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Details of the RAC/TRAC Conference session 'Port Cities in the Roman Provinces: places and peoples.'

Conference Sessions and Abstracts - Friday 12ÌýApril 2024

6.ÌýPort Cities in the Roman Provinces: places and peoples

Michael J Curtis – University of Leicester
Lena Larsson Lovén – Göteborgs universitet
Madelaine Miller – Göteborgs universitet

In Antiquity, port settlements of different sizes were located along rivers and the Mediterranean coastlines, where the port and its connection to water(ways) was the base for the city, its economy and civic life. Port cities worked as local, regional and/or international hubs for maritime trade and cultural connections of which some have left us a rich archaeological record which mirrors aspects of urban structures, trade, economy, daily life and more. Research and investigation into provincial ports and harbours of the Roman world continues to broaden our knowledge and understanding of maritime activities, the development of trading networks and cultural influences throughout the Empire.

This panel aims to look more closely into the daily operation of provincial ports/harbours, and we especially welcome contributions on: what we can learn from port/harbour layouts and the surviving structural evidence around, and in the vicinity of the quaysides/waterfrontage; examining how goods may have been stored ready for shipment and imported goods processed within the port/harbour complexes ready for dispatching onwards to their next stage destinations; evidence of people and occupational groups involved in the work related to the harbour and maritime trade; aspects of similarities and dissimilarities between the materiality of Roman provincial port cities.

Session scheduleÌý

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ÌýMaking Provincial Roman harbours more human
Michael J Curtis – University of Leicester

This paper embraces the spirit of this conference session and seeks to open a broader discussion about the missing ‘real life’ component in harbour studies. Ancient Roman ports and harbours stand as monumental testaments to the ingenuity and engineering prowess of the times. However, amid the grandeur of these maritime hubs, which most certainly draws our attention, the opportunity to re-imagine and recreate these spaces in real time is often overlooked. Ancient Roman ports and harbours across the Empire were vibrant economic hubs, and each year increases our knowledge and understanding of how they operated and the many types of installations that existed. However, our approach to Roman Provincial harbours can, at times, be quite narrow and wanting. Frequently little, or no consideration is given to the human element, without whom the ports and harbours could not have functioned. This paper seeks to look more closely at what can be gained from taking a broader research approach, examining how seeking opportunities to delve into the everyday life and material culture of the surrounding communities can change and enhance our interpretation, helping to portray the Provincial ports and harbours in a different light.

ÌýThe local and the global: Patterns of commemoration in Roman port cities
Lynne Bennett

Port cities have always been characterised as having an ethnically diverse and mobile population connected by shared interests in trade and commerce. This is particularly true of the Roman world where the inscriptions from the Piazzale delle Corporazioni in Ostia attest to the existence of merchants from North Africa, Gaul and Sardinia. However, how does this impact how people are commemorated on tombstones? This paper will consider how Roman ports created an epigraphic profile distinct from other cities in the region where they were located. For example, by comparing epigraphic signatures, this paper will show how ports such as Narbo included formulae common in Italy but rare in the rest of Gallia Narbonensis. It will also demonstrate how epitaphs in many ports included a lower percentage of abbreviated formulae, possibly as a result of a mobile population that did not have the skills to be able to understand the message in its abbreviated form. However, although these distinctive patterns apply to most ports, Ostia developed an epigraphic signature almost identical to that of Rome rather than developing a pattern that differed from the immediate region. This could suggest that, despite having an ethnically mixed population, Rome’s influence here was stronger than that of a mobile population.

ÌýEmporium and anchorage: The case of Khavania (Crete)
Jane E. Francis – Concordia University

Khavania, a small, hilly knob on the northeast coast of Crete, is the subject of a small-scale archaeological survey under the auspices of the Canadian Institute in Greece. Fieldwork was undertaken in 2020 and 2021 when the topography and surface features were intensively surveyed, and preliminary finds were studied in 2022. This work remains in its early phase and successive fieldwork seasons are planned. Even at this early stage, the evidence from the Roman period, notably the pottery, allow us to assess this coastal site in the broader context of northeast Cretan trade. Khavania's coastline seems auspicious for a harbour and there may be now-submerged, off-shore manmade features. This site is particularly important due to the general lack of knowledge about the Roman economy and harbours in eastern Crete, and its proximity to the known urban centres of Lato pros Kamara and Olous, and not far from near the fertile Isthmis to the southern city of Hierapytna. This paper presents the case for Khavania as a harbour facility, based on an analysis of the Roman pottery, the coastal topography, and the resources of the neighbouring sites. It investigates whether ceramic remains and a topography conducive to anchorage should lead to an interpretation of a harbour.

