Short and long distance circulation of marine animals, products and raw materials of marine origin in the 1st millennium BC Aegean
p. 133-156
Résumés
This paper investigates the phenomenon of circulation of marine animals and marine products across the Aegean, as well import into the Aegean of marine resources from the Mediterranean and further beyond during the 1st millennium BC. Fresh fish and invertebrates, usually caught locally in inshore waters, have always supplied Aegean populations with a complementary food source. From the Classical Period onwards the number of literary references to the trade of fish and fish products either at short, i.e. intra-Aegean, or at longer distances, i.e. trans-Mediterranean or extra-Mediterranean, increases. Other products, namely raw materials of marine origin or finished objects made from marine materials, were also transported into the Aegean. This paper offers a review of zooarchaeological data from this region that provide direct or indirect evidence of such circulations, and discusses the limitations inherent in this record. It puts forward the hypothesis of a trans-Mediterranean fashion in the consumption of fish products or in the long-distance circulation of raw materials and finished items made from shell, that would have co-existed with local traditions.
Cet article explore le phénomène de circulation d’animaux marins et de produits issus d’animaux marins au sein de la mer Égée, ainsi que de leur importation de la Méditerranée ou de régions plus lointaines pendant le Ier millénaire av. J.-C. Des poissons et des invertébrés frais, communément pris sur les côtes, ont toujours constitué des ressources complémentaires pour les populations égéennes. À partir de l’Antiquité classique le nombre des références au commerce de poissons et de produits marins transformés augmente, qu’il s’agisse du transport à l’intérieur de l’Égée ou à plus grande distance, notamment intra-méditerranéen voire extra-méditerranéen. D’autres produits, notamment des matières premières d’origine marine ou des objets finis en matière marine, étaient par ailleurs transportés à travers la mer Égée. Cet article propose un panorama des données archéozoologiques disponibles pour cette région qui peuvent témoigner de manière directe ou indirecte de ces circulations et discute les limites méthodologiques de ces archives. Il met en avant l’hypothèse d’un mode transméditerranéen de consommation de produits de la mer et de circulation sur de longues distances de certaines matières premières marines et de produits finis en coquille, qui aurait coexisté avec des traditions locales.
Entrées d’index
Mots-clés : ressources marines, poissons, coquillages, exotica, Tridacna, corail, Égée, Méditerranée, Ier millénaire
Keywords : marine resources, fish, shells, exotica, Tridacna, coral, Aegean, Mediterranean, 1st millenium
Remerciements
I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers for suggestions and corrections that have significantly improved the first version of this paper. My thanks extent to Christophe Chandezon and Bruno D’Andrea for their benevolence throughout the preparation of this volume.
Texte intégral
Introduction
1The chronological period covered in this volume, i.e. the 1st millennium BC, is marked by frequent circulation of people, goods and ideas throughout the Mediterranean and beyond, with certain categories of items being often carriers of specific social, economic or symbolic meanings. Among these goods, the circulation of animals and animal products is a long-discussed phenomenon, that touches upon multiple aspects, including animal ethology and biogeography, as well as human actions (among other, domestication, breeding, exploitation of animal resources and by-products).1
2The identification of local vs distant marine resources is of particular importance in view of a wider socio-cultural analysis of the circulation of specific products/items in the 1st millennium BC. The marine animal world provides a wide range of resources that include live animals, dietary and non-dietary products, raw materials and finished objects. As is the case with terrestrial animals, marine organisms may undergo either natural movements or human-induced transport.2 This paper discusses various cases of circulation or transport of marine animals and marine animal resources, as reflected through their faunal remains, i.e. the bones of fish and shells of invertebrates found in archaeological sites. The geographical focus of this paper is the Aegean, a region that has produced a fair number of marine faunal assemblages dated to the period of interest. This period also provided some prestigious objects made of shell that constitute evidence of commercial links between distant populations. It is thus important to try to understand the economic and cultural choices to transport a marine animal or a marine raw material or finished product away from its immediate zone of collection.
3However, as it will be explained, the identification of the “distant origin” of a faunal remain is not always easy, and different degrees of “distant” may be set depending on the biogeographical zone considered and the ecological specificities of the animals encountered. On the other hand, marine remains that may be the result of short-distance circulations can yet prove equally important in assessing production mechanisms, trade networks and the economic and social importance of marine products and materials in the Greek world.
4Beyond the most generic distinction between marine animals and products coming from the same biogeographical zone and those considered as of exotic provenance, current zooarchaeological methodology offers adequate tools to bypass potential restrictions in the identification of local vs distant. The combination of faunal data with other lines of evidence, archaeological or textual, is also possible for the period under study, as those approaches may be also used to define remains, otherwise not qualified as objects of transport, solely based on their biogeographical identity.
5This paper focuses on marine faunal remains. The following sections present the biogeographical and cultural traits of various finds of marine origin from the Aegean, starting from the most direct to the less obvious in regard to their transport, and at various spatial scales of circulation, from the most distant to the more local.
