Late Roman and Early Byzantine Pottery

This monograph comes as a result of the research carried out by the authors (Ioan Carol Opriș and Alexandru Rațiu) between 1993-1996, 2006-2010, as well as from several other survey ditches in 2011 and 2014 on a building of approx. 10 x 11 m and a surface of 109.5 m2 situated in the southern part of the fort at Capidava, next to the main gate. The building C1 functioned during the 6th c. until a violent attack destroyed it in 582 or subsequently, in the early years of Mauricius Tiberius` reign. On this occasion the whole southeastern side of the fort (curtains G and H, as well as the gate tower no 7 and the largest building known so far intra muros – a granary/ horreum) has been heavily burnt.

Both the planimetric distribution, along the via principalis in the vicinity of the gate, and its specific architectural features, corroborated with the analysis of the finds, allowed us to establish the function of the building C1 as storage facility with commercial destination for the local distribution of annona goods (in LR 1 and LR2 amphorae), besides other expensive merchandise in Cretan, Western Asia Minor and above all Levantine containers. The latter are the unmistakable and so called Carthage LR 4 amphorae produced in Gaza - Palaestina Prima for the famous vinum Gazetum (Gazetina, Gazeticum).

Three annexes follow the text: the first one focused on the numismatic analysis of an emergency hoard of bronze folles found in situ (Andrei Gândilă – Univ. of Alabama in Huntsville) and offers key elements of further dating the moment when the building was destroyed, under heavy attack; the second is dedicated to the dendrochronology of the building, based upon its wooden elements saved from the incendium post 582 (Tomasz Ważny, Peter I. Kuniholm, Charlotte L. Pearson - Univ. of Arizona in Tucson); the third is the analysis report of an organic sample collected from inside a Pontic amphora, indicating a content of pine tar, most likely needed in treating the boats sailing on the Danube (Adriana Rizzo and Choi Mak -  Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

For the first time, the arts and crafts of Thessaloniki, once the second largest city in the Byzantine Empire after Constantinople, are examined thoroughly through archaeological remains, historical sources and epigraphic records.More than 80 years of archaeological research and a life-time of personal research that covers 112 excavations, reveals at least 16 artisanal trades in detail. The book is organised chronologically with overviews of the political history and topography of Thessaloniki throughout its nineteen-centuries-long history. With an illustrated catalogue of each site and distribution maps, this work reveals relatively unknown aspects of life in Antiquity, the Early Christian period and Byzantium.

In the summer of 2014, fifteen years will have passed since archaeological excavations began on the island of Cabrera, the fifth smallest of the Balearic Islands, located a few kilometers off the southern tip of Mallorca. These excavations served as the starting point for the Project for the Recovery, Consolidation and Museological Interpretation of Cabrera's Byzantine Monastery. This project has been coordinated at all times by Palma City Council's Urban Planning Department and co-directed by the authors of this foreword, a management team joined more recently by Maria Jose Rivas, Josep Maria Puche, and Julio Miguel Roman.' Between 1999 and 2012, archaeological work on Cabrera was funded by Palma City Council. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, the Spanish Ministry of the Environment also contributed financially to restoration and museological activities.2 In 2013, funding was provided by the Balearic Ministry for Education, Culture and Universities' Directorate General for Universities, Research and Knowledge Transfers for land clearance in areas that were to be excavated. The main aim of the Project for the Recovery, Consolidation and Museological Interpretation of Cabrera's Byzantine Monastery has always been to discover and show what the monastery that Pope Gregory the Great mentions in his Epistle XIII, 47, was like. The pope's letter was written in the year 603 AD and it clearly demonstrates the existence of a monastery on the island of Cabrera.

The project is based on conclusions reached in a university degree thesis by one of the authors, Mateu Riera Rullan, entitled Cabrera Monastery in the Late Antiquity, supervised by Professor Miquel Barcelo Perello of Barcelona's Autonoma University, to whom we express ourgratitude. In the thesis, delivered in 2002, data from the small islands of Cabrera, Conillera and 11 lot dels Frares was compared with written sources describing Christian monastic life in the 4th to 8th centuries AD and with archaeological discoveries made at monasteries of the period located on small islands in the western Mediterranean or Atlantic. The thesis concluded that Cabrera was a "holy island" where two types of monastic settlements seem to have coexisted: a main monastery and several hermitages.

Right from the outset, it was proposed that the study of Cabrera's monastic community should be aimed at finding out how the community functioned internally, what use the monks made of the area and its resources, and what modifications they made to the local environment. It was decided that attempts should be made to determine the characteristics of the buildings, to work out how they were used, and to compare them with those cited in written sources. Priority was also given to comparing the archaeological remains on Cabrera with the archaeological remains of examples of 5th to 8th century AD monasteries excavated elsewhere. These are the main criteria on which our work has been based these last few years, leading to the publication of this catalogue.

