Search for European Projects

"Archaic and classical Greek Amphoras in north-western Mediterranean area and central Europe: diffusion, origin and contents" (AGAME)
Start date: Oct 1, 2010, End date: Sep 30, 2012 PROJECT  FINISHED 

"The transport amphoras are of great importance for the investigation of the commercial activities in ancient times since they use for the transport of wine, oil, meat, fish, and other perishable organic materials. Moreover, they are tangible traces of the movement of goods and peoples and their intermingling. However, their investigation in Central Europe has not been taken up to the same extent as in the Mediterranean area in Archaic and Classical period (600-400 BC), the time when extensive long-distance exchange develops throughout Europe. The AGAME project will focus on the investigation of Greek amphoras through a novel combination of archaeological, historical and archaeometric methods. The objectives of the project are: to study the unpublished Greek amphoras from Central Europe; to compare these amphoras with examples known from north-western Mediterranean area (North Italy/South France); to analyse residual contents of these amphoras through biomolecular archaeology. These objectives will be achieved through archaeological data collection and residue analysis of amphoras from Central Europe and comparative analysis with Mediterranean materials. The outcome of the project will allow: to specify the geographical diffusion and the origin of the Mediterranean alimentary products in Central Europe; to locate the routes of the Mediterranean products from the North Italy and/or South France coasts towards Central Europe, to investigate the means of transport and to identify the commercial and cultural middlemen in this exchange; to single out the primary contents of the amphoras. The principal aim of the project is investigate archaeology of perishable or non-recordable data of European history involving economic, social and alimentary aspects of the period of the first large-scale commercial and cultural contacts between Mediterranean and Continental European worlds, great movements and integration of peoples and present Occidental culture origin."
Up2Europe Ads

Coordinator

Details

1 Partners Participants