Zooarchaeological, ecological, archaeological and literary tools to identify long-distance circulation of marine faunas
6When considering marine animals, similarly to terrestrial ones, it is important to keep in mind the diversity of marine environments and ecosystems that they can be found. For most humans, the sea is often conceived as a homogenous, undifferentiated entity, lacking the “infinite physical or experienced nuances attributed to the land”.3 However, the sea is far from being a unique, solid water mass, on the contrary, it can be quite diversified biogeographically. It is divided into a horizontal and a vertical zonation, i.e. defined according to the distance from the shore and to the depth from the surface of the water. The specific hydrological and other characteristics of each zone determine the composition of marine life. Plant and animal organisms will hence be distributed accordingly in these zones. Beyond this zonation, several factors may affect marine ecosystems, either at a punctual, short-term level, such as changes in temperature or salinity, at a seasonal, or at a regional scale.4
7The Aegean basin well exemplifies the above. Contained within the wider temperate ecological zone and sharing the general chemical and biological traits of the Mediterranean, the Aegean generally exhibits a Mediterranean marine faunal spectrum.5 The allochthonous, i.e. non-Mediterranean origin of some marine animals, such as molluscs or fish from the Indo-Pacific Ocean, can be relatively easily identified in the faunal record thanks to comparative anatomy (i.e. the identification of differences in the skeleton of different fish species, or the shell of molluscs).6 More recent methods offer the possibility to identify or to further refine the distant origin of faunal remains, namely mitochondrial DNA and stable isotope analyses.7
8Within the Mediterranean or even the Aegean realm, it is still possible to identify a short- or long-distance transport of marine products or materials. The location of discovery of marine faunal remains may provide proof of intra-Mediterranean or intra-Aegean transport. For instance, bones of marine fish or shells found in an inland settlement is an infallible criterion of the transport over a short or longer distance of entire animals or shells of invertebrates away from the coastal zone. Evidently, it becomes more complicated to identify a marine product or material found in a coastal or island site, but which has originally been acquired in another area. In order to do so, zooarchaeological research is then supported by marine biology and ecology. Local chemical or hydrological conditions such as variations in salinity, or different coastal environments, affect the biodiversity of the Aegean, and create differences with other Mediterranean zones.8
9Within the Aegean itself, local variations at a smaller or larger scale are also noted, i.e. from one bay to the neighbouring one or from the north to the south, and are responsible for the presence or absence of a specific set of marine organisms able to inhabit in specific conditions.9 The ecological background hence provides a number of criteria, such as the marine habitat, substrate, depth or tolerance to salinity degree, to rely upon in order to identify general biogeographical or specific marine ecological provenance of the archaeological faunal remains, for instance the presence of a shell harvested in estuarine zones found in a region close to rocky shores. Nevertheless, it is important to compare the ecological background known for a certain species with the geomorphological conditions close to the site of discovery, as well as palaeoceanographic conditions at the time of its occupation, as major palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental fluctuations that have occurred in the Mediterranean during the Holocene might have affected the composition of Mediterranean marine faunas.10
10Finally, occasionally the archaeological or literary record provides indirect evidence of the transport of marine animals or marine products. The association of marine remains with archaeological finds, such as storage or transport amphoras produced elsewhere, may provide more or less reliable evidence of the provenance of the marine products stored in them.11 Ancient textual sources, to name but Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists, occasionally name specific renowned resources or local delicacies transported across the Aegean. However, the proof of such a transport in the faunal record may only rely on the ecological identity of each species mentioned above.
11In the following, the aforedescribed zooarchaeological tools to identify long or short distance circulation of marine animals and products in the faunal record are exemplified through a selection of case studies.
Marine products and materials of extra-Mediterranean origin
Exotic shells and objects made of shell
12The presence of remains of marine animals fished or collected beyond the Mediterranean is relatively easy to identify and offers direct evidence of long-distance circulation marine products of materials.
13The Tridacna shells found in the Aegean, most commonly in 7th c. BC deposits, are a good example of this phenomenon. Tridacna is a genus of large marine bivalves. The species most frequently identified in the archaeological record are the scaly clam (Tridacna squamosa Lamarck, 1819) [pl. IX, 50] and the small giant clam (Tridacna maxima Röding, 1798). They are both native to most warm seas of the world, such as the Red Sea or the Indian and South Pacific Oceans. They do not live in the Mediterranean waters.12 Tridacna clams consist of two heavy valves, fluted with four to six folds. Their size can reach 20-40 cm in length.