ÌýWaterfrontage infrastructures for river navigation in Roman Pisa
Fabio Fabiani – Università di PisaÌýÌý ÌýÌýÌý ÌýÌýÌý Ìý
Stefano Genovesi – Università di Pisa
Alberto Caroti – Sapienza Università di Roma

Recent archaeological investigations related to the ‘Pisa Progetto Suburbio’ (University of Pisa) is providing a new image of the forma urbis of the Roman city, hitherto elusive due to environmental changes and the monumentality of the medieval city. The Roman age Pisa was stretched between the Arno and the Auserrivers. The latter, no longer present in the urban landscape, played a prominent role in its urban development. Within the harbour system of the city, hinged on the Portus Pisanus and other maritime ports, the waterway played an important role in redistribution trade, as testified by the well-known wrecks from the San Rossore’s site. In fact, along its entire course, traces of a widespread system of landing places, mainly dating back to the late Republican and early Imperial age, are coming on light: it is possible to recognise concrete structures for the protection of the banks, landing points for loading and unloading goods and civil navalia for the hauling and maintenance of boats. Far from being just a workplace, these structures were the place where social relationships of a wide variety of people, such as sailors, merchants, craftsmen, and the urban population itself, intertwined.

ÌýEvery island is a port: Performing Late-Republican seascapes in the Elba island
Filippo Barthélemy – Aix-Marseille UniversitéÌýÌý ÌýÌýÌý Ìý
Edoardo Vanni – Università per Stranieri di Siena

This paper aims to provide an overview of the maritime trading activities of the gens Valeria, a renowned senatorial family, who owned the villa rustica of San Marco located in the Elba island, at the end of the Republican age. Through the historical data relating to the Valerii and the archaeological data coming from the Villa San Marco, it’s been possible to reconstruct the maritime commercial activities conducted by the villa domini. The only harbor detected as of today places connected directly with the villa of San Marco and it suggests a strong economic activity in the amphora trade promoted by the Valerii, using Elba island as a commercial Mediterranean hub; this indeed, in addition to having a quayside function to protect the villa, allowed the interchange of goods produced in loco and those of the ships that anchored in the Rada of Portoferraio. Typological studies and mineralogical-petrographic analyses carried out on the amphorae related to the late-Republican stratigraphy of San Marco have enabled to identify their provenance, which testify some commercial routes between western Italy, southern Spain and France from the second half of the 1st century B.C. onwards. Moreover, the presence of stamps linked to the name of the gens Valeria on the necks of various amphorae made it possible to confirm their role in long-distance trade from the end of the late republican period and the beginning of the imperial age.

ÌýThe port and the land: exploring past mobilities and connectivities in the coasts of Roman Beatica
Maria del Carmen Moreno Escobar – Lunds universitet

Over the last decades, research focussing on the study of ancient ports is experiencing a remarkable expansion that is enhancing our understanding of their organisation and daily functioning. However, whilst these studies are developing numerous (and diverse) lines of research, ranging from the study of port appearance and urban planning to the creation and transformation of port systems, further emphasis should also be placed on their study at wider geographical scales to foster better understandings of the impact their creation, development and (also) abandonment had in transforming territories and regional systems in Antiquity. It is in this context that "Beyond ports: Movement and Connectivity in the Roman Mediterranean" (financed by The Swedish Research Council) develops, focussing on exploring the connections between ports and their regional contexts as means for a better understanding of the role of ports in the integration of regions within the Roman Empire. Relying on an integrated approach that combines geoarchaeological and archaeological data within a GISenvironment, this paper will present and discuss the theoretical and methodological approaches at the core of "Beyond Ports" and the preliminary results of their application to the case of the province of Hispania Ulterior Baetica during the Roman Empire. In doing so, this contribution seeks to highlight how the application of integrated and regional approaches may generate new perspectives and interpretations into the understanding of Roman ports and their role in enhancing the connections between ancient communities in the Mediterranean.

ÌýRoman dominance of Oceanus Britannicus and the Saxon shore – new discoveries on Romney Marsh
Kate Pendergast

It has long been established that the Romans built and maintained a naval garrison at Portus Lemanis, overlooking the Royal Military Canal (formerly the river Limen or Rother), where it meets the sea at Hythe in Kent. The garrison – known locally as Stutfall Castle – has been excavated several times since the nineteenth century, and it is established that Lemanis was one of the ports used by the Classis Britannica – the imperial Roman naval fleet that operated in British waters. Further evidence for the Roman occupation in Romney Marsh is relatively sparse and currently we have an incomplete and somewhat speculative view of how the wider area was inhabited and exploited. This paper focuses on the excavations currently underway at Smallhythe to the north and west of Portus Lemanis, where the river once encircled the Isle of Oxney and now forms the border between Kent and Sussex. The excavations, undertaken on behalf of the National Trust over three seasons (2021-3), have discovered a significant Roman presence at Smallhythe, extending the database of finds inland towards the source of the Rother in the Kent/Sussex Weald. This paper will explore the emergence of a fuller picture of the Roman presence on Romney Marsh, and its potential implications for our understanding of Roman dominance of the English Channel until the retreat of the formal Empire by the end of the fourth century AD.