harbour for the shipping of silphium. Purple-dyed wool is another product which was exported from Euesperides, where an area with large-scale processing of Murex shells also has been excavated. However, the principal export of Cyrenaica at all times was grain, for which we of course have no archaeological record. Herodotus (4.198-199) informs us of this export, and an inscription mentions that between 330-326 BC Cyrene supplied 43 Greek cities during a famine (SEG 9.2).

    It is hoped that the study of the amphorae from Euesperides, taking account of forms and fabrics with quantification of all stratified sherds, will contribute to our understanding of the patterns of Mediterranean trade in this period.

Bibliography:

A. M. Bisi 1969-70, ’Scoperta di due tombe puniche a Mellita (Sabratha),’ Libya Antiqua 6-7, 189-228.

E. De Miro & G. Fiorentini 1977, ‘Leptis Magna. La necropoli greco-punica sotto il teatro,’ Quaderni di Archeologia della Libia 9, 5-76.

A. Wilson et al. 2004, ‘Euesperides (Benghazi): preliminary report on the spring 2004 season,’ Libyan Studies 35, 149-190.

S. Wolff 1986, ‘Carthage and the Mediterranean: Imported amphoras from the Punic commercial harbor,’ in Carthage 9 (Cahiers des études anciennes 19), 134-153.