14Their impressive shell as well as easiness of procurement by simple diving has made them a particularly sought-after material throughout the areas of natural distribution but also as far as the Mediterranean and northern Europe. Over 120 Indo-Pacific Tridacna specimens (both T. squamosa and T. maxima) have been found in a number of circum-Mediterranean archaeological sites, including Mesopotamia, the Levant, Egypt, Ionia, Etruria, and the Aegean.13 Tridacna shells have known a wide distribution in the Early Iron Age, with most items from Greece dated to the mid-7th c. BC, a period of intensive contacts and Phoenician trade in the eastern Mediterranean,14 and essentially found in votive/sanctuary deposits (fig. 1): nine unmodified and ten engraved fragments in the sanctuary of Athena at Lindos,15 two unmodified and 16 engraved items in the Heraion of Samos,16 some fragments in the mortuary chamber and sanctuary at Vroulia on Rhodes,17 two engraved fragments in the sanctuary of Hera at Perachora,18 one engraved fragment in the Artemision at Ephesos,19 some fragments in the sanctuary of Aphaia and Apollo at Aegina,20 one engraved fragment in a grave at Kos,21 one engraved valve in a grave at Rhodes, as well as fragments from the layers below the Stoa of the Athenians to the right of the Sacred Way at Delphi,22 and from the area around the stadium of Olympia.23 They include both unmodified clams and carved objects. The latter are particularly impressive and certainly prestigious objects, and follow more or less common themes and representations, such as a stylized human head, a palmette in the centre of the siren’s back, feathers of sphinx, wings, lotus flowers, as well as geometric motifs.
Fig. 1. Map of the Aegean with distribution of marine finds of extra-Mediterranean or Mediterranean origin, examples of modern Indo-Pacific shells (up, Collections CEPAM-CNRS) and archaeological finds (bottom, from left to right: Tridacna from the sanctuary of Athena at Lindos [Blinkenberg 1931, p. 176, fig. 22 and pl. 19]; coral ornaments from the sanctuary of Kythnos [T. Theodoropoulou]; tuna slice from the Punic Amphora Building at Corinth [T. Theodoropoulou]).

15The presence of Tridacna shells in the Greek world is direct evidence of trade of a marine raw material across the eastern Mediterranean and beyond. Unmodified Tridacna shells were harvested outside the Mediterranean and some were imported and deposited unmodified in the sanctuaries. According to specialists, the engraved Tridacna found in the Aegean were also products of long distance transport, since their engraving was not done locally based on stylistic criteria.24 The exact origin of carved objects has been a matter of debate, with specialists arguing between their production in a workshop in Naucratis of Egypt or alternatively in a Phoenician production centre.25 Given the diversity of objects from the Aegean, it is possible that they came from more than one workshop.26
16The engraved shells are part of a wider network with the east and a general taste for orientalising objects (see below). Those items could arrive to the Aegean either as a cargo of shells and other luxurious traded from east to west, or they could have been transported along by their owners. As these items are mostly found in the first Panhellenic sanctuaries, they may represent exotica, natural offerings from the travels of the worshippers in the eastern Mediterranean, while other, presumably the engraved ones, might have been sold at the Greek sanctuaries by eastern traders.27
17Tridacna shells thus represent one of the most iconic marine items of the 1st millennium BC, which provide evidence of long-distance extra-Mediterranean transport and, in the case of engraved items, an intermediate step of transformation in production centres in the eastern Mediterranean before reaching their final destination in the Aegean and elsewhere. The potential symbolisms related to the origin, qualities and production have been presented elsewhere.28
18The Mediterranean record includes a number of other shells from the Red Sea and the Indo-Pacific, usually gastropods, which have been presented in a key paper by D. Reese.29 They are more usually found in eastern Mediterranean archaeological contexts, such as Jordan, Syria, Israel and Cyprus, as early as the Epipalaeolithic, although occasionally sites in central and northern Europe have produced sparse examples. Although less common in the Aegean area, they have occasionally been found in 1st millennium BC contexts.
19Among the most emblematic shells, imbued with symbolic and economic meaning throughout time and across civilisations, cowries (Cypraeidae family) are found in all the temperate and tropical seas of the world, including in the Mediterranean, and have been recovered in archaeological sites since the early Prehistory. Next to the native species commonly found in the Aegean (usually Luria lurida),30 three modified (grounded-down dorsum) cowry shells of an Indo-Pacific species—Cypraea annulus, currently accepted name Monetaria annulus (Linnaeus, 1758) [pl. IX, 51]—are also reported. Two were found in the altar of Aphrodite in the Athenian Agora and are dated to 500-425 BC,31 and one was recovered in the 6th c. BC sanctuary of Poseidon and Melikertes-Palaimon at Isthmia (fig. 1).32
20Despite the detailed records of finds from Greek sanctuary or funerary contexts, the numbers of these shells remain to this day extremely low, it is thus difficult to argue on a trade network. Pierced or grounded-down cowry shells would have probably travelled across long-distances together with the owners of these shells, who could have carried them as amulets or exotic objects, souvenirs from their distant travels. They were eventually deposited in the sanctuaries as offerings by the worshippers.
21From early Greek contexts, a single Lambis lambis (L., 1758) [pl. IX, 52] or spider conch was found in the 7th c. BC mortuary chamber at Vroulia on Rhodes, together with the Tridacna shells mentioned above.33 This large gastropod, native in the Indo-Pacific, could have travelled together with the Tridacna from the same area of origin or independently from them, and would have represented an object that had accompanied the deceased during life or a prestigious offering at the moment of burial.
