Hárshegyi Piroska: Kereskedők Sallában 2. (Zalalövő öröksége 4. Zalalövő, 2006)

TRADESMEN IN SALLA Amphora, a pack material of the Classical times T

he fragments of extremely many large vessels, so-called amphoras, came to light during the excavations at Zalalövő. These vessels arrived in Pannónia from various provinces of the Roman Empire. The usually two-handled clay container vessels were used in the Mediterranean from the late Bronze Age to transport various, mainly liquid goods like wine, oil, fish sauces, and also preserved fruits or incenses to distant territories. These ceramic vessels called amphoras were produced in diverse shapes. These shapes could be characteristic of a certain territory or a period. Amphoras of identical types contained the same goods. They were usually used at sea transport and their shapes were determined by the greatest possible exploitation of the loading space of the ship and the safest transportation. In the Roman period, sea transport was faster and also 55 times cheaper than transportation on land and 6 times cheaper than river transport according to certain calculations. The high standard of sea transport is evidenced by the fact that one could sail from Ostia to the Gibraltar straight in one week and it took about 4 and a half days to reach Corinth from the modern Pozzuoli. A great many amphora types of diverse sizes and shapes are known from the territory of the Roman Empire, in which food was transported. Production centres can be found in nearly every province especially next to rivers and at large estates where the goods were produced. The content, the workshop where they were produced and the origin of the amphoras can be deduced first of all from the stamps or the painted inscriptions (dipinto) rarely the incised marks (grafitto) on them. These inscriptions often tell the capacity of the given item and also the weight of the good stored in it. The picture is rendered somewhat complicated by the fact that Greek and Roman measurement units were used at the same time in the Roman Empire, which do not exactly match each other. An amphora as a unit of measurement meant a weight of 26.6 kg, which equalled