A note on Medieval Mediterranean trade networks: first observations on the possible evidence of Sicilian amphorae of the 8th-9th century in Crete and the Aegean

Authors

  • Matteo G. Randazzo University of Edinburgh (alumnus)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.32028/jga.v7i.1719

Abstract

Nearly a quarter of a century has gone by since scholars working on the Medieval Mediterranean were wondering if Byzantium was dead or alive during the 8th-9th centuries. Indeed, until recently, it was still quite a prevailing view that this period marked the ‘Dark Ages’ for the Byzantine Empire, in all the facets of its administrative, economic, and sociocultural life. Scholarly debate of the last years has zealously challenged this view, depicting a smoother and less pessimistic picture of this period. For instance, leaving aside historical and artistic aspects, and focusing on the theme of this report – that is Medieval amphorae – already in the mid-2010s it was clear that the Mediterranean remained a dynamic economic system throughout the 8th-9th century. This argument, which was mostly drawn on the evidence of the so-called Aegean globular amphorae, was further embodied and enhanced in 2018, during a thematic conference of the AIECM3 group, which was entirely dedicated to Medieval Mediterranean amphorae from the 8th to 12th centuries. Among the main and most valuable contributions, Cacciaguerra’s article shed light on the Mediterranean patterns of distribution of a specific type of amphora of the 8th-9th century produced in Sicily. Back then, amphorae of this kind were known outside Sicily, mostly along the Adriatic, but were utterly unknown eastward of the Otranto Straight. The aim of this short report is twofold: 1. to elaborate on this mainstream study-theme of Medieval Mediterranean amphorae and trade networks; 2. to expand on the current record of extra-regional evidence of Sicilian amphorae of the 8th-9th century by discussing the evidence of possible specimens documented in Crete and into the Aegean.

References

Arcifa, L. 2010. Indicatori archeologici per l’alto medioevo nella Sicilia orientale, in P. Pensabene (ed.) Piazza Armerina Villa del Casale tra tardo antico e medioevo: 105-128. Rome: L’erma di Bretschneider.

Arcifa, L. 2018. Contenitori da trasporto nella Sicilia bizantina (VIII-X secolo): produzione e circolazione, con appendice di V. Testolini, in S. Gelichi and A. Molinari (eds) I contenitori da trasporto altomedievali e medievali (VIII-XII secolo) nel Mediterraneo. Centri produttori, contenuti, reti di scambio (Thematic issue Archeologia Medievale 45): 123-148. Florence: All’Insegna del Giglio.

Arthur, P. 2012. From Italy to the Aegean and back. Notes on the archaeology of Byzantine maritime trade, in S. Gelichi and R. Hodges (eds) From one sea to another. Trading places in the European and Mediterranean Early Middle Ages: 337-351. Turnhout: Brepols.

Arthur, P. and B. Bruno, B. (eds) 2009. Apigliano: Un villaggio bizantino e medievale in Terra d’Otranto. L’ambiente, il villaggio, la popolazione. Galatina: Arti Grafiche Panico.

Auzepy, M.F. 2008. State of emergency (700-850), in J. Shepard (ed.) The Cambridge history of the Byzantine Empire c.500-1492: 251-291. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brubaker, L. (ed.) 1998. Byzantium in the ninth century: Dead or Alive? London: Routledge.

Brubaker, L. and J. Haldon 2011. Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, C. 680-850: a History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cacciaguerra G., 2018. Città e mercati in transizione nel Mediterraneo altomedievale. Contenitori da trasporto, merci e scambi a Siracusa tra l’età bizantina e islamica, in S. Gelichi and A. Molinari (eds) I contenitori da trasporto altomedievali e medievali (VIII-XII secolo) nel Mediterraneo. Centri produttori, contenuti, reti di scambio (Thematic issue Archeologia Medievale 45): 149-173. Florence: All’Insegna del Giglio.

Curta, F. 2016. Postcards from Maurilia, or the historiography of the dark-age cities of Byzantium. Post Classical Archaeology 6: 141-162.

Crow, J. and D. Hill (eds) 2018. Naxos and the Byzantine Aegean: Insular Responses to Regional Change (Papers and Monographs from the Norwegian Institute at Athens 7). Athens: Norwegian Institute at Athens.

Decker, M. 2016. The Byzantine Dark Ages. London: Bloomsbury.

Franco, C. 2014. Sicilian Amphorae (1st-6th Centuries AD): Typology, Production and Trade. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Oxford.