22The above examples of marine shells of extra-Mediterranean origin, albeit limited in numbers, are part of the pronounced taste for exotic luxury commodities (pottery, ivory, jewellery), commonly known under orientalia, that circulated in the eastern Mediterranean especially during the Early Iron Age and Archaic Period. The Aegean seems to participate in these extended networks between the Indian Ocean, the Levant, Egypt and the rest of the early Mediterranean world. Those objects might have been acquired directly and brought back by Aegean or foreign travellers, or they could have been purchased from Mediterranean traders. More than aesthetic items valued with their distant origin, it could further be argued that those objects represented markers of social prestige and luxury, collected and exhibited by aristocrats, who forged their individual and social identity during the Archaic Period.34 As part of a social koine, they were recognisable as such by Aegean societies and were used within highly visible and symbolic contexts, namely votive, religious or mortuary.
23Although exotic shells do not seem to continue to circulate in later centuries in the Aegean, two rare examples of black-lipped pearl oyster Pinctada margaritifera (L., 1758) from the Hellenistic-Roman era are of particular interest. This large bivalve shell is found in the Indo-Pacific tropical coral reefs and is particularly valued for its nacreous inner shell. All species of the genus produce pearls. Reese reports of a worked pearl oyster (Pinctada sp.) valve fragment, incised on the interior surface, found in room 4 of House Delta at the Athenian Agora, dated between the 1st c. BC and the 1st c. AD (fig. 1).35 A second valve of Pinctada margaritifera, incised on the interior and carved on the umbo to form animal heads, has been recently unearthed from a Hellenistic burial in the western ancient necropolis of Thessaloniki (fig. 1).36 The two Pinctada shells from the Aegean reflect the trade of this bivalve,37 among other precious items, from the 1st c. BC to the 4th c. AD, a period of intensive contacts between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.38
24The following section explores other categories of products, namely marine foodstuffs that may have travelled across long distances into the Aegean.
Non-marine fish and fish products
25Within complex societies, the preservation of foodstuffs may go beyond the limits of later consumption of food surplus at a family or community level. It may be destined to serve exchanges and trade, exactly like other products.39 To our knowledge, there are no examples of fish remains indicating the import of species from distant oceans, as is the case of shells. However, the Mediterranean faunal record has provided evidence on fish or fish products from the Nile or Near eastern rivers that are here presented as evidence of long-distance transport.40 Fish remains denoting such a transport have mainly been reported from the eastern Mediterranean and only occasionally from Italy. To this day, more than 50 sites spanning from the Chalcolithic to the Middle Ages, have produced bones of Nilotic fish,41 namely catfish (Clarias sp., Synodontis sp., Bagrus bagrus) the Nile perch (Lates niloticus) [pl. VIII, 46], or other freshwater taxa (Mormyridae, Citharhinidae, Distichodus sp.).42 They show a long-lasting tradition of transport of Nilotic fish, especially flourishing at certain periods.43 Their transport over such long distances, i.e. from Egypt across the Mediterranean coasts, was made possible thanks to traditional conservation methods (drying, smoking) attested in Egypt as early as the end of the Palaeolithic.44 It is also possible that fish were transported alive in big containers filled with water.45
26The Aegean world records only one case of non-marine fish remains. The Archaic Temple C at Kommos in Crete produced fragments from a pectoral spine of a Clarias (fig. 1).46 Given the isolated presence of this bone, it is not certain if a whole fish had been transported to the island. Its association with food is not certain either, as it is known from representations and ethnographic comparanda that the pectoral bone of catfish was used as a tool for scraping or piercing thanks to its robustness. It is thus possible that it represents an isolated item, transported from Egypt, potentially to serve as a tool within a ritual context.
The circulation of marine products and materials of Mediterranean/Aegean origin within the Aegean
27As stated above, intra-Mediterranean or intra-Aegean transport is not easily recognisable in the faunal record. The context and geographical location of discovery, together with the nature and ecological affiliation of the identified species, may help locate their provenance. However, products of short distance transport may never be recognised as imported, solely based on faunal analysis.47 The following paragraphs put forward marine commodities that might have circulated across the Aegean and the Mediterranean.
Items from coral
28Coral features among the most highly valued raw materials of marine origin in different periods and cultures. The widespread presence of coral remains throughout the Aegean world and Greek colonies in the western Mediterranean, particularly in the 7th and 6th c. BC,48 makes the coral an interesting marine raw material to discuss in terms of circulation. Although the exploitation and symbolic value of this raw material in Antiquity has been addressed by several authors,49 the harvesting, transport and processing of raw red coral in Antiquity is not well understood.
29This valuable marine invertebrate (Corallium rubrum L., 1758) [pl. IX, 53] forms coralligenous aggregations on shadowed rocky substrates and underwater caves of the Mediterranean, including the Aegean, Ionian and Cretan Sea, over a wide depth range (10 to > 250 m).50 The actual decrease of red coral communities and retreat of the species to deeper waters throughout the Mediterranean is a recent phenomenon due to centuries of overharvesting, and its natural distribution in Antiquity would have been wider, though still restricted to locations and depths that offered the ecological conditions for coralligenous formations to thrive.
