Tituli Picti

Este libro es un poema a la amistad y al amor a la ciencia. No hubiera sido posible sin ambos componentes en grado sumo. Cada paso adelante en la elaboración del mismo ha sido por parte de todos, cuantos en él han participado, un acto de generosidad.
Bien es verdad que la motivación científica, el aliciente intelectual, una vez conocido el objeto a estudiar, deslumbraba de tal modo que resultaba difícil sustraerse a la emoción de participar en la empresa que tenía mucho de aventura y no menos de abstracción extática. Desde la primera lectura del SACERDOS ASCVLEPI allá por el 1981, hasta la eclosión de luz y de impresión en 1985, han ocurrido muchos avatares, algunos de los cuales quedan reflejados en las páginas del presente volumen y otros pertenecerán para siempre a la leyenda azarosa de las exploraciones de todos los tiempos.

Roman Amphora Contents. Reflecting on the Maritime Trade of Foodstuffs in Antiquity. In honour of Miguel Beltrán Lloris. Proceedings of the Roman Amphora Contents International Interactive Conference (RACIIC) (Cadiz, 5-7 October 2015), Edited by Darío Bernal-Casasola, Michel Bonifay, Alessandra Pecci and Victoria Leitch, Roman and Late Antique Mediterranean Pottery 17, Archaeopress, Oxford, 2021: 241-248

This papers deals with the epigraphy on Roman Spanish amphorae. It focuses on the Dressel 20 oil amphorae from Baetica and the salted fish and fish sauces amphorae from Hispania, most of them having been produced (the amphorae and their content) also in Baetica. It offers an overview of the organization and the purposes of these inscriptions

This book is an analysis of the commercial activity of Mediterranean ports in the early Roman Empire (1st-3rd cent AD). Abstract though this approach may seem, the problems addressed are concrete and down-to earth. Its main purpose is to chart and analyse the Roman trading experience during this period through close study of material evidence and juristic literature. Rather than providing a narrative of the development of trade as part of Roman history writ large, this work explores how commercial procedures were performed when distributing goods, how these procedures were reflected in merchandise, and what that tells us about law and its interaction with the daily practices used in trade. This work also integrates these procedures and their associated material record in their spatial and socio-political context. The spatial focus of this work will concentrate especially on Roman Mediterranean ports acting as key nodes through which were channelled major commercial flows of goods. In that sense, recent years have seen a growth in ancient port studies, increasingly showing that they cannot be viewed in isolation, or simply in relation to the sea. 1 Mediterranean ports during the imperial period occupied positions between land and sea and constituted systems, that are a set of interdependent areas and structures forming an integrated whole. This conception has been the impetus for the development of interdisciplinary studies carried out on several ports (e.g. Portus, 2 Narbonne 3), recovering many Roman-era port structures and revealing the multiple functions of these constructions (e.g. administrative, commercial). In that sense, visualize an ancient port: a cloud of people moving goods, loading and unloading ships, stacking warehouses, checking contents, boarding for travel to foreign places, etc. However, regarding the available evidence of the remaining structures, almost nothing is found in recent publications that tells us how a port worked, what its output was, how wholesale and retail sales were transacted, or what sort of accounting for and registration of the transactions took place at ports. These gaps in the research are partly due to the lack of consideration of the legal framework in relation to commerce and distribution and especially concerning the important role that merchandise plays in providing information about trading activities. 4 Studies about these sources were carried out in other disciplines (epigraphy, archaeology), but these were not undertaken from an interdisciplinary perspective. 5 Legal scholars studying Roman trade have also neglected the importance of the spaces where the law was put into practice and/or of the merchandise that 1 Keay (2012), and other studies developed under the umbrella of the ERC Portus Limen project, such as the present study. 2 Keay et al (2005) 3 Sanchez & Jezegou (2016) 4 For example, the introductory book by Morley (2007), though providing a good sample of sources, still remains too theoretical where trading activities are concerned.

We study a number of archaeological evidences testifying the trade networks that connected the region of Cordoba Subbética with the rest of Baetica. These evidences, primarily amphora vessels, allow an approach to the problem of which were the export routes of the great oil production of the area and, at the same time, contribute to the knowledge of the diffusion of the products from the Guadalquivir Valley and coastal baetican areas (oil, wine, salt-fish and fish sauces) within the province.
Key words: Cordoba Subbetica, roman age, trade.