Gelichi, S. and Molinari, A., 2018 (eds). I contenitori da trasporto altomedievali e medievali (VIII-XII secolo) nel Mediterraneo. Centri produttori, contenuti, reti di scambio (Thematic issue Archeologia Medievale 45). Florence: All’Insegna del Giglio.

Haldon, J. 2000. Production, distribution and demand in the Byzantine world, c. 660-840, in I. Hansen and C. Wickam (eds) The Long Eighth Century: 225-264. Leiden, Boston: Brill.

Haldon, J. 2014. Dark-Age literature, in D. Sakel (ed.) Byzantine Culture (Papers from the Conference ‘Byzantine Days of Istanbul’, May 21-23 2010): 71-81. Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu.

Hayes, J.W. 1992. Excavations at Saraçhane in Istanbul. Vol. 2: The Pottery. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Hayes, J.W. 2001. Early Christian Pottery from Knossos: The 1978-1981 Finds from the Knossos Medical Faculty Site. Annual of the British School at Athens 96: 431-454.

Kalokyris, K.D. 1959. Ή Βασιλική τής βυζαντινής Συβρίτου. Κρητικά Χρονικά 13: 7-38.

Kountoura-Galake, E. (ed.) 2001. The dark centuries of Byzantium (7th-9th c.) (National Hellenic Research Foundation, Institute for Byzantine Research, International Symposium 9). Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation.

Leo Imperiale, M. 2015. Anfora globulari dal Salento. Produzione e circolazione nell’Adriatico meridionale durante l’alto medioevo, in P. Arthur and M. Leo Imperiale (eds) Atti VII Congresso Nazionale di Archeologia Medievale: 426-431. Florence: All’Insegna del Giglio.

Longo, R. 2016. Le produzioni ceramiche di Rocchicella in età bizantina, in L. Arcifa and L. Maniscalco (eds) Dopo L’antico. Ricerche di archeologia medievale: 29-46. Palermo: Assessorato dei beni culturali e dell’identità siciliana Dipartimento dei beni culturali e dell’identità siciliana.

Moncada, S. 2018. Le anfore orientali in Sicilia tra il v ed il vii secolo d.C.: alcune considerazioni sul commercio mediterraneo. Pyrenae 49.2: 61-85.

Poulou-Papadimitriou, N. 2011. Τεκμήρια υλικού πολιτισμού στην Βυζαντινή Κρήτη: 7ος-12ος αι, in E. Kapsomenos, M. Andreadaki-Vlazaki and M. Andrianakis (eds) Proceedings of the 10th Cretological International Conference: 381-447. Chania: Society of Cretan Historical Studies.

Poulou-Papadimitriou, 2018. N. The Aegean during the ‘transitional’ period of Byzantium: the archaeological evidence, in J. Crow, D. Hill (eds) Naxos and the Byzantine Aegean: Insular Responses to Regional Change: 29-50. Athens: Norwegian Institute at Athens.

Poulou-Papadimitriou and N., Nodarou 2014. Transport vessels and maritime trade routes in the Aegean from the 5th to the 9th century AD. Preliminary results of the EU funded project ‘Pythagoras II’: the Cretan case study, in N. Poulou-Papadimitriou, E. Nodarou and V. Kilikoglou (eds) Late Roman Coarse Wares, Cooking Wares and Amphorae in the Mediterranean IV: Archaeology and archaeometry. The Mediterranean: a market without frontiers: 873-884. Oxford: Archaeopress.

Portale, E.C. and Romeo, I. 2001. Contenitori da trasporto, in A. Di Vita (ed.) Gortina V, 3. Lo scavo del Pretorio (1989-1995) t. I, I Materiali: 260-410. Padua: Bottega D’Erasmo.

Prigent, V. 2004. Les empereus Isauriens et la confiscation des patrimonies pontificaux d’Italie du Sud. Mélanges de l’École française de Rome: Moyen Âge 116/2 : 557-594.

Randazzo, M. 2019. Archaeological Approaches to the Islamic Emirate of Crete (820s-961 CE): a starting point. Journal of Greek Archaeology 4: 311-336.

Randazzo, M.G. 2021. La Transizione Bizantino-Islamica in Sicilia (VIII-X secolo): il caso di Enna e degli Erei Meridionali. Archeologia Medievale 48: 125-158.