30Interestingly, ancient authors do not mention the Aegean as a place of coral fishing.51 This contrasts with the increased presence of objects made of coral, especially in 7th-6th c. BC Greek sanctuaries (fig. 1). Among them, two assemblages stand out by their richness and diversity of shapes: the one from the sanctuary of Hera Akraia and Limenia at Perachora (at least six unworked and ten worked pieces),52 as well as the assemblage from the adyton of one of the temples of the sanctuary of the Middle Plateau in the ancient town of Kythnos (15 unworked or partly worked, 121 modified, and eight forming part of metal ornaments).53 Other sanctuaries have produced smaller assemblages: 18 mostly unmodified items from the first Delian Heraion,54 two unworked fragments from the Artemision in Ephesos,55 sizeable coral trees from the Samian Heraion,56 one unworked branch from the sanctuary of Hera at Argos,57 one unworked fragment from the Deposit A of the pronaos of the archaic temple of Poseidon at Isthmia,58 one fragment from Kato Phana at Chios,59 an unspecified number of branches from the sanctuary of Athena at Kamiros,60 one fragment from the early Archaic deposits of the sanctuary of Athena at Lindos,61 one piece from the sanctuary of Poseidon and Melikertes-Palaimon at Isthmia.62
31Until recently, the foreign, i.e. western Mediterranean provenance of coral items found in the Aegean was privileged based on the actual observation that coralligenous aggregations are rare in this region.63 Among this rich archaeological record, the finished shape of some object would suggest either a distant origin of those items or local production following orientalising standards.64 This is the case of a coral scarab from the sanctuary of Perachora,65 and an orientalising head-bead from the sanctuary at Kythnos.66 Their punctual presence probably suggests individual transport of these amulets by travellers visiting Aegean sanctuaries. The provenance of other items, namely the extraordinary, unmodified sizeable coral trees from Samos, which have probably been deposited in the sanctuary as curiosities (θαυμάσια, naturalia),67 cannot be substantiated.
32On the other hand, the presence of bits of unworked coral in several sites across the Aegean supports the idea of local availability and harvesting. Moreover, the presence of partly worked pieces, often found together with finished objects, especially in the assemblages from Perachora and Kythnos, supports the idea that at least some of these items were worked locally and sold as votive offerings to ancient pilgrims visiting the first Greek sanctuaries.68 Identification of the exact harvesting locations within the Aegean would help proposing potential intra-Aegean circulation of this raw material.
Mediterranean fish and fish products
33Fresh marine fish and invertebrates, caught locally, have always supplied Aegean populations with a complementary food resource. The rich literary record available from the Classical Period onwards, attests to the circulation of fresh and processed fish products through intra-Aegean and trans-Mediterranean networks.69 Greek fish markets were probably supplied in fish from various Aegean regions, renowned for their products,70 and the Attic comedy praises salted fish products coming from the Iberian peninsula and the Black Sea.71 Ancient sources occasionally report on the introduction of alive Aegean and eastern Mediterranean marine fish species to the west for reproduction, such as the case of the parrot-fish (Sparisoma cretense),72 or on the transplant of alive oysters from one Greek island to another.73
34Archaeological evidence of intra-Mediterranean transport is slightly better identified than intra-Aegean one. Although the transport of fish, alive or processed, over long distances is a practice known in the Mediterranean from the Chalcolithic Period,74 the bulk of fish remains from historical Aegean contexts are common inshore fishes, not related to any type of container.75 It is thus usually difficult to support the hypothesis of transport of fish or fish products from one Aegean coastal area to another or from another Mediterranean region. Our knowledge lies primarily on the discovery of specialised western Mediterranean amphorae found in excavated sites or shipwrecks.76
35Few existing data from the 1st millennium BC Aegean may offer some evidence of intra-Aegean/Mediterranean transport of marine products. To this day, the Punic Amphora Building in Corinth, dated to the mid-5th c. BC, offers the unique case of incontestable trans-Mediterranean and, potentially also, intra-Aegean transport of marine products in the 1st millennium BC Aegean (fig. 1).77 Fish remains associated with Punic transport amphorae as well as Greek wine amphorae (Chian, Mendean, Pseudo-Coan) were found in the open backyard and in the surroundings of the building (fig. 1). Faunal analysis seems to indicate more than one type of marine products, including tuna slices, a liquid preparation made of small clupeids (in the form of allec) as well as an assortment of inshore fishes—gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata), thinlip grey mullet (Chelon ramada) [pl. VIII, 48], white grouper (Epinephelus aeneus), seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax) and wrasse (Labridae)—, common to the Aegean, which may have been sold either fresh or preserved in some manner in the Corinthian establishment.78 The pottery has been identified as belonging mainly to amphorae groups widely used in pottery workshops and fish-salting industries of the Strait of Gibraltar and the wider region (“Punic West”) during the 5th-early 4th c. BC; a smaller number of potteries came from Carthaginian production centres.79