Roman Amphora Contents. Reflecting on the Maritime Trade of Foodstuffs in Antiquity. In honour of Miguel Beltrán Lloris. Proceedings of the Roman Amphora Contents International Interactive Conference (RACIIC) (Cadiz, 5-7 October 2015), Edited by Darío Bernal-Casasola, Michel Bonifay, Alessandra Pecci and Victoria Leitch, Roman and Late Antique Mediterranean Pottery 17, Archaeopress, Oxford, 2021.

Abstract: Recovering garum sauce has been a multidisciplinary project. Many researchers from different disciplines have been
involved in this work, such as biologists, archaeologists, chemists, zoologists and many others. Garum sauce was a very popular and
valuable food in the Roman era. However, its production process is still unknown, and few remains have been found in the ancient
world. The aim of this study was to implement a technical approach to determine the preparation methods for ancient garum. The
study starts from remnants of the last garum from Pompeii in AD 79. The archaeometric studies, combined with archaeological
research and experimental archaeology methods have increased our knowledge of the contents and allowed us to develop a
production method for this type of fish sauce

It is really difficult to study the customs duty in Hispania because we have not got any evidence about it. Nevertheless, the analysis of literary and epigraphic texts from other Roman provinces permit to clonclude two things in my opinion: the customs tax was always the Quadragesima in Hispania, as the neighboring Gallia, and secondly there was most likely a customs district in the coast of Baetica and Caecilius Virgilianus (CIL, II, 1177; CILA, II 1, 21) could be the procurator

Albert Ribera, Enrique García Vargas, Macarena Bustamante, Esperanza Huguet, José M. Vioque (2016),  en Amphorae ex Hispania: paisajes de producción y consumo, ed. por R. Járrega y P. Berni, Actas del III Congreso Internacional de la Sociedad de Estudios de la Cerámica Antigua (SECAH), Tarragona, 10-13 de diciembre de 2014. Monografías Monografías Ex Officina Hispana III. Tarragona, 2016: 569-586.

Locatio conductio was one of the commonest contracts employed for shipping in which the
risks of the trip were distributed among different actors. This constituted a consensual
contract, by means of which one of the parties (the locator) undertook, in exchange for a
price, to rent to another person (the carrier) the use of something for a certain time, to carry
out a certain task or to provide some service. This contract followed a unitary general legal
scheme, which the parties adapted to their needs by agreement, something that would later
have an impact on the preparation of the corresponding procedural defence. Unfortunately, no
material example of this contract in Latin (there are some examples preserved in Greek
papyri) has survived until our days, and therefore, it needs to be reconstructed through legal
and archaeological sources. In this paper, I will focus on the grain sample collected in CIL IV
9591, which provides information about freight contracts in commercial practice. On the one
hand, this article will help to clarify some details of the epigraphic apparatus of this object,
and on the other, it will serve to contrast what is established in the legal texts about the
formation and features of lease and hire contracts and the practical sphere of commerce
evidenced by this unique document.

La question des échantillons et de leur rôle dans les économies antiques est un vaste sujet, en besoin de définitions plus précises et d'un cadre adéquat. L'objectif de cette rencontre est de permettre à des archéologues, historiens, papyrologues ou juristes d'engager des discussions fructueuses et d'amorcer une réflexion collective sur la question.

in: Roman Amphora Contents. Reflecting on the Maritime Trade of Foodstuffs in Antiquity. In honour of Miguel Beltrán Lloris. Proceedings of the Roman Amphora Contents International Interactive Conference (RACIIC) (Cadiz, 5-7 October 2015), Edited by Darío Bernal-Casasola, Michel Bonifay, Alessandra Pecci and Victoria Leitch, Roman and Late Antique Mediterranean Pottery 17, Archaeopress, Oxford, 2021.

Tituli picti are painted inscriptions in black or red ink on the outer surface of amphorae. Traditionally, they have been considered a form of marketing that fulfil a similar function to modern bottles and labels on cans. However, their highly standardised structure and their widespread use, at least in Roman times, have recently led to the idea of a more specialised function within the commercial circuit of amphorae, namely that of providing information to commercial agents about the basic clauses of maritime insurance contracts presiding over commercial cargos. I think there is no real reason to link tituli picti with insurance terms, and I shall try to demonstrate in this paper that tituli picti or epigraphic labels played a different role. For this, I shall rely on relatively simple examples attested on various types of amphorae filled in different geographical areas. Moreover, I shall argue that their function was commercial, but not related to insurance contracts, but rather to the commercial transactions, that is, to the action of buying and selling the products contained in the amphorae, and especially to the transfer of legal responsibility over the goods from the producer to the trader or from one trader to another.

