Amphorae and Trade from the New Kingdom to the Greek Roman Period

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Archaeologist Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Cairo, Egypt

10.21608/bcps.2024.367401

Abstract

Pottery vessels (Amphorae) used to transport and store goods represent a unique source of information about the circulation of goods from the Levant to Egypt. During the New Kingdom, the Canaanite jar has been depicted on several wall reliefs of the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries BC, furnishing some of the earliest pictorial evidence for the shipment of amphorae, there are much archaeological evidence indicating such relation between the amphora as storage jars and the maritime trade. One of these pieces of evidence came from the tomb of “Qn Amun” dating back to the 18th dynasty, which depicts unloading the cargo of ships docking in an Egyptian port, and some canaanite sailors transporting pots from ships. Amphorae were used for transporting a wide variety of commodities, but the majority were containers for olive oil, wine, fish sauces, and other substances that were of comparatively little account. While grain was undoubtedly the most important foodstuff in the Roman economy. Olive oil was regarded as an ‘absolute necessity’, The external shape of the amphora also allows to control the components of the pot. All these reasons led to consider amphorae one of the most important tools that are used in maritime transportation.

Keywords


المراجع العربية:
رومان دافيد، دليل موجز لدراسات الفخار من وادي النيل إلى الشرق الأوسط، إعداد/ رومان دافيد؛ ترجمة إلى العربية/ مصطفى أحمد، دراسات مصرية؛ ٢٤، باريس: سوليب، ٢٠٢٢.
Rūmān Dāvīd, Dalīl Mūjaz li-Dirāsāt al-Fakhkhār min Wādī al-Nīl ilá al-Sharq al-Awsaṭ, iʻdād / Rūmān Dāvīd ; tarjamat ilá al-ʻArabīyah / Muṣṭafá Aḥmad, Dirāsāt Miṣrīyah ; 24, Bārīs : swlyb, 2022.
سلوى حسين محمد بكر، "تابوزيريس ماجنا (أبوصير-مريوط) دراسة اثرية للمدينة"، رسالة دكتوراة غير منشورة، كلية الآداب، قسم الآثار، جامعة طنطا، طنطا، مصر، ١٩٩٧.
Salwá Ḥusayn Muḥammad Bakr, "tābwzyrys mājnā (abwṣyr-mrywṭ) dirāsah atharīyah lil-madīnah", Risālat duktūrāh ghayr manshūrah, Kullīyat al-Ādāb, Qism al-Āthār, Jāmiʻat Ṭanṭā, Ṭanṭā, Miṣr, 1997.
شريف عبدالمنعم، "الأمفوره في مصر القديمة من العصر المتأخر وحتى نهاية القرن الرابع الميلادي"، رسالة دكتوراه غير منشورة، كلية الآثار، قسم الآثار المصرية، جامعة القاهرة، الجيزة، مصر، ٢٠١٥.
Sharīf ʻbdālmnʻm, "alʼmfwrh fī Miṣr al-qadīmah min al-ʻaṣr al-mutaʼakhkhir wa-ḥattá nihāyat al-qarn al-rābiʻ al-Mīlādī", Risālat duktūrāh ghayr manshūrah, Kullīyat al-Āthār, Qism al-Āthār al-Miṣrīyah, Jāmiʻat al-Qāhirah, al-Jīzah, Miṣr, 2015.
فوزية عبد الله محمد، "التأثيرات الحضارية المتبادلة فى الفنون وبعض الصناعات بين مصر وجيرانها فى الشرق الأدنى القديم فى عصر الدولة الحديثة"، رسالة ماجستير غير منشورة، قسم الآثار المصرية، كلية الآثار، جامعة القاهرة، الجيزة، مصر، ١٩٩٨.
Fawzīyah ʻAbd Allāh Muḥammad, "al-Taʼthīrāt al-ḥaḍārīyah al-mutabādalah fī al-Funūn wa-baʻḍ al-Ṣināʻāt bayna Miṣr wjyrānhā fī al-Sharq al-Adná al-qadīm fī ʻaṣr al-dawlah al-ḥadīthah", Risālat mājistīr ghayr manshūrah, Qism al-Āthār al-Miṣrīyah, Kullīyat al-Āthār, Jāmiʻat al-Qāhirah, al-Jīzah, Miṣr, 1998.
المراجع الأجنبية:
Aston, David. “A Taste of Honey: mnt- and mdqt- Vessels in the Late Eighteenth Dynasty.”        In Egyptian Stories Alter Orient und Altes Testament, Band 347, Edited by Thomas Schneider and Kasia Szpakowska, 13-31, Ugarit-Verlag Münster, 2007.