36The abundant tuna remains, which included bones, clusters of scales cut in various shapes and loose scales, associated with the Punic and Carthaginian transport amphorae found at Corinth certainly represent evidence of the important trade of τάριχος (salted tuna chunks sold in various shapes, such as triangular/τρίγωνον, square/τετράγωνον and cubic/κύβιον), that took place between the western and the eastern Mediterranean as early as the 5th c. BC.80 The fish preparation made from clupeids identified in the material is not easily associated with the Punic amphorae due to the shape of the latter, not suitable for liquid contents. However, such a product could be associated with the Aegean transport containers, also found in the building. The presence of various Greek wine amphorae attests to the trade of various Aegean goods together with western Mediterranean ones. Some local Aegean fish products, such as pickled fish, could potentially have been transported in Greek amphoras, even if the containers had originally served a different liquid content.81
37Finally, two more rare examples of combined records, i.e. archaeological and faunal, which have been unearthed in the Hellenistic-Roman town of Dion (northern Greece), may provide evidence of intra-Aegean or intra-Mediterranean transport of fish products (fig. 1). The first case has been found in the so-called House of the Hydraulis, situated to the east of the town’s market, dated to the 1st c. BC. Fragments of an amphora (no further details provided) were associated with at least six complete or sub-complete (only the frontal part of the head was missing) little tunnies (Euthynnus alletteratus) measuring between 40 and 80 cm long.82 They could represent salted tunas, as it was a common practice to cut off the frontal part of the head to empty the blood concentrated in this part of the body and prevent putrefaction. However, no cutmarks were found either on the head bones or the vertebrae. At a second location in the town, the luxurious House of Euboulos, fish bones have been associated with amphora sherds dated to the Hellenistic-Roman periods (to this day, not further dated). They included various head and body elements of at least one tuna (Thunnus sp.), as well as articulated vertebrae of one little tunny transversely cut (chunk).
38Both assemblages could represent fresh or salted fish, in the second case probably products like those mentioned in the texts (τεμάχη θυννίδων, τετράγωνον, κύβιον). Currently, the Aegean or more distant origin of these products, i.e. from other regions of the Roman Empire remains unclear to this day, as the study of the associated pottery that could highlight a specific production centre, has not been completed. Although the tuna-fishing and salt-fish industry flourished during the Roman period in Mediterranean coastal areas close to tuna migration routes,83 textual and archaeological evidence of salt-works and fish salting in the Aegean basin is not conclusive.84 The information derived from the identified species, the extremely wide distribution of the Scombrid family, which includes migratory taxa, do not allow narrowing down the harvesting spots and transformation centres of these products. Indeed, Scombrids migrate from the Black Sea through the Aegean to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic and back at known seasons.85 This makes the fishing and intra-Aegean transport of freshly caught seasonal resources absolutely possible,86 yet not visible in the zooarchaeological record.
39The origin of the fish and fish products from Corinth and Dion are of particular importance to understanding the reasons and meaning of their circulation and consumption by Aegean communities. The undisputable western provenance of the salted tuna chunks from the Corinthian establishment is the earliest known case of a Mediterranean trade that flourished from the Classical Period onwards and attest to the adoption of a Mediterranean fashion for consumption of processed marine products. Beyond the gustative taste for salted fish, it may be argued that the distant origin of production added extra value to these commodities, as suggested by ancient sources.87 A distant provenance of the liquid preparation from Corinth and of the fish found at Dion, whether fresh or processed, would confirm this hypothesis. However, locally, i.e. intra-Aegean, captured and transformed fish products most probably also circulated and had their place in Aegean markets. The identification of local/distant products and coexistence in the same contexts could provide an insight into the potentially different value as well as appreciation by Aegean consumers.
Concluding remarks
40Among various animals and animal products that circulated in the ancient world, marine animals and marine animal products and raw materials represent a distinct case. Although their presence in an archaeological site, out of their physical environment, naturally alien to the human/terrestrial one, offers evidence of transport, the distance, reasons and means of this transport, are of crucial importance to our understanding of the importance that these animals and products played in the ancient Greek world. As it has been argued above, in a region like the Aegean, and more widely the Mediterranean, the identification of such circulations within the Mediterranean boundaries, especially in coastal and island sites, is not archaeologically always discernible, especially for those marine animals that are native in the Aegean and Mediterranean waters, unless they are found in inland locations. The combination of various records, faunal, archaeological and literary, may provide useful tools for a more precise intra-Aegean or intra-Mediterranean identification, and the Aegean record occasionally offers such examples, such as items made of coral or salted fish products transported in amphorae that have seen a wide circulation in the 1st millennium BC across the Mediterranean. Much more direct is the identification in Aegean sites of allochthonous species, i.e. native in other oceans like the Indo-Pacific. Exotic shells and fish seem to have been transported in the eastern Mediterranean, including the Aegean. Their contexts of discovery are usually sanctuary or funerary sites.