Une marque peinte sur amphore de Marseille découverte en 2010 dans la villa de Saint-Laurent-d’Agny (Rhône), à une vingtaine de kilomètre à l’ouest de Lugdunum, éclaire d’un nouveau jour les modalités du commerce vinaire dans la vallée du Rhône et l’implantation des premiers colons italiques dans la pertica lyonnaise au Ier s. av. J.-C.

Inserisco la mia tesi di laurea triennale per una forma, forse languida, di affetto verso il me di allora, in cui rivedo quelle patologie intellettuali - uno sfacciato truismo, delle volte -  da cui non sono ancora guarito. Il proposito del lavoro era espandere a una documentazione cronologicamente più esaustiva la prospettiva epistemologica adottata da Jean-Luc Fournet, papirologo, e Dominique Pieri, ceramologo, nei loro studi sui reperti ceramologici a dipinti della campagna di scavo italiana ad Antinoupolis di Tebaide (2000-2007): se per i documenti di età imperiale, soprattutto tarda, è stato applicato un procedimento euristico che approda alla definizione di una neo-disciplina ancillare della papirologia, quale la «dipintologia»; per i documenti pittografici compresi tra arcaismo ed ellenismo occorreva creare un codominio di epigrafia e paleografia delle scritture a calamo. Dall’esame epigrafico di materiale non solo commerciale, come quello antinoopolitano, ma anche artistico, emerge costantemente l’interazione tra tipo epigrafico e tipologia testuale, tra supporto e prodotto grafico. Il riconoscimento di queste strutture compositive è di grande aiuto nella decifrazione di tituli vergati con estrema corsività, non sempre di agevole lettura, ma dai cui testi si ricavano molti dati interessanti per la storia socio-economica delle epoche di riferimento.

P.s. Avevo seri problemi con la tastiera greca!

The study of the Lusitanian amphorae of the harbour dump site of the Roman shipwreck Arles-Rhône 3 revealed the painted inscription LAC[--] on the neck of a Dressel 14 parva. Its location on the second line of the painted inscription did not allow to develop LAC[--] into lac(catum) . LAC[--] would indeed clarify the nature of the product whose name should appear on the first line of the tituli picti. According to various inscriptions known on Lusitanian amphorae, liquamen seemed the most likely hypothesis to describe the product contained in this one. LAC[--] should match a name describing the liquamen. In this article I develop LAC[--] into lac(ertus), a mackerel which would specify the name of the fish from which the liquamen is made. This choice led me to review the entire epigraphic directory of laccatum enriched by the new discoveries in the Rhône. Thanks to the enlargement of a photograph of U. Ehmig, an epigraphic evidence has been given to this hypothesis. The ‘laccatum’ must therefore be developed into lac(ertus) cat[--], and cat[--] could be developed into cat(ulus) to describe a small mackerel.

In this paper, we present a first look at the Lusitanian amphora assemblage from the Roman Arles-Rhône 3 shipwreck, excavated after
a decision by the Conseil Général des Bouches du Rhône and through the structure of the Musée d’Arles Antique by one of the authors.
This archaeological site consists of a shipwreck on the right river bank of the Rhone in the former town of Arelate, dated to AD 55/65,
and a dump layer above it, which ends around AD 140. The Lusitanian amphorae discussed belong to this dump layer and account
for 32 individuals among an estimated universe of 2798 amphorae. This assemblage is quite important for understanding the first
moments in the distribution of Lusitanian foodstuffs along the Mediterranean and namely in southern France, where this trade became
stronger in Late Antiquity. At Arles-Rhône, Tagus/Sado products dominate, but a possible secondary production centre was attested:
Peniche appears as a complementary supplier to the valleys mentioned, which are related to Olisipo/Lisbon and Tróia. At least two
peculiarities can be stressed: a significant amount of an almost unknown type, Dressel 14 parva, and seven preserved tituli picti, with
various information regarding the contents and the traders. The role of the Lusitanian fish-salting products during the early Empire in
this area of the western Mediterranean is briefly discussed.

