IRCW 2

Iate Roman Coarse Wares.

Cooking Wares and Amphorae
in the Mediterranean
Archaeology and Archaeometry
BAR International Series 1662 (I)
2007
Michel BoniIay
Jean-Christophe Treglia
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LRCW 2. Late Roman Coarse Wares, Cooking Wares and Amphorae in the Mediterranean :
Archaeology and archaeometry



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POTS AND BOUNDARIES. ON CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC AREAS
BETWEEN LATE ANTIQUITY AND THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES


PAUL ARTHUR


Universit di Lecce, Dipartimento di Beni Culturali, Via D. Birago, 64, 73100 Lecce, Italy
(paul.arthur@unile.it)


The present contribution does not claim to resolve problems in the recognition of the significance of late Roman and
early Medieval cooking wares, but it hopes to draw attention to certain factors that may have some importance in their
interpretation. In particular, it hopes to show that comparison between cooking ware types and forms and data
accruing from the analysis of other classes of archaeological data (faunal, botanical, etc.), may indicate some fruitful
lines of enquiry. In particular, distributions of cooking wares may shed light on cultural or economic areas that are
apparently defined more by environmental factors (and culinary tradition) than by political or administrative
boundaries.


KEYWORDS: LATE ROMAN AND EARLY MEDIEVAL COOKING WARES, CULTURAL OR ECONOMIC
AREAS, ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS, ADMINISTRATIVE BOUNDARIES.


For quite some time now, research has shown that
ceramics, long used as indicators for ancient commerce,
either directly, through transport containers such as
amphorae, or indirectly, through the distribution of pots
that rode piggy-back as secondary cargoes (e.g.
Reynolds 1995), have much more information to offer.
Particularly for late antiquity and early Byzantine times,
studies of ceramic distributions by John Hayes, and later,
particularly in Italy, by scholars such as Clementina
Panella, Enrico Zanini and Lidia Paroli, have shown how
certain vessels appear to be linked not only to Byzantine
trade, but also to politics of supply. For instance,
commercial amphorae and African Red Slip Ware, after
the Lombard invasion of Italy, appear to represent
directional trade that favoured Byzantine possessions in
the peninsula, often to the exclusion of areas held by the
Lombards (Zanini 1998, 320-332). In such cases, we
appear to be witnessing the movement of products from
specific production areas to specific consumption areas
under some form of controlled directive. Other areas were
excluded.

A slightly different case, somewhat later chronologically
than the time frame set by this conference, is made by the
distribution of lead glazed chafing dishes that began in
the eighth century (Fig. 1). Unlike the amphorae and fine
table wares that I have just mentioned, chafing dishes
were made over a wide area of the central and eastern
Mediterranean and, instead of representing directional
trade, appear to illustrate the distribution of a rather
specific culinary custom. The particular function of
chafing dishes in the early Middle Ages, though still not
entirely clear, appears to be highly Byzantine in
character. Indeed, their distribution is mainly limited to
areas of direct Byzantine political domination or to areas
that can usually be identified as forming part of a larger
Byzantine cultural commonwealth, with strong political
and economic ties to Constantinople. Thus, independent
city-states such as Rome, Naples and, later, Chersonesos
in the Crimea, all used chafing dishes, which helps to
distinguish them as being part of a larger Byzantine
cultural koin, even on a culinary level. What culinary
practices supported and encouraged the use of chafing
dishes is still somewhat of an enigma. Nonetheless,
whilst the specific culinary practice involved was clearly
the object of diffusion throughout much of the Byzantine
world, we might presume, given the quantity of chafing
dishes that are being found from Italy to central Asia
Minor, that they served areas with rather similarly
available food resources. The link between ceramic types
and food resources and the areas and boundaries that they
define is the theme that I will explore in this paper.