41Although the nature and function of both Aegean/Mediterranean and extra-Mediterranean marine animals and marine products or raw materials in culture are quite varied, they all point to an intended choice regarding their use and, probably, also meanings. Paraphrasing Jochim’s statement,88 these marine items reflect “competing desires beyond that of simple subsistence needs”. All of the identified cases represent materials that do not constitute a subsistence need and could have been replaced by other resources. It can be argued that most of them were deliberately selected on the basis of their distant origin, unique shape, colour, taste, or intended use. Whether the special value attributed to them is also related to their marine nature, it remains unclear. Their transport over shorter or longer distances, implying a difficulty to acquire them but also underlining an exotic origin, directly offers an additional value. It seems that the value of these items was commonly recognised and shared by eastern Mediterranean people, as suggested by the discovery of similar items in several archaeological sites of this region.89 Their finding in symbolically charged loci, such as sanctuaries and cemeteries, seems to accentuate this interpretation. Their discovery within specific contexts, whether secular (thriving commercial establishment, elite residences) or ritual (sanctuaries, funerary contexts), suggests a deliberately chosen social and symbolic environment of consumption/use.90 At the same time, at a highly semiotic level, the incorporation of these items into the Mediterranean typology might denote a “cultural transfer” and an “acculturation”.91
42The incorporation of marine animals and marine raw materials and products in specific transport and trade networks within and beyond the Mediterranean but also their consumption in well-defined contexts deserves to be placed within the wider socio-economic and perceptual framework known for each period and region. The comparison of approaches and uses of these marine items with other animals and animal products may offer a more precise appreciation of the specific conditions of their circulation and use as well as of the value and importance attributed to them.
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Notes de bas de page
1Gardeisen 2002.
2For a distinction between the natural vs human circulation of marine animals: Desse – Desse-Berset 2002. Trade should be considered as a specific case of human transport.
3Cunliffe 2017, p. 2.
4Pérès – Picard 1964.
5For ex., Fischer et al. 1987. The Mediterranean basin is further divided into sub-basins based on discontinuities in the geography, hydrology, trophic potential and biological communities: Stergiou et al. 1997.
6In a zooarchaeological evaluation of the ecological identity of identified taxa, alien species recently introduced in the Mediterranean, such as the migration of Lessepsian species from the Red Sea into the basin through the Suez Canal (1869), should not be considered.
7For ex., Arndt et al. 2003.
8Coll et al. 2010.
9For ex., Zenetos 1997; Stergiou et al. 1997.
10On that matter, also Van Neer et al. 2004.
11For an overview, Panagou forthcoming; also, examples in this article.
12Fischer et al. 1987; Zenetos 1997.
13Complete list in Stucky 1974; Reese – Sease 1993, 2004.
14Bourogiannis 2012.
15Blinkenberg 1931, p. 176-182, pl. 17, 19-21; Stucky 1974, p. 14, 57.
16Diehl 1965, p. 823; Stucky 1974, p. 14, 42-47, 57, 93, pl. 33-40; Boessneck – von den Driesch 1983, p. 22-24, pl. 4; Reese 1991.
17Kinch 1914, p. 160.
18Dunbabin 1962, p. 527, pl. 194.
19Bammer 1991-1992, 2001.
20Stucky 1974, p. 48-49, 55-56, 93-94, pl. 42, 59.
21Ibid., p. 37, pl. 25.
22Ibid., p. 47, pl. 43-46.
23Ibid., p. 50, 94, pl. 44; for a detailed list: Theodoropoulou 2017a.
24For a synthesis of opinions on that matter: Dunbabin 1962, p. 527.
25Diverging opinions on the provenance: Blinkenberg 1931, p. 176-182; Dunbabin 1962, p. 527.
26Theodoropoulou 2017a.
27Ibid.
28Ibid.
29Reese 1991.
30List of specimens from the Early Iron Age to the Archaic Period: Theodoropoulou 2017a, 2017b.
31Reese 1989.
32Gebhard 1998, p. 108, fig. 12; Gebhard – Reese 2005, p. 140-141.
33Kinch 1914, p. 160.
34On that matter: Duplouy 2006.
35Reese 1991.
36Ifantidis 2014.
37For known examples and their geographical distribution: Michaelides 1995; Schneider 2019; summarised in Ifantidis 2014, fig. 5. One more item from Greece is reported from Delphi, dated to the Early Byzantine Period: Petridis 2009. On recent finds from Hellenistic-Roman Egypt: Morand 2020.
38On other items from marine raw material, namely nacreous pearls and tortoise shell: Schneider 2017; Trinquier 2018. However, to this day, there are no examples of oyster pearls from the Aegean archaeological record. On the general trade networks between the two regions, case studies in De Romanis – Maiuro 2015.
39Crabtree 1990; deFrance 2009.
40For an overview of the reasons of this trade: Van Neer et al. 2004.
41Although the Clarias, a catfish living amongst others in the Nile and Levant, has been used as evidence of trade with Levant and Egypt, mitochondrial DNA analysis recently carried out on ancient samples (i.e. from Roman and Byzantine Salagassos) and compared with modern populations of this species from Turkey, Syria, Israel and Egypt, revealed that ancient bones originated from the lower Nile (Arndt et al. 2003).