Bass, George. “Evidence of Trade from Bronze Age Shipwrecks.” In Bronze Age Trade in the Mediterranean, Edited by, Noel Gale Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology, v. 90, 1991.
Bass, George. introduction: “Reclaiming Lost History from Beneath the Seven Seas.” In Beneath the Seven Seas, Adventures with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, Edited by, Bass George, 2005.
Bavay, Laurent. “Canaanite Jars and Jar Sealings from Deir El-Medina: Scattered Evidence of Egypt’s Economic Relations with the Levant during the New Kingdom.” In Policies of Exchange, Political Systems and Modes of Interaction in the Aegean and the Near East in the 2nd Millennium B.C.E. Proceedings of the International Symposium at the University of Freiburg Institute for Archaeological Studies, 30th May – 2nd June 2012, Edited by Birgitta Eder, and Regine Pruzsinszky, 129-137, Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2015.
Bettles, Elizabeth. Phoenician Amphora Production and distribution in the Southern Levant: a multi-disciplinary investigation into Carinated-shoulder amphorae of the Persian Period 539-332 BC, British Archaeological Reports, International Series, 1183, Oxford: Archaeopress, 2003.
Garnier, Nicolas. Gloria Olcese, “the contents of ancient Graeco-Italic amphorae. First analyses on the amphorae of the Filicudi F and Secca di Capistello wrecks (Aeolian Islands, Sicily),” in Roman Amphora Contents Reflecting on the Maritim Trade of Foodstuffs in Antiquity, in Honour of Miguel Beltrán Lloris, Edited by Darío Bernal-Casasola, Michel Bonifay, Alessandra Pecci and Victoria Leitch, Roman and Late Antique Mediterranean Pottery 17, Oxford: Archaeopress 2021.
Katz, Hayah. “The ship from Ulu Burun and the ship from Tyre: an international trade network in the Ancient Near East / by Hayah Katz.” In Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins Herausgegeben von Jens Kamlah und Dieter Vieweger, Harrassowitz Verlag 124, no. 2, 2008.
Ownby, Mary. “Canaanite jars from Memphis as Evidence for Trade and Political Relationships in the Middle Bronze Age.” PhD dissertation unpublished, University of Cambridge, Department of Archaeology Cambridge, Wolfson College, United Kingdom, 2010.
Peacock, David. Amphorae and the Roman economy, an introductory guide, London, and New York: Longman, 1991.
Pulak, Cemal. “The bronze age Shipwreck at Ulu Burun Turkey: 1985 Campaign”, American Journal of Archaeology, 92 (1988): 1-37.
Ruth Amiran, Ancient Pottery of the Holy Land: From its beginnings in the Neolithic period to the end of the iron age; (With the assistance of pirhiya Beck and Uzza Zevulun, S. I.: Massada Press LTD: the Biyalik Institute and the israel exploration society, 1969). 
Serpico, Margret. Janine Bourriau, Laurence Smith, Yuval Goren, Benjamin Stern, and Carl Heron, “Commodities and Containers: A Project to study Canaanite amphorae imported into Egypt during the New Kingdom.” In the synchronisation of civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Second Millennium B.C. II: Proceedings of the SCIEM 2000 – Euro Conference, Haindorf 2nd of May – 7th of May 2001, Edited by Manfred Bietak; Editorial Assistance: Ernst Czerny. Wien: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2003.
المواقع الإلكترونية:
https://www.amarnaproject.com/pages/recent_projects/material_culture/canaanite.shtml.