CAMPANIAN WINE FOR PUNIC SICILY: PETROGRAPHIC AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES OF GRAECO-ITALIC AMPHORAE FROM PALERMO

Abstract

This contribution proposes a combination of archaeological fabric analysis and petrographic research ap-plied to the study of 35 sherds of Graeco-Italic amphorae mostly found in Palermo, but also in Pantelleria and Malta (Tab. 1). The provenance identification derived from both approaches gives evidence for the arri-val, in North-Western Sicily, of presumable wine amphorae from central-Tyrrhenian Italy since the very late 4th century BC. The production of the majority of the material has been confidentially attributed to the area of the Gulf of Naples/Ischia, but a second large group originates from several, still unidentified production sites to be located along the coastal strip of Campania or Lazio. Interestingly, apart from this dominating Italian assemblage, two amphorae match the petrographic finger-print of raw materials of the Eastern Nebrodi/Calabrian-Peloritani arc. The documentation of large quantities of 3rd century-BC Tyrrhenian Graeco-Italic amphorae in Palermo together with single sherds from North-Eastern Sicily testify to the im-portance of the commercial axis connecting the Campanian production sites with the most important con-sumption areas located in Carthage‟s epikrateia in Western Sicily.