42De Grossi Mazzorin 2000; Van Neer – Ervynck 2004; Van Neer et al. 2004; for an example of diachronic presence of Nilotic/Near eastern freshwater fish at Kition in Cyprus: Renaud et al. 2020.
43Especially, the Early Iron Age and the Hellenistic-Roman Era: Van Neer et al. 2004.
44For ex., the fish remains from the site of Makhadma dated to 12000 BP: Van Neer – Paulissen – Vermeersch 2000; also, the well-known representations of fish-processing from the Tomb of Ti in Saqqara, 5th dynasty: Van Elsbergen 1997, p. 75-86.
45Houndekon 1992; Rose 1994, p. 456; Bekker-Nielsen 2004 citing Oppian.
46Rose 1994, p. 263-269; Rose 2000.
47This is the case of purple-fishing and purple-dye production. Roman sources attest the importation of raw murex snails to purple-dye production centres (Lytle 2007). Several 1st millennium BC coastal sites across the Aegean have produced murex heaps, but it is not possible to substantiate transport of alive murex snails based on zooarchaeological criteria in any of the known examples.
48Hermary 2000; for an updated list from the Aegean: Theodoropoulou 2017a. A collection of regional studies from the ancient world in Morel – Rondi Costanzo – Ugolini 2000.
49Various interpretations in Morel – Rondi Costanzo – Ugolini 2000.
50For their actual distributions, see Chintiroglou – Dounas – Koukouras 1989; Harmelin 2000; Salomidi et al. 2009.
51Pliny, Natural history, 32.11, mentions only western Mediterranean locations, as well as the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.
52Payne 1940, p. 77; Dunbabin 1962, p. 526-527, pl. 191, 195.
53Koukoulidou et al. 2017.
54Deonna 1938, p. 309-310.
55Hogarth – Smith 1908, p. 213.
56Kyrieleis 1988, p. 219, fig. 6.
57Waldstein 1905, p. 354, pl. 140, no 92.
58D.S. Reese, personal communication in Hermary 2000.
59Lamb 1934-1935, p. 151, pl. 32, no 64.
60Hoffmann 1904, p. 48.
61Blinkenberg 1931, p. 177.
62Gebhard 1998, p. 108, fig. 12; Gebhard – Reese 2005, p. 140-141.
63Hermary 2000, who bases his hypothesis on the presence of corals in the western basin and on the important trade network during the Archaic Period between Corinth and the Greek colonies in southern Italy.
64On the presence of common finds from coral at Perachora and Egyptian contexts: Meeks 2000. On the transport of coral in later periods (Hellenistic-Roman) from Marseille to Alexandria and then to India, through Red Sea ports: De Romanis 2000; Marzano 2013, p. 163-167.
65Dunbabin 1962, p. 526-527.
66Koukoulidou et al. 2017.
67Jacobstahl 1944, p. 132, n. 2; Tassignon 2005.
68Theodoropoulou 2017a.
69Dumont 1976-1977; Curtis 1991, p. 114; Dalby 1996; Curtis 2005; Mylona 2016.
70For ex., in Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, 7.295c-d: the Boeotian eels, the mussels from Pontus, the Megarian grey-fish, the Carystian sprats, the Eretrian breams, the crawfish from Skyros, the glaukos from Olynth, the chromis of Pella, the sharks from Torone or from Rhodes, the Thasian pickle, the mullets from Halai Aexonidae, the psitta from Eleusis, the eels from Strymon and from lake Copais.
71Curtis 1991, p. 114, with references to Antiphanes, fr. 77 Kock; Eupolis, fr. 186 Kock; Nicostratos, fr. 4-5 Kock.
72Pliny, Natural history, 9.29.
73Aristoteles, On generation of animals, 3.10, 763b.1-4.
74See the example of Nilotic fish above, as well as Houndekon 1992; Rose 1994, p. 456; Bekker-Nielsen 2004; Van Neer – Ervynck 2004.
75Examples in Mylona 2008, table 51a-g.
76Lund – Gabrielsen 2005; Koutsouflakis 2013; Lytle 2018; Panagou forthcoming.
77Zimmermann-Munn 2003.
78Sáez Romero – Theodoropoulou 2021.
79For details on the identified workshops: Sáez Romero – Theodoropoulou – Belizón Aragón 2020; Sáez Romero – Theodoropoulou 2021.
80Sáez Romero – Theodoropoulou – Belizón Aragón 2020.
81Based on their shape. On the reuse of amphorae: Lytle 2018; Panagou forthcoming.
82Theodoropoulou 2014.
83Synthesis on records: Curtis 2005.
84Lytle 2018; Mylona 2018; synthesis of possible evidence in the North Aegean: Theodoropoulou 2014, fig. 8.
85Dumont 1976-1977; Theodoropoulou 2014, fig. 8; Mylona 2021.
86On that matter, also Lytle 2018.
87See above.
88Jochim 1983.
89For ex., Reese 1991.
90On that matter: Crabtree 1990; Purcell 1995; Collin-Bouffier 2008; deFrance 2009; Lytle 2010.
91Schneider 2017.
Auteur
Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, CEPAM, UMR 7264
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