Thus the aim of this publication is to offer a summary of the archaeological work that has been undertaken in the subarchipelago of Cabrera, contextualizing it within the framework of the 5th to 8th century AD Christian monastic world, a period in which the Balearic Islands formed part of the Vandal kingdom and then the Byzantine Empire.

- The deadline for the abstract submissions to the unguentarium symposium has just been prolonged to May 10, 2018. So, if anybody in your communities is planning to participate to this symposium, we are still able to accept them.
- Please feel free to post this program and/or booklet in your own Facebook, Academia or Researchgate accounts or circulate it to your friends/communities. Thank you in advance.

The paper presents the results of the excavation of two trenches of a linear earthwork (ditch and rampart) just outside the Late Roman fortress near the ancient Dyonisopolis in the province of Scythia Minor. The earthwork was thought to be of Proto-Bulgarian Origin and it was assumed that it was built at the end of the 7th or in the course of the 8th century.
Both trenches produced considerable amounts of ceramics (pottery, amphorae, bricks and roof-tiles) which could be dated to the Late Antiquity. Not a single sherd of Early Medieval pottery was found in the fill of both rampart and ditch, and just a handful of Late Medieval and Ottoman fragments were found in the upper layers of the ditch together with modern items. The materials therefore gave us not only a terminus post quem for the construction date, but also a positive terminus ante quem for the abandonment of the earthwork as reliable fortification.
We therefore can conclude that if ever the Proto-Bulgarians had something to do with the construction of the earthwork in Balchik, is the fact that it was erected possibly against them but not by them – it should be interpreted as a Late Antique construction (proteichisma) built by the inhabitants of the still functioning fortress.

In 2007 a symposium was held at Texas A&M University to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Texas A&M University Press’s publication of the first volume reporting the Yassiada shipwreck site. Seventeen papers from that symposium featured in this book broadly illustrate such varied topics as ships and seafaring life, maritime trade, naval texts, commercial cargoes, and recent developments in the analysis of the Yassiada ship itself.

Pocas civilizaciones han sido objeto de juicios tan contradictorios como la bizantina. Si para un sector la Roma de Oriente alcanzó altas cotas de esplendor cultural y refinamiento; para otros, encarnó la decadencia del mundo antiguo y buena parte de los estereotipos del medieval. El propio Justiniano, ya en su misma época, fue amado y odiado a partes iguales. Con motivo de las XIX Jornadas de Bizancio (UCM, 24 a 27 de enero de 2022), invitamos a huir de estos juicios pendulares, de estos juegos de espejos cuyos violentos contrastes omiten matices y no reparan en la esencia de un período trascendental en el paso de la Antigüedad a la Edad Media. Para ello, el vestíbulo de la Facultad de Filología de la UCM acoge la exposición temporal “El umbral del imperio. Nuevas miradas a la Hispania bizantina”. A través de una veintena de paneles, el público interesado podrá conocer desde aquellas ciudades que fueron objeto de ocupación bizantina, como el arte o la cultura de la Hispania de los siglos VI y VII. Para ello, se ha contado con la participación activa de investigadores adscritos a más de una decena de universidades, centros de investigación y diversos museos españoles. Dentro de esta misma actividad, distintos expositores dispuestos en el vestíbulo y la biblioteca exhibirán monografías y publicaciones periódicas invitando a conocer un periodo tan apasionante como enigmático.

The 6th International Conference on Late Roman Coarse Wares, Cooking Wares and Amphorae in the Mediterranean: Archaeology and Archaeometry (LRCW 6) will be held in Agrigento (Sicily, Italy) from Tuesday 24th to Saturday 27th of May 2017. On Sunday 28th May there will be an opportunity for a post-congress excursion to Villa del Casale near Piazza Armerina (Enna).
After Barcelona (2002), Aix-en-Provence (2005), Parma-Pisa (2008), Thessaloniki (2011) and Alexandria (2014), Agrigento will host the conference organized by the Archaeological and Landscape Park of the Valley of the Temples, in collaboration with the University of Palermo and Soprintendenza of Agrigento.
The LRCW 6 Conference will comprise oral and poster presentations of Late Roman pottery found in the Mediterranean region.
Abstracts of 300 words maximum should be submitted to the conference address ([email protected]) in Word format including: title (in capitals), name(s), institution, email address of the author(s), and 5 key-words.  The abstracts will be evaluated by the Scientific Committee. The deadline for abstract submission is 30th September 2016.
The deadline for registration and payment of fees is 31 December 2016.