The singular collection of tituli picti from the
Ses Fontanelles shipwreck (Majorca, Balearic
Islands) and its contribution to Hispanic late
Roman amphoric epigraphy

In the summer of 2019, a Roman shipwreck with an amphorae cargo was discovered in Ses Fontanelles (SW of Mallorca). A rescue excavation has uncovered approximately a third of the materials, which are being studied.
This paper focuses on the inscriptions (tituli picti) on the amphorae (mostly Almagro 51C), an exceptional find, given their high number as well as the type of writing. We analyze and relate paleography with other amphorae painted inscriptions in particular and epigraphical documents in general; we also relate the tituli with the content  of the containers in their archaeological context and we approximate a prosopographical study of the anthroponyms that appear in the tituli. Finally, we link the cargo data with those of other imperial shipwrecks. Being quantitatively the most important corpus of painted amphoric epigraphy in Hispania, the wreck is revealed as a key piece to understand more clearly the socioeconomic history of the 4th century AD.

We present a new titulus pictus in an amphora stored in the Museum of Almería from the archaeological excavation in the 8th sector of Villaricos (Almería). The morphology
of the amphora and its context let us date it in the third quarter of the first century B.C. The epigraph, that is well preserved and situated in collo, is a trianomina that belongs to a Roman merchant of Punic origin. This fact let us enlighten the role played by Punic merchant oligarchies at the end of late republican period, at least, inside its ancient area of influence.

The main results of the EPNet lines of research carried out by the author of this chapter are summarized in the following pages. The involved cases are compiled here, not ordered chronologically by date of publication, but by subject matter. EPNet concerns production and distribution of food in the Roman Empire using new innovative approaches, by implementing new methodologies in an interdisciplinary  research context. The author’s previous expertise and skills converged with the requirements of the
EPNet Project. In that sense, the Roman amphorae and their epigraphy were just a piece of evidence in his study of territories, and GISs (Geographic Information Systems) were one of the tools used in
the study of Roman colonies. Within the EPNet Project, the author was charged with the study of epigraphy on amphorae which contained fish-based products and wine. Few inscriptions in this regard
were referenced in the Corpus CEIPAC, which mainly focused on the epigraphy of the Dressel 20 olive-oil amphorae, which were widely provided for the archaeological excavations of the CEIPAC’s research team in the Monte Testaccio (Rome). The EPNet’s challenge required a remarkable quantity of new data. In that sense, the solution proposed and carried out by the author of this chapter was the computerization of the tituli picti recorded in the volume IV of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. This volume compiles the inscriptions found in the Vesubian area, mainly in Pompeii. As the Cretan wine amphorae were the most notable within this group of inscriptions, most of the author’s EPNet research was focused on this part of the evidence. In that way, the combination of previous academic interests and new research opportunities have involved studies on olive-oil and wine through different parts of the Roman Empire, by using GIS modelling and amphorae epigraphy to get a better understanding of the production and distribution of food.

Berni Millet, P. (2021). "Producción anfórica en Hispania. La evidencia de la epigrafía". L'épigraphie sur céramique. L'instrumentum domesticum, ses genres textuels et ses fonctions dans les sociétés antiques. Édition coordonnée par Wim BROEKAERT, Alain DELATTRE, Emmanuel DUPRAZ, María José ESTARÁN TOLOSA Hautes Etudes du monde gréco-romain, 60. Droz. pp. 19-39

Este trabajo se inserta en una línea de investigación abierta en el seno del Proyecto EPNet. Tal línea concierne al estudio del comercio romano de derivados de la uva y el pescado a través de la epigrafía anfórica. Para ello se ha sistematizado una base documental procedente en su gran mayoría del volumen IV del Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, dedicado a Pompeya y su entorno. Una parte significativa de dicha base documental está constituida por las ánforas Pompeii VIII (PO08), asimilables al tipo Crétoise 2 (AC2), mejor definido formalmente.
Los objetivos de la investigación en curso se disponen en tres niveles de consecución: largo, medio y corto plazo. A largo plazo se persigue una lectura histórica, en consonancia con los objetivos generales del Proyecto EPNet: la definición de dinámicas en el comercio romano del
vino cretense. A medio plazo se pretenden resultados de corte metodológico-epigráfico. Se procuradeducir secuencias cronológicas y mecanismos de intercambio a través de la detección de patrones en la estructura y contenido de los tituli picti sobre ánforas AC2. A corto plazo, atendido parcialmente con la realización de este artículo, el objetivo es realizar una crítica de la base documental empleada.