Trade of western Greek amphorae from Himera's perspective

This project focuses on the study of western Greek amphorae, that is to say transport vessels designed for the commerce of agricultural surplus produced by many southern Italian and Sicilian Greek foundations during the 6th-5thcentury BC. On the basis of archaeological and archaeometric research (petrographic and chemical analysis), important typological differences between the series produced by Greek towns of the Tyrrhenian-, Calabrian and Ionian-Adriatic area have already been observed, but information about the development of the productions of the mighty Sicilian colonies appears to be still very scarce. For this reason, the analysis of about 630 western Greek amphorae from the necropolis of Himera on the north-western coast of Sicily, economic distribution centre not only for the indigenous sites of its hinterland, but also for the Punic-Sicilian colonies and Carthage, offers a peerless opportunity to elaborate a chrono-typological serialisation of this highly important ceramic class. The generally very well preserved vessels from Himera -the largest ensemble of western Greek amphorae ever excavated in the Mediterranean -have been reused in children burials as containers for the bodies of unborn individuals or children deceased during the first month of their life. The amphorae from Himera, together with 150 fragments from other selected Sicilian sampling sites, will undergo a detailed analysis of the textual composition of their ceramic pasts according to the standardised methods implemented for FACEM1which will allow the creation of fabric groups, in part to be related to already known production areas. Selected samples out of these groups will be submitted to archaeometric analysis and compared with the edited geochemical of southern Italian and Sicilian sites. This procedure which considers both archaeological and archaeometric methods, in combination with a typological study of the material, will create an extraordinary large data-collection intended as a benchmark for further research on western Greek amphorae. The present assemblage will provide detailed information about provenance and chronology of western Greek amphorae in circulation in 6th-5thcentury BC north-western Sicily with a particular emphasis on the quantitative incidences of regionally produced vessels versus commodities imported from supra-regional areas. In reference to these latter ones, we have to verify previous hypothesis according to which Himera's international economic relations were chiefly linked to the Tyrrhenian route, that is to say to south-central coastal Italy. The conceivable identification of important quantities of amphorae from the Ionian-Adriatic region (specifically from Corfù), the Straits of Messina area or from south-eastern Sicily (Gela-Agrigento) could highlight other possible provenance areas.