Regional Pottery Supply Systems in Roman Bulgaria

The project Regional Pottery Supply Systems in Roman Bulgaria, which is funded by the FWF ESPRIT programme, aims to reconstruct the functioning of the economic networks in a particular region of the Roman province of Moesia Inferior in todays northern Bulgaria in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. This region covers the area between the Balkan mountain range (Stara Planina) in the south and the river Danube in the north, and it is bordered by river valleys to both the west (Osam river) and east (Yantra river). In Roman times it housed two important settlement centres: the city of Nicopolis ad Istrum at the foothills of the Stara Planina and the legionary camp and settlement of Novae at the Danube bank. In addition, three centres for the production of ceramic vessels for eating, drinking, and storage as well as building materials were located in the surroundings of Nicopolis ad Istrum, and it is believed that these production centres supplied the whole region. Therefore, pottery supply, trade, and transport are used as the main angle point for the reconstruction of the regional economic networks. The pottery production in the region has not been researched in its entirety so far, which is why the project provides a promising angle point for the more detailed characterisation of both the produced pottery and the regional supply and transport systems. Accordingly, the main questions the project will be asking are those of the origin of the pottery at Nicopolis ad Istrum and Novae and of the transport routes from the production centres to the sites. Tracing the origins of pottery can be done with various methods of Archaeometry, which means the application of natural science methods to archaeological data. The project singles out two of such methods Petrography and Neutron Activation Analysis which allow to group pottery finds according to their belonging to different productions and clay sources. In addition, the spatial analysis of Roman road remains in the region and historical data on the navigability of the rivers in the region using computer applications and mathematical modelling allows reconstructing the transport routes and systems the pottery took from its point of origin to the site of consumption. These two main aspects of the project the origin of pottery and the transport routes are backed up by an analysis of the rural sites between Nicopolis ad Istrum and Novae and along the river valleys to the west and east. In a final step, the research results are also embedded into current theoretical discussions of the Roman economy. Combining all four pillars of the project the origin of pottery, the transport routes, the rural settlement system, and the characteristics of the Roman economy will provide a detailed insight into the regional economic networks between the Stara Planina and the Danube in the Roman province of Moesia Superior in the developed Roman Empire.

This FWF ESPRIT project entitled "Regional Pottery Supply Systems in Roman Bulgaria" was conducted by Lina Diers at the Austrian Archaeological Institute at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAI-OeAW) in 2022-2025. It aimed to characterise the regional economic networks in the Central Danubian Plain, i.e. in parts of the Roman provinces of Moesia Inferior and Thracia that today lie in northern Bulgaria, Oblast Veliko Tarnovo, during the Roman Principate (2nd-3rd c. AD) through the lens of pottery production and transport systems. To achieve this, local pottery (red slip and cooking ware) from four ceramic production centres in this region, namely Varbovski Livadi, Butovo, Pavlikeni, and Hotnitsa, which all operated throughout the 2nd and 3rd/partly early 4th c. AD, was recorded and investigated in an encompassing way for the first time. A detailed typology of vessel shapes was established, and archaeometric, meaning natural sciences-based, analyses of pottery, production waste, moulds, and raw material samples were conducted employing thin-section petrography and Neutron Activation Analysis. This allowed for the establishment of fingerprints for the Roman pottery productions of Varbovski Livadi, Butovo, Pavlikeni, and Hotnitsa: It was possible to identify two distinct raw material sources for clays and several additional geological formations as potential origins for tempering materials; and it was further established that all four production sites each portrayed a specific recipe, i.e. a combination of these clays and tempering materials. These fingerprints allowed to identify pottery from the production sites at six settlement sites of different character throughout the Central Danubian Plain (Nicopolis ad Istrum, Novae, Kozlovets, Radanovo, Gorna Lipnitsa, Lyaskovets). In order to contextualise these identified distribution patterns of the locally/regionally produced pottery throughout the area of interest, a second layer was added to the project, and this aimed to reconstruct the transport modes and routes used to distribute the ceramic commodities. So-called least-cost-path analysis was conducted, which allowed for the identification of best suitable road transport routes using computational modelling approaches in GIS (Geographic Information System), taking into account the geographic characteristics of the Central Danubian Plain and the archaeological evidence regarding Roman roads and roadside facilities. The possibility of river transport on the two main rivers of the region - the Yantra and the Rositsa - was also evaluated, using comparative historical flow regime data and testing them against manoeuvre necessities of Roman transport vessels. Both river and road transport results were eventually correlated with the pottery distribution data, which generated a dynamic picture of the economic networks through the lens of pottery supply in the Central Danubian Plain in the 2nd - 3rd c. AD.