Across the Alps in Amphorae

Like no other class of archaeological material amphorae document wide-ranging economic relations and provide information about the routes along which products such as wine, oil, preserved fruit and sauces were transported in the ancient world. However, the focus of research has up to now been placed on river and sea routes, while discussion of transport by land has largely been restricted to the connection between rivers and the final distribution patterns of goods. Within the framework of a project sponsored by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft/DFG) at the Institute of Archaeological Sciences, Dep. II, of the J.W. Goethe University of Frankfurt/Main (Institut für Archäologische Wissenschaften, Abt. II, J.W. Goethe-Universität Frankfurt), which in recent years has specialised in economic archaeology, the applicant is currently examining the amphorae from the Augustan fortress at Dangstetten on the Upper Rhine. The study of this material has led to significant new results about the logistics of the supply of foodstuffs in the early imperial period which are of great importance for research into the archaeology of the Roman provinces, both with regard to chronology and function. At Dangstetten, for the first time in the north-west of the Roman Empire large numbers of Adriatic amphorae of type Dressel 6A form could be identified. Evidence from shipwrecks and from a series of well-documented sites along the Rhone indicate that these amphorae perhaps did not reach Dangstetten along the sea/river route via the Mediterranean and the Rhone, but by a route running along the Po, the passes of Graubünden and the Alpine Rhine valley. The evidence for this model of transport supply must be scrutinised critically. These considerations lead to a fundamentally new assessment of the role of land transport in foodstuff trade, which is to be examined here in a case study in a suitable geographical environment. The area which was later to become the province of Noricum was chosen as forming a closed territory which, in contrast to the Upper Rhine, cannot be reached directly via waterways from the south, and where the settlement centres are conveniently situated at important road junctions. It is intended to examine, compare and interpret the earliest finds of amphorae as evidence for the transport of Mediterranean foodstuffs to the Alpine region. The starting point for the examination will be the finds from Magdalensberg, the key site for our understanding and definition of typology and chronology in the Eastern Alps and Northern Italy. The director of the Archaeological Park at the Magdalensberg (Archäologischer Park Magdalensberg), a branch of the State Museum of Carinthia (Landesmuseum Kärnten), Univ.-Doz. Dr. Heimo Dolenz, supports the project as co-applicant. Klagenfurt would be the ideal location for carrying out the study as all other important find spots from which material is to be examined can easily be reached from there. Besides these important considerations, the Carinthia State Library (Kärntner Landesbibliothek) contains the local literature relevant to the project, and Prof. Dr. Karl Strobel from the Institute of History of the Alps-Adriatic University of Klagenfurt (Institut für Geschichte, Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt) has offered additional support within the framework of a research focus on local economic history.