Research by archaeozoologists such as Sbastien Lepetz
and Tony King has shown that in Roman Imperial times
the empire appears to have been divided into three
principal faunal areas, dominated respectively by cattle,
by pigs and by sheep and goats. If we examine their work
drawn on a map (Fig. 2), we might identify northern
Europe as being principally cattle-dominated, the
northern Mediterranean, including Italy, as pig-
dominated, and North Africa and the East as sheep/goat-
dominated. This is, of course, very much a general
scheme, with substantial variations between town and
country, between differing local environments, and with
changes in time, but may serve as a basis for further
discussion.
LRCW 2. Late Roman Coarse Wares, Cooking Wares and Amphorae in the Mediterranean: Archaeology and Archaeometry
15

These domesticated animals clearly contributed to the
diet in the ancient Roman world with their meat, as well
as with fats, milk and cheese. Other animals also
supplemented the diet, including fish, though usually to a
lesser extent than the principal domesticates. Alongside
the faunal contribution, there were many comestible
crops that served as significant food resources. Olives,
providing oil, and hard wheat or triticum durum, which is
less tolerant of cold conditions than bread wheat or
triticum aestivum or compactum, dominated much of the
Mediterranean (Spurr 1986, 15). In North Africa, today,
triticum durum is used for couscous, whilst in Italy it is
the wheat typical of pasta. The less drought-resistant
bread wheat dominated the north, including northern
Italy, instead. Unlike the Mediterranean, in the place of
olive oil, northern Europe made a greater use of animal
fats. Diet, in both northern and central Europe and the
Mediterranean, was, of course, supplemented with other
cereals (emmer, barley, millet and even oats), with a
range of fruits and vegetables, and with various legumes.

Though this picture of available culinary resources is
simplistic almost to the extreme, and clearly an important
study area, I believe it is inconceivable that they did not
have a direct effect on the form and type of cooking
vessels. If there were any substantial changes in the
former, they should somehow be reflected in the latter. It
is with this premise that I should like to further explore
changing food resources and ceramics throughout the
Mediterranean and Europe in the hope of discerning a
pattern.

We may start in Rome and Naples, central to the ancient
Roman Empire, where I believe changes in both the
faunal record and the ceramic record may be directly
linked.

For Roman Imperial times, archaeological contexts in the
Urbs often show pig bones as representing the majority
of faunal remains, sometimes reaching over 70%, in
contrast to earlier times (Fig. 3), whilst in Naples they
reach as high as 60%. One of the principal functions of
the pig is considered to be that of producing meat at the
fastest rate possible being a low-production-cost animal
(Harris 1985; De Grossi Mazzorin 2001). One may
conclude that the high presence of pig remains in both
Rome and Naples is a reflection of the considerable
demands of the substantial urban populations. Indeed, it
would seem that pigs were specifically raised to satisfy
the demand, as has been argued by scholars such as
Graeme Barker, Samuel Barnish and David Whitehouse,
on the basis of faunal and historical evidence
(Whitehouse, Barker, Reece and Reese 1982, 81-91;
Whitehouse 1983; Steele 1983; Barnish 1987).

However, according to the faunal sequences available for
both towns, the sheep/goat contribution to the diet
became more important during the early Middle Ages.
This seems to be particularly clear in Naples, where the
pig was surpassed by sheep/goat through the fifth and
sixth centuries (Fig. 4). Sheep/goat provide a wider range
of products with respect to pig, including milk, cheese
and wool. Their predominance between late antiquity and
the early Middle Ages may indicate the return of much
previously cultivated land to pasture, declining
population levels and ruralisation of the urban societies
and environment.

Roughly contemporary changes appear to be discernible
in the ceramic record during the period of transition from
a pig dominated to a sheep/goat dominated diet in Rome
and Naples. Archaeological contexts in both towns
indicate a change in cooking vessels through the fifth and
sixth centuries AD, with an increasing use of open as
opposed to closed forms. These open forms are generally
casseroles, by which I intend cooking vessels where the
diameter of the mouth is generally larger than that of the
height (Fig. 5). These may be juxtaposed to cooking pots,
where the reverse is true, and which are often defined as
closed cooking vessels (Fig. 6). Though rather
infrequently, open forms can also include the almost flat
cooking vessel, known in Italian as a tegame, deriving
from the Greek tganon (on the ancient Greek cooking
forms and their functions see Bats 1988). Some late
antique casseroles may recall the ancient Greek lopas
which, as Michel Bats has shown, seems to have been
used particularly for fish, a delicate meat, to be cooked
over a short period of time. Some late antique casseroles
are quite likely to have been used for fish, though were,
perhaps, not so exclusive in function as the Greek lopas
appears to have been. Others, indeed, are more similar to
the Moroccan-Tunisian tagine, and all appear to have
been used with lids, many, indeed, bearing rims with
specific lid-seatings As John Dore noted (1989, 88): this
explicit provision for lids is a fundamental cultural
marker which differentiates Roman pottery assemblages
of the Mediterranean seaboard from, in particular, those
of Britain.

