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<<AA.VV. Culip VIII i les Àmfores Haltern 70. Monografies del Centre d’Arqueologia Subaquàtica de Catalunya, 5. Girona 2004>> |
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Parker A. J.
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2006 ) |
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International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. Volume 35 Page 353. October 2006 |
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| Cala Culip is a small, rocky cove on the northern side of Cap de Creus, a treacherous headland which demarcates the 'Upper Sea' of the Gulf of Lions from the 'Lower Sea' of the Bay of Roses, close to the north-eastern tip of the Iberian Peninsula. The cove and the surrounding rocks have been the grave of many ships of every period, and several have already been excavated and published by Xavier Nieto, who contributes the fieldwork component of the present volume (which is partly a product of the ANSER Europroject). His brief text and well-chosen photographs give an excellent idea of how Culip wreck VIII, a Roman cargo ship of the period c.AD 1-50, came to grief and deposited its shattered cargo of egg-shaped amphoras along the edges of a gully some 11 m deep. The remains of some 60 amphoras, all the same form, but of three lip-types, were recovered from a site which had probably been protected by eel-grass from modern depredation until its discovery by a visiting holiday diver in 1990, which led eventually to excavation by the CASC in 2002-03. Only two amphoras survived intact, though several more have been substantially reconstructed. Other finds comprise a mere seven broken pots, half-a-dozen fragments of amphoras thought to be 'of the crew', a fish-hook and six fishing-weights of different forms. There were no ship-remains, or any other specifically nautical material. Those who are interested in 'site formation', or who distrust the term 'wreck' for a deposit of cargo such as this, will do well to study Nieto's account of the site and reflect upon his conclusions about the original ship and cargo.
The cargo amphoras are of the form Haltern 70, now recognised as normally containing wine-based products and originating from the lower Guadalquivir valley of Andalusia. This report illustrates all the amphoras and fragments; some petrographic analysis reveals that they were made in two different places in Andalusia, but that all three varieties of shape are found in one of the fabrics. Since the inside of so many almost-complete amphoras was available for study, it is a pity that the report is not even more detailed as to body-joins, drips of wet clay, internal finger-marks and so forth. The spike-shaped toes of the amphoras include some which are marked with a single sign, scratched in the clay before firing: unfortunately a special study of these does not succeed in reaching any interpretation (and that is not for the first time!).
Over half this volume is concerned with a wider study of the Haltern 70 amphora form and its uses in antiquity; this reflects the collaboration of an ancient-history research group in the University of Barcelona. Much of this will be of little interest to nautical archaeologists, and, indeed, the convoluted manipulation of the widely-scattered archaeological material (much of it from Britain, Gaul and Germany) may test the most enthusiastic amphoralogist! Distributions have been heavily tilted by recent finds of great quantities of Haltern 70s in north-western Spain and Portugal; it is not immediately obvious why such large quantities of southern Spanish wine or wine-products should have been sent up there, and an attempt by one contributor to this volume to link the finds with military conquest and occupation in the north-west seems to this reviewer to overstretch the evidence, and the chronology. However, a possible explanation partly emerges from the interesting and authoritative study of the historical and epigraphic evidence for the contents of Haltern 70 amphoras by Antonio Aguilera: he separates the sparring teams (to one of which your reviewer confesses to have belonged!) of 'cooked wine' and 'syrup' proponents, and carefully demonstrates that the ancient names defrutum, sapa and caroenum (which often appear as painted labels on Haltern 70 amphoras) all correspond to a single substance, known in Spanish as arrope and in English as 'boiled must'. Both Roman authors and modern winemakers prescribe the reduction by boiling of freshly-pressed grape-must to provide an additive which in certain circumstances can be used to improve a vintage. The resultant juice also provides a medium in which fruit can be 'bottled' for transportation (as found in the well-known example of the olives found in the Thames Estuary, or in amphora inscriptions from Continental Europe). In ancient Iberia, then, the amphoras found in northern Lusitania or north-western Tarraconensis would have been carrying boiled must as an additive to pep up local wines. Since this was obviously a relatively specialized and irregular trade, we can explain the lack of bulk cargoes of Haltern 70 amphoras (Culip VIII being one of the largest known); compare other specialized products which appear to have travelled in rare amphora-forms, such as Lipari alum in Richborough 527 amphoras.
This is a handsome volume, like the others in the series, but it suffers academically from a serious drawback. Nearly all the text is in Catalan (Aguilera's contribution being in Castilian), and there are no summaries or captions in any other language. While one welcomes the resurgence of the Catalan language at home, one must deplore, in the modern situation, the publication of something which is of such international interest without any aids, no matter how brief, to readers outside Catalunya. |
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