On the outskirts of Rome, near the eastern bank of the Tiber River, there is a massive mound covered with bushes and small trees. At first glance, it may seem to you that this is an ordinary hill. In fact, before you is one of the oldest landfills in the world from the time of the Roman Empire.
Monte Testaccio has a circumference of about one kilometer, and the landfill area exceeds 20 thousand square meters and 35 meters in height. Obviously, during the Roman times, this hill was much higher.
Let's get a look. what is hidden in its depths …
Hill Testaccio is an artificial hill in the south-west of Rome, almost entirely consisting of fragments of broken amphorae from the times of the Roman Empire, one of the largest dumps of the ancient world. The hill is located in the Roman district of the same name Testaccio, near the eastern bank of the Tiber.
Inscriptions from fragments of amphorae from Testaccio are the largest collection of epigraphic data applicable to the study of the economy of the Roman Empire. In particular, thanks to these findings, fairly accurate information was obtained about the production and trade of one of the main products of ancient Roman cuisine - olive oil.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, the hill became a venue for folk festivals and acquired religious and military significance. Nowadays, studies of the hill are carried out by Spanish scientists.
Sketch of 1798.
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It is noteworthy that not just garbage was thrown here, but amphoras that were used to transport and store olive oil. The hill is believed to contain about 53 million vessels, which held about 6 billion liters of oil. Amphorae were widely used and could be turned into a flower pot or used to build a water pipe. Broken amphoras were used for construction.
But it was impossible to use amphorae from under the oil, since they were too saturated with it and over time exuded an unpleasant odor.
Responsible for the study of epigraphic data and seals on amphorae from Testaccio, on behalf of Theodor Mommsen, one of his students, Heinrich Dressel, became. Dressel began the first archaeological excavations in January 1872. On one rainy day, Dressel found inscriptions on some of the shards in black ink, which he was able to read and decipher. Since that day, Testaccio has become not just a garbage dump, but an epigraphic archive.
Dressel published the results of his research "Ricerche sul Monte Testaccio" in the "Annali" of the German Archaeological Institute in 1878, an epigraphic archive was published in the 15th edition of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Dressel examined nearly 3,000 workshop seals applied to amphora pens prior to firing, and almost 1,000 inscriptions on amphorae themselves, made in ink by manufacturers, scribes, ship captains or customs officials [6].
Dressel's main discovery was the assumption that most of the amphorae on the hill originated from the Roman province of Betica in what is now Spain. In addition, he noted that olive oil was transported in most amphorae. Dressel also created the first typological tables of amphorae; the vessel from Betika received the number 20.
Despite the fact that Dressel called the inscriptions on amphorae with Testaccio "minor epigraphy", the information obtained became important in the study of the history of Roman trade and food production in the Roman Empire.
After the research of Heinrich Dressel, the study of the hill was resumed only in 1968. Emilio Rodríguez Almeida, a Spanish epigraphist from the University of Barcelona, began to conduct research on the surface of the hill and hypothesized that Testaccio was the result of two successive stages of organized unloading of amphora shards: the first stage - from the beginning to the middle of the 2nd century AD, the second - until the III century A. D. e.
In 1989, a Spanish team of researchers led by Almeida and Martinez (José Marίa Blázquez Martίnez, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid), in collaboration with the University of Rome La Sapienza, began a series of excavations on the hill.
Up to 85 - 95% of all fragments of amphorae from Testaccio are fragments of large spherical 70 liter amphorae from the Spanish province of Betica, of the type known as Dressel 20. Such amphorae were made in workshops in the Spanish province between the Roman settlements Hispalis (today Seville), Corduba (Cordoba) and Astigu (Eciha), weighed about 30 kg and were 70 to 80 cm tall, with a diameter of about 60 cm.
Despite some morphological changes of amphorae of this type over the centuries and production in various workshops of the province, amphorae from Betika can be considered quite uniform in shape. Amphoras of this type were ideal vessels for shipping by sea - strong and roomy, qualities not found in all types of amphorae.