The change in cooking vessel types, from predominantly
closed to predominantly open forms, is particularly
evident in Naples through a particular abundance of lug-
handled casseroles from around the mid fifth century. In
the archaeological record these are not usually
accompanied by lids, which may have been of wood.
Such casseroles are rarer in Rome, where continuity with
past traditions of ceramic forms seems somewhat
stronger, though even the capital appears to witness a
dominance of casseroles by the mid fifth century (see, for
instance, Sagu and Coletti 2004, 263).

The rather particular lug-handled casseroles (Fig. 7) first
achieved archaeological fame through David Peacocks
identification of a substantial production of Roman
imperial date on the island of Pantelleria (Peacock 1982).
However, similar vessels were present in North Africa,
and also made their appearance at Capua and at Ordona
in the mid fifth century, as well as at Cosa, Ventimiglia,
P. Arthur
16

Toulon, in Sardinia, in Sicily, on Malta, and in Spain in
Visigothic and later times (Capua: Arthur and King 1987;
Ordona: Turchiano 2000, 368; Sardinia: Villedieu 1984;
Spain: Guttirez Lloret 1992, along with round-bodied
cooking-pots). The Ligurian examples are rare and appear
in an area dominated by round-bodied cooking pots
(Varaldo 2004, 135-137).

Though, in peninsular Italy, lug-handled casseroles
generally disappear by the seventh century, the form,
often hand-made, continues much later in other parts of
the Mediterranean such as in Sicily, in Spain, in the
Levant, and in North Africa. In parts of Sicily, though
with a change in form, lug-handled casseroles continue
into the thirteenth century (Ardizzone 2004, 380 and 382,
fig. 4.3; also Arcifa 2004, 390-394). It is perhaps little
coincidence that evidence for their continuity may be
found in areas with dominant or, at least, substantial Arab
populations, as in the Umayyad Levant.

Indeed, casseroles, whether lug-handled or not, may be
functional to, and thus represent, a particularly southern
Mediterranean diet. Casseroles were common in North
Africa through Roman Imperial times, as can be seen by
African Red Slip forms Hayes 23 and 197, and by the
numerous local and imported examples found in
excavations at Carthage. These include the hand-made
examples, many with lug-handles, and often coming from
Pantelleria, already appearing before 425 at Carthage, and
continuing well into the seventh century (Fulford and
Peacock 1984, 156-189). Thus, it is noteworthy that the
Carthage assemblage of cooking wares relies heavily on
relatively open forms from quite early times (what I here
term casseroles, but which include the bowls of Fulford
and Peacocks typology, as well as what in Italian are
known as tegami). Conversely, globular cooking pots
were a rare product of late antique North Africa which, as
Michel Bonifay remarks (2004 239-242, culinaire type
32), was totally different to the more successful cooking
forms in the area, the casseroles.

Just as open cooking forms were dominant at Carthage
through Roman Imperial times, so did sheep/goats
predominate in the faunal assemblages. In one late
Vandal/early Byzantine context analysed at Carthage,
they made up 47% of the minimum number of
individuals (MNI) against 29% of pig, and, according to
the archaeozoologist Schwartz (1984, 246 and 250), the
pattern may have been fairly constant from earlier times.
In the Levant, rounded cooking pots as well as casseroles
were present, to survive through later Roman into
Umayyad times (Sodini and Villeneuve 1992, 203-204).
However, it may be observed that late antique levels in
the hippodrome at Caesarea Marittima appear to have
yielded about twice as many casseroles as closed cooking
pots (Riley 1975, 35). At what appears to be a pastoral
nomad site at Rekhes Natha in Israel, almost all the
cooking pots appear to have been open casserole forms,
and were accompanied by lids (Saidel 2004). John Hayes
notes that a singular class of steep-sided casserole with a
close-fitting lid, first found in Roman times, has been
identified not only in Palestine, but also on Cyprus and in
the Nile Delta region until the eighth century. He
suggests that such vessels may have responded to Jewish
concerns for purity, perhaps also influencing Christian
practice (Hayes 1997, 474).

