Scientific program’s objectives

Warehouses location in the urban scheme of Ostia (Site plan Archaeological Superintendence of Ostia; DAO G. Boetto, V. Dumas, CCJ/CNRS)

The major purpose of the project is to specify the storage place in the ancient economy from an exhaustive study of sources, which can renew the debate of ideas around this issue and more widely around questions on the nature of the ancient economy.

The contribution made by such a study to the economic history of ancient worlds is evident, at a time when researchers in this field are turning more and more systematically to case studies that could advance our knowledge of ancient economic systems both by providing quantitative information and by results on social practices.

Case studies

Progressing in the knowledge of warehouses and storage systems means to resume some specific case studies selected from the whole chronological timespan considered, from the proto-history period to late Antiquity, and from the territories included in the investigation, which correspond to the limits of the Roman Empire at its greatest extension. Developments of this kind have been known for a long time in Greco-Roman Antiquity, but have very rarely been the subject of exhaustive studies and publications, because researchers’ attention was focused principally on the great monumental complexes of civic and religious life.

The project intends to select some types of storage structures and to resume the systematic examination of them. This implies conducting a detailed study of the structures still visible, supplemented if necessary by test pits and field surveying; to make use of all the archives (written, graphic, photographic) of ancient excavations, and build a complete bibliography of the complex’s previous mentions; to resume the study of material found in the warehouse and still accessible in excavated sites or museum storage areas.

The project must resume some studies of storage structures in three different places. Two Roman sites, in the western side of the Mediterranean Basin: Ostia-Portus in Italy and warehouses of Horrea Caelia at Hergla in Tunisia; a Greek site in the eastern part: Delos, Greece.

The idea is to turn these sites into "laboratories" to settle and verify the effectiveness of a range of issues pertinent to archaeologists, architects and historians about structures, use, operation, ownership and management of ancient warehouses and on their relationship with the areas in which they appear, especially distribution areas.

The objectives pursued for each of these case studies are:

- Study of building structures and establishing of a precise relative chronology.
- Study of the circulation systems in the complex
- Study of storage systems to specify the intended purpose of different rooms and stored produces. Evaluation of storage capacity, particularly in the case of mezzanine study.
- Study of the complex location in the neighbourhood, in the city, in relation to the road network, with a possible link to nearby buildings and loading – unloading areas.
- Study of shops adjacent to the complex when that is the case.

Resumption of writing sources

Nevertheless, it must not end at a better understanding of structures, but aim to advance in the knowledge of their operation. The systematic resumption of written sources, literary, legal and epigraphic, as well as iconographic evidences relating to ancient warehouses and storage structures is imperative. These sources (relatively numerous) pose difficult problems of interpretation. We are not able to say what exact function a number of characters that we see in the warehouses had, such as those which are qualified as horrearii in the Latin speaking Roman world. In the Greek world, the function of several characters that appear in inscriptions with different names should be made clearer: are they magistrates assigned to the market, officials, purchasers that have taken on a public office? An investigation through literary sources and inscriptions must also gather information on the organization of responsibilities in storage systems.

We struggle, in fact, both for the Greek and for the Roman world, to clarify what the ownership structures are and who the owners of these buildings are. This more historical research may, in some cases, converge with the field surveys, but it remains independent because it takes into account some evidence which is often difficult to pinpoint. It must proceed by systematic analysis of the sources. In contrast, the purpose is to gather, for the submission during study days, the status results of fieldwork and research on sources, since these two components of the investigation are mutually explanatory. The entire programme foresees a close cooperation and a constant exchange between archaeologists and historians, which is not so common.

Creation of a computerized inventory and an online standardized database

Ostia. Phare on architrave (photo G. Boetto, CCJ/CNRS)

Producing an evolutive tool for warehouses and storage areas is one of the main objectives of the programme. The idea is to get on line an inventory of warehouses and storage areas in the ancient Greco-Roman world, by having appropriate web tools at our disposal. This website is therefore designed as a set of tools to provide for several major needs:

- An information tool about the research programme;

- An online scientific tool based on a database managed by researchers in real time. At first in restricted access mode during the research programme period (2009-2012), and later open on line to all public. From a data model developed by the researchers responsible for the project, the dynamically managed database, currently under construction, should allow organizing and standardizing the results of information extracted from researches undertaken not only by the project partner teams, but also, at last, by all specialists working on warehouses.

The website is thus an essential part of the programme to guarantee the long life of the enterprise, create a working tool for use by the entire scientific community and contribute to the development of computer tools in diffusion of scientific knowledge.

Professional meetings

Internationally, a number of teams are working on storage structures (see background). The project proposes to involve them by organizing a first professional meeting in 2010 to identify and get them involved in the programme, including the creation of the online database. A second meeting will be held in 2012 to synthesize all work carried out as part of the project.

Expected results

It is therefore an ambitious research, because of the vast subject of study and its all-embracing character, since the idea is to finally create a sort of online encyclopedia on ancient warehouses that may evolve thereafter according to new researches. It hopes to advance disciplines within the science of Antiquity in several directions, from the archeology of buildings to issues of economic history. It is based on experienced laboratories and a network of collaborations that will be created in the hope of meeting these objectives.

In concrete terms, results will be spread by two means: on paper and online. Case studies and colloquia will be published in the form of articles in specialist journals and a summary book. The project managers hope to provide the scientific community with tools and reference books that could mark the history of these issues.

Nevertheless, the published work, as successful as it may be, merely constitutes a still image of one research stage. The ambition of the warehouse programme is to have, at the end of the four-year-long support requested to the ANR, a website to develop our knowledge of ancient storage systems according to future discoveries. Restricted, for the duration of the programme, to partner laboratories and associated partners taking part in meetings, the site will be open to all Internet users afterwards. To carry out its future enrichment, all three partners will keep an eye on storage issues. The scientific visitors of the website are invited to come into contact with one of three researchers in charge of the observation to communicate any news. (see contact section).