Regional Economies: Standardization Amphorae Byzantine Medi

Archaeology has been revealed as one of the most important tools for the understanding of the way of living of our ancestors. The study of past civilizations through new discoveries and the re-evaluation of their material culture has been proven as essential for the understanding of the most basic questions relating to ancient Mediterranean civilization, such as the way people obtained revenues and developed their way of living, how they organized their social and religious acts, and how they consumed and used the commodities they produced. In other words, what were the economic, social, and cultural behaviors of our European and Mediterranean ancestors? The study of large quantities of pottery and other archaeological artifacts has proven essential for this aim. Pottery is the most common object in almost any archaeological excavation, especially in those related to the ancient Mediterranean civilizations that have constantly used ceramic items to solve almost any logistical question. Their special nature as an almost artificial stone, that under normal conditions endures very well the passing of centuries, makes the study of pottery items a privileged field for the understanding of ancient civilizations. Nevertheless pottery, as well as most of the items archaeologists find in any excavation, in the form it arrives to us is normally the result of a complex process affected by both human and natural actions. In most cases, the pottery objects we find were discarded once they were no longer useful for their owners. In the case of transport amphorae, we must not only think about their discard, but also their reuse once they no longer had any function for the transport of liquid or semi-liquid commodities. We must bear in mind that analyzing the waste of others is an import method of understanding their social status, preferences, and also rhythms of life. That is exactly what most of the authors in this book have done with precision, but the analysis is not of our contemporary neighbors or relatives, but of our Roman and Byzantine ancestors. This book is an attempt to contribute to a better understanding of some important questions, especially those related to the ancient economy, still a difficult battlefield within the scholarly community. In particular, historians and archaeologists often confront each other with different theories and interpretations. In our opinion, the study of the sturdy clay containers used for the transport of liquid or semi-liquid commodities, commonly known as transport amphorae, around the Roman and post-Roman Mediterranean can contribute to a better understanding of some of the most significant questions relating to the ancient economy and society. The study of the standardization level they achieved, that is, of the way they were consistently reproduced following certain essential particularities related to weight, capacity and size, and their comparison with other periods and regions can be of great consequence in our aim to understand why and how those commodities were consumed by the population, as well as their actual meaning (e.g. luxurious commodities/plain commodities) within those communities.

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