Thus it may be seen how many ceramic assemblages in
the late antique Mediterranean appear to be dominated by
open cooking vessels. This pattern contrasts with the
closed cooking pots or ollae, particularly characteristic of
Northern and Central Europe. In this zone, however,
closed cooking vessels with handles are concentrated to
the east and south of the distribution, including the
Aegean, whilst those to the west are generally without
handles. Those to the east and south were also frequently
round-bodied with convex bases.

A preliminary distribution map of both open and closed
cooking pot forms across the Mediterranean and Europe
in late antiquity is revealing (Fig. 8). The map is purely
indicative, as enormous quantities of excavated pottery
have been published, though sometimes without
sufficient quantification as to judge relative quantities of
open and closed forms. In most cases, because of the lack
of detailed quantitative data, the dots on the map
represent predominance in the relative occurrence of one
form or the other. Areas such as France or Britain are,
instead, so swamped with publications, that the few
signalled dots are intended to be representative of a far
greater whole.

From the map of late Roman cooking pot types, it is quite
clear how closed globular cooking pots are generally a
feature of the North, from Britain, across the Rhineland,
to central Europe. Open cooking forms, when they are
present in this area, appear to be a subsidiary type. In
Scythia, for instance, open forms were always present in
lesser quantities than closed cooking vessels. Together
with what Andrei Opai terms frying-pans, casseroles did,
however, become frequent particularly in the 4th to the
mid 5th centuries AD, when some were imported,
perhaps from the Aegean area (Opai 2004, 53-56 and
98). We may question if their increased popularity had
been occasioned by the arrival of new foods and tastes
with renewed militarisation of the area in late antiquity,
though this is difficult to gauge at present with little
faunal and palaeobotanical data available for Rumania?

In Italy the pattern of cooking vessel types appears even
more mixed though, to some extent, seems to reflect the
north-south divide that has always conditioned the history
of the peninsula. The fifth century Schola Praeconum
deposit in Rome, excavated by David Whitehouse, has
yielded a mix of both closed cooking pots and casseroles,
though it is difficult to judge what was more frequent.
Pork and beef dominated the associated faunal
assemblage on meat ratios (Whitehouse et al. 1982).
Pots and Boundaries
17

Though the late Roman villa of San Giovanni di Ruoti,
lies in central Lucania, right in the south of Italy, it was
sited inland, in a strongly pig-dominated area. Perhaps it
is no coincidence that this is one of the southern Italian
sites where casseroles were found to be totally absent.

In sum, it is starting to become clear that throughout the
ancient world the distribution of open cooking pots or
casseroles seems to fairly closely match the distribution
of areas of sheep/goat dominated faunal assemblages
(Fig. 9). It also matches surprisingly well the
geographical area that stretches between the Sahara and
the northern limit of the wild olive (olea europea) or
oleaster (Zohary and Spiegel-Roy 1975). Thus, in this
case, environmental factors, and consequently economic
factors, appear to define boundaries between types of
ceramic cooking vessels. Further economic and cultural
factors could act upon such boundaries, to modify or
reinforce them, as well as creating additional boundaries.

When, in late antiquity, ovicaprine dominated
assemblages appear in some areas of the northern
Mediterranean, so, apparently, do some casserole forms.
We have seen this perhaps most clearly in the
archaeological evidence from Rome and Naples, where
casserole forms become evermore common at around the
same time as the faunal assemblages change from being
pig-dominated to ovicaprine-dominated. It would almost
seem as though sheep/goats and casseroles crossed over
the Mediterranean from the Maghreb to parts of Italy
together.

From the fifth century the lug-handled casserole forms, in
particular, become evermore common in areas such as
sheep/goat dominated Sardinia or Ordona in northern
Apulia, as well as in parts of Sicily and Spain. Do these
changes perhaps reflect the movement of African/Near
eastern cooking models to Italy and the creation of new
cultural and economic boundaries? If so, why did this
movement take place? Could it have been linked to the
movement of peoples (refugees from Vandal Africa
spring most immediately to mind) or, perhaps, changes in
ecology with the decline of Roman urban culture models?
We may also recall that in the first half of the sixth
century, though after the changes began to take place,
sites like San Giovanni di Ruoti, in the pig-rearing area of
Lucania, were abandoned (cf. now Small 2005). The
abandonment of large farming establishments in such
areas, together with the gradual breakdown of long
distance communications in Italy, are likely to have
curtailed the supply of pigs and thus to have contributed
to a change in diet from pork to mutton in the major
consumption centres such as Rome and Naples.