Randazzo, M.G. in press, The Roman Villa del Casale and the Mediterranean pottery routes in inland Sicily (6th-7th cc). The evidence of imported amphorae and tablewares from the ‘Gentili’s excavations’ and remarks on surrounding settlements, in Proceedings of the 6th Late Roman Coarse Ware Conference (Agrigento 24-28 Maggio 2017).

Sacco, V. 2018. Produzione e circolazione delle anfore palermitane tra la fine del IX e il XII secolo, in S. Gelichi and A. Molinari (eds) I contenitori da trasporto altomedievali e medievali (VIII-XII secolo) nel Mediterraneo. Centri produttori, contenuti, reti di scambio (Thematic issue Archeologia Medievale 45): 175-191. Florence: All’Insegna del Giglio.

Sanders, G. 2020. Spring Forward: Two Examples of how Shifting Chronology can Postpone the Dark Ages: the Frankish Area at Corinth and ‘the deposits of c. 460-75’. Herom: Journal on Hellenistic and Roman Material Culture 9: 337-352.

Tsigonaki, C. and A. Sarris 2016. Recapturing the Dynamics of the Early Byzantine Settlements in Crete: Old Problems-New Interpretations through an Interdisciplinary Approach. Proceedings of the 3rd International Landscape Archaeology Conference (LAC 2014): 1-11.

Tsigonaki, C. 2019. Crete, A Border at the Sea: Defensive Works and Landscape–Mindscape Changes (Seventh–Eighth Centuries A.D.)’, in M.Á. Cau Ontiveros, C. Mas Florit (eds) Change and Resilience: The Occupation of Mediterranean Islands in Late Antiquity: 163-192. Oxford: Oxbow.

Tsougarakis, D. 1988. Byzantine Crete from the 5th Century to the Venetian Conquest. Athens: Historical Publications St. D. Basilopoulos.

Vaccaro, E. 2013a. Sicily in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries AD: A Case of Persisting Economic Complexity? Al-Masaq 25: 34-69.

Vaccaro, E. 2013b. Pattering the Late Antique Economies of Inland Sicily in a Mediterranean Context, in L. Lavan (ed.) Local Economies? Production and Exchange of Inland Regions in Late Antiquity: 259-314. Boston: Brill.

Vaccaro, E. and La Torre, F. 2015. La produzione di ceramica a Philosophiana (Sicilia centrale) nella tarda età bizantina: metodi di indagine ed implicazioni economiche. Archeologia Medievale 42: 55-93.

Vionis, A.K. 2020. Bridging the Early Medieval ‘Ceramic Gap’ in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean (7th-9th C.): Local and Global Phenomena. Herom: Journal of Hellenistic and Roman Material Culture 9: 291-325.

Vroom, J. 2012. From One Coast to Another: early medieval ceramics in the southern Adriatic region, in S. Gelichi and R. Hodges (eds) From one sea to another. Trading places in the European and Mediterranean Early Middle Ages: 353-392. Turnhout: Brepols.

Wickham, C. 2012. Comacchio and the central Mediterranean. In S. Gelichi, R. Hodges (eds) From one sea to another. Trading places in the European and Mediterranean Early Middle Ages: 503-510. Turnhout: .

Yangaki, A.G. 2005. La céramique des IVe–VIIIe siècles d’Eleutherna (Crète): sa place en Crète et dans le bassin égéen. Athens: Publication of the University of Crete.

Yangaki, A.G 2016. Pottery of the 4th-early 9th century AD on Crete: The Current State of Research and Evidence, New Directions, in J.A. Francis, A. Kouremenos (eds) Roman Crete. New Pespectives: 199-234. Oxford: Oxbow.

Zanini, E. 2016. Coming to the End: Early Byzantine Cities after the mid-6th Century. Plenary papers The byzantine city and the archaeology of the third millennium, 23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies (Belgrade 22-27 August 2016): 62-75.

Zanini, E. 2019. Macro-economy, micro-ecology and the Faith of urbanised landscape in Late Antique and Early Byzantine Crete, in M.A. Cau Ontiveros and C. Mas Florit (ed.) Change and Resilience: The Occupation of Mediterranean Islands in Late Antiquity: 139-162. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Published

23/11/2022

How to Cite

Randazzo, M. G. (2022). A note on Medieval Mediterranean trade networks: first observations on the possible evidence of Sicilian amphorae of the 8th-9th century in Crete and the Aegean. Journal of Greek Archaeology, 7, 325–332. https://doi.org/10.32028/jga.v7i.1719

Issue

Section

Medieval and Post-Medieval