The changes in central and southern Italy do not appear to
reflect conditioning by environmental or natural
boundaries, as reconstructions suggest that this period of
time witnessed a climatic deterioration that, if anything,
should have had an inverse effect of gradually driving the
pigs natural habitat southwards. Conversely, according
to the work of Claude Raynaud presented at the Aix
conference, open cooking forms in southern France
appear to disappear during the course of the sixth century.
Whilst this might represent environmental change, it may,
more probably, reflect the southwards movement of
northern cooking customs, together with changes in the
composition of the local population following migrations.

Where sheep/goat dominated assemblages do not appear
in late antiquity or the early Middle Ages, such as in
much of northern Italy, nor, apparently, do casseroles.
Back in Naples, when pig-dominated assemblages appear
once again during the course of the later seventh or eighth
century, casseroles disappear in favour of more closed
and generally rather small cooking vessels. Indeed, this
may coincide with renewed urban growth and
development and expansion in the market.

What might all this mean in terms of actual cooking
practice? My cooking consultants appear to confirm some
of my thoughts about relationships between cooking
vessel types, culinary practice and alimentary resources
(Fig. 10). Casseroles or open cooking pots generally
serve to cook food through water evaporation and
braising, where the end result may be a relatively dry
dish, to which various sauces may be added. This would
be suitable in hot climates, where liquid or semi-liquid
foods are to be avoided as they provoke thirst and
sweating. Lug-handled casseroles of the type that we
have seen at Pantelleria, Spain, Naples and elsewhere,
find rather close parallels in early twentieth century
casseroles produced at El Djem for couscous, which is
based on durum wheat (Gatineau 1974).

Closed cooking pots, instead, are intended primarily for
greater heat and water retention, through stewing or
boiling, generally leading to the production of semi-liquid
foods. Such foods are characteristic of cooler northern
climates, where they help to provide warmth. Requiring
limited control, they can be kept on the boil for a long
time, helping to break down fats and tenderise and render
more digestible and palatable both meats and vegetables.
Pork is ideally prepared in such vessels as it benefits from
long cooking in water, which will tenderise it and kill
tapeworms far more surely than roasting. The resulting
liquid, with its nutritional and organolectic properties, is a
food in itself. In the archaeological report of excavations
at Trino-San Michele in the Piedmont area of Italy, one of
the few that attempts to analyse the problem of the
relationship between between pots and food, it is
suggested that the basic food for a family was prepared in
a metal cauldron, with its even heat distribution, and that
the cooking pots served to cook or reheat portions of
food, or perhaps supplementary foods (Negro Ponzi
Mancini, 1996, 136). It is further shown that such pots at
the site were typical through Roman and early medieval
times, reaching over 50% of the entire ceramic
assemblage. The Trino faunal assemblage shows a
P. Arthur
18

dominance of pigs, though, by meat weight, beef
contributed almost twice as much to the diet. The
contribution of sheep/goat was negligible (Ferro 1999
632-633). It is also noted that traditional medieval meals
in the area consisted of soups and semi-liquid polenta
based on cereals, with the adjunct of legumes, meats,
spices and other condiments. Polenta, originally based on
wheat and millet (now maize or corn), was, until recently,
traditionally cooked in a copper cauldron.

However, far more work has to be carried out on the
functions of the various types of cooking pots. The
Brezno experiment shows, for example, that three litre
pots were most suited for cooking soups and porridges,
and one litre pots for milk and for manipulation (Curta
2001, 286). The experiment demonstrated that contents
of all pots had to be mixed frequently as the cooking was
mostly carried out at the hearth by the oven, so that only
half of the pot was usually exposed to the fire (Curta
2001, 289).

Returning to metal vessels, they undoubtedly played an
important part in cooking, though impossible to measure
in quantitative terms. What appear to be ceramic frying
pans, such as the well distributed examples from the
Aegean, may have had metal prototypes and have been
used in frying fish (Bettini and Pucci,1986). Frying was a
means of conservation, later much used by the nomadic
Arabs, which was ideal for fish that, unless otherwise
salted or desiccated, would rapidly deteriorate. It is quite
possible that the Aegean pans were used in frying fish,
given the significant maritime contribution to the
economy of the islands. Is their distribution coastal and
might the distribution reflect Greek culinary tastes? How
can they be related to the similar, though greater,
distribution of the successful Aegean closed cooking pots
Fulford and Peacock 1984, casserole 35, fabric 3.9?

A final observation regards the very Italian distribution of
clibani or portable bread ovens, that would appear to
represent a baking custom that achieved little hold on
other areas of the Mediterranean (Fig. 11). Why is this
so? Are we dealing with a lack of data, or with a
culturally-specific form of baking that found its
boundaries with alternative culturally-specific forms?
Outside of Italy, clibani appear sporadically, save for a
number on sites down the Dalmatian coast and a
concentration at Conimbriga in Portugal, though the
distribution would change radically if we accept the
debated function of the North African form Hayes 23 as a
portable baking oven.

The title of this paper on pots and boundaries may seem
somewhat of a provocation. The boundaries that I have
rather indirectly indicated are those that cannot to be seen
on any ancient political or administrative map. Rather,
they may reflect available food resources and
environmentally and culturally defined eating habits.
Boundaries, however, are often broken. Such would
appear to be the case when, in Antonine times, a group of
North Africans may have arrived in Britain, to settle
along the Antonine Wall and elsewhere, re-accompanying
British troops that had served in the Mauretanian War of
AD 146-9. With them they appear to have brought the
know-how for the production of Mediterranean casseroles
and other ceramic types (Swan 1999). A similar event
seems to have occurred under the emperor Septimius
Severus, who visited Britain in AD 208, bringing with
him military contingents from Numidia. Pottery found in
excavations of the York fortress, where Severus stayed
with his family and troops, includes a number of local
products that clearly reproduce North African models,
particularly casseroles (Swan 1992; Swan 2002, 56 and
62). It is difficult to believe that the North African
immigrants did not intend such ceramics for the
preparation and cooking of their traditional foods. A step
further would be to examine what was considered to be
necessary in the serving and consumption of traditional
foods. Indeed, if we are to examine coarse pottery as a
food indicator, we cannot avoid the evidence from table
wares. We must remember that table wares not only
reflect the way that people ate, but that they are also
indirectly linked to the food that was consumed.

It has been observed, for instance, that the forms of
African Red Slip ware, which has been the subject of
numerous studies, changed through late imperial times,
with smaller bowls and dishes gradually giving way to
large platters. It has also been shown that when the class
of pottery disappears from the general market during the
course of the sixth century, it continued to be imported to
a limited number of sites, apparently part of an ever more
restricted network of privileged Byzantine possessions.
Why did they continue to be used at these sites? Was it
simply because they accompanied other commodities that
were being imported from North Africa in a context of
directional trade, or because the people at these sites were
also attempting to maintain traditional eating habits? The
extremely well-published Byzantine castrum of S.
Antonino di Perti received African Red Slip Ware up
until about the middle of the seventh century, alongside
transport amphorae that included an enormous number of
miniature spatheia, other North African vessels, and
examples from Palestine, Gaza, Egypt and the Aegean
(Mannoni and Murialdo 2001). Amongst the cooking
wares, some casseroles were also imported. Curiously,
the faunal assemblage was dominated by pig, unlike
many other sheep/goat dominated assemblages from
nearby sites. Perhaps, at S. Antonino di Perti we are
witnessing evidence for an attempt to maintain a mix of
traditional Roman-style eating habits in a die-hard
Byzantine enclave within a Lombard domain.

Of course, the picture of the distribution and use of
culinary modes and ceramic types is far more complex
than I have indicated here, and made even more difficult
by the lack of publication of quantified remains of
ceramics, animal bones and palaeobotanical data.
Pots and Boundaries
19

However, I think that it is time that pottery is no longer
looked at solely in typological and compositional detail,
but as part of a more holistic approach, to echo the words
of Mike Fulford in his introduction to the Barcelona
conference on late Roman coarse wares.

I would have liked more time to collect and process
further data. Indeed, I dont pretend to have resolved any
great questions with this paper, but I hope that it may, at
least, have provided some food for thought, at least as
far as regards what I feel to be a fruitful approach to the
study of ceramics. Perhaps the ideas will not be generally
accepted but, if this is the case, they should be replaced
with others, better and stronger, which should lead the
way forward.

Food and eating habits, almost like language, make-up a
fundamental element in the definition of culture groups
and in differentiating foreigners. As Fernand Braudel
remarked (1975, 237), the Cardinal of Aragon in the
sixteenth century felt it necessary to take both cook and
supplies with him on a trip to the Netherlands. If food and
eating habits can be identified and their stories told, we
will be closer to understanding the rich and variegated
pattern of European society.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper would not have been possible without the work and
consultation of a number of friends. Marco Leo Imperiale
helped me with the collation of basic data on ceramic
distributions. Jacopo De Grossi Mazzorin and Girolamo
Fiorentino advised me on archaeozoological and
palaeobotanical data respectively. Tonio Piceci, Lecces first-
class cook, taught me much about the relationships between
cooking vessels and food. Brunella Bruno constantly provided
me with food for thought (and for my palate), whilst Richard
Reece, as always, has proved to be an excellent provocateur.

I was able to profit from the comments of various participants at
the splendid Aix conference. In particular, I should like to
acknowledge Miguel Angel Cau Ontiveros, John Hayes, Janne
Ikaheimo, Claude Raynaud, Vivien Swan, Kathleen Warner
Slane, Joanita Vroom, David Williams, for their thoughts and
suggestions. Last but not least, I should like to thank Michel
Bonifay for having invited me to speak and for providing me
with information from his own research.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

NB. A few of the texts cited in the bibliography have been used
in the hunt for ceramics and the compilation of the maps, but
are not explicitly referred to in the text.

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Ardizzone, F., 2004, La ceramica da fuoco altomedievale
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Bats, M., 1988, Vaisselle et alimentation Olbia de
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5, 153-166.
Bonifay, M., 2004, Etudes sur la cramique romaine
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Carsana, V., 1994, Ceramica da cucina tardo-antica e
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P. Arthur
20

Cahiers des Arts et Techniques d'Afrique du Nord,
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th
-9
th

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th
6
th
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Pots and Boundaries
21
Fig. 1. The distribution oI Byzantine chaIing-dishes in the Mediterranean and Black Sea areas.
Fig. 2. Faunal areas in the Roman Empire, dominated either by cattle, by pigs or by sheep and goats,
seen against the distribution oI the wild olive (olea europea) or oleaster
(aIter King, 1999, and Zohary and Spiegel-Roy, 1975).
P. Arthur
22
Eig. 3. Percentage oI pig remains in some settlements (Irom the Iron Age to the Roman period)
in central Italy along the Tyrrhenian coast (aIter De Grossi Mazzorin, 2001).
Eig. 4. Relative percentages oI Iaunal remains through the Iirst and second millennia
Irom archaeological excavations in Naples (aIter Arthur, 2002, 116).
%
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Pots and Boundaries
23
Fig. 5. Casseroles or open cooking vessels.
Fig. 6. 2OODH or closed cooking vessels.
N. LUPOPL, CLNTPAL 8ALKANS
8LACK SLA, AGLAN,
CLNTPAL + S. |TAL
Lmporio, Chios
Dhiorios, Cyprus Castelu, Pumania
Kellia, Lgypt
8ulgaria
Saint-8laise, Prance
P. Arthur
24
0ORTO4ORRS
#OSA
6ENTIMIGLIA
3ABRATHA
3ABRATHA
3ABRATHA
"ENALA
6INALOP
4OULON
4ARRAGONA
4ARRAGONA
Fig. 7. Lug-handled casseroles.
Pots and Boundaries
25
Fig. 8. Preliminary distribution oI both open and closed cooking pot Iorms across the Mediterranean and Europe.
Countries such as France, England and Germany are represented solely by symbolic dots,
as the quantity oI material Iound is too large Ior a detailed distribution oI published examples in this venue.
Fig. 9. Open and closed cooking pot Iorms across the Mediterranean and Europe compared with Iaunal areas.
P. Arthur
26
Fig. 10. Form and Iunction.
Fig. 11. The distribution oI Roman and early medieval portable bread ovens or clibani.
Pots and Boundaries
27
28