Less common on the hill are fragments of amphorae brought from North Africa, mainly from Tripolitania (modern Libya) and Bisacene (modern Tunisia), which were also used to transport olive oil. African amphorae make up 15-17% of all amphorae found in the area of the hill, the remaining 3-5% are vessels from Gallic or Italic wine, Spanish garum and amphorae from the eastern provinces. African vessels are very different from Bethics in shape and are of great variety, since they were made in different areas and provinces.
It is still not known exactly why Testaccio originated mainly using olive oil amphorae, and why the Romans chose to dispose of amphorae in this way. Many types of amphorae were often reused: for transporting the same type of food, as a downpipe or flowerpot. Perhaps amphoras of the Dressel 20 type from Bettika were not suitable for these purposes, since they had thick walls and were broken into large curved fragments.
Some scholars thus explain the smaller number of amphorae from the African provinces, which had thinner walls, were easier to break and could be built into the opus signinum, a type of masonry widely used by the Romans in construction. It is likely that, due to the difficulty of reuse, Spanish amphorae were more profitable to discard than to use. It is possible that the broken amphoras were taken to the landfill because of the tituli picti inscriptions made by the port and customs officials to prevent the illegal use of the officially marked vessels [13]. Mary Bird, in the documentary "Acquaintance with Ancient Rome", claims that after several cycles of use, the smell of rancid oil that had stuck into the inner walls of amphorae could no longer be removed and fresh oil poured into such vessels deteriorated.
In Rome, there were numerous assumptions about the origin of the ancient hill, including legends created by the popular imagination: the hill was allegedly a heap of stones from city buildings destroyed by a fire under Nero, or on the hill there were fragments of burial urns from the columbariums from Via Ostienze. Piranesi considered the hill to be antique. landfill for construction waste [7]. According to the most widespread legend, Testaccio originated from shards of amphorae, in which collected taxes were brought to Rome from the provinces.
In fact, thousands of amphorae of olive oil from Betika with accompanying information on vessels arrived at the warehouses of Rome. The oil from the amphorae was then poured into small containers, and the amphorae were taken to a landfill. The shards were then watered with lime to prevent the smell of rancid oil from spreading.
The site for the removal of amphorae was carefully designed and presumably administered by the state administrative authorities. Excavations in 1991 revealed that the base of the hill was lined with rows of terraces with retaining walls of almost complete amphorae filled with shards to anchor in place. The throat of the amphora in this case was broken. After the completion of the laying of the first layer of amphorae, the second layer of 60 cm was laid, also equal to the diameter of the amphora of the Dressel type 20.
Excavations have also confirmed that the base of the hill is formed by two adjacent platforms. A second, later platform was created in the northeastern base of the hill in the 3rd century AD.
However, it is not exactly established at what time period the removal of broken shards to the landfill began. The fragments found by archaeologists in the lower part of Monte Testaccio date from about 140 to 250 AD. e. Gravimetric studies have shown a less dense core at the base of the landfill, possibly indicating a more spontaneous waste disposal in the early years of the landfill [14]. It is likely that the landfill originated around AD 50. BC, but organized waste removal did not begin until 150 AD. e.
Inscriptions on Roman amphoras had a function similar to modern labels. The information was applied in two stages: stamps and embedded marks were applied to the new amphora before firing in the oven. Then the finished amphora was inscribed with black or red ink (tituli picti) while filling the amphora with any product or after that.
The stamps bore information about the owner of the olive oil, abbreviated to three letters - Tria nomina, but sometimes the names of the olive oil producer or the name of the workshop (figlina) where the amphorae were made. Inset marks, as a rule, consisted of symbols or numbers that indicated individual groups of amphorae. Sometimes the information appears to be complete and shows the day or year of production and the names of the workers who controlled the production.
Ink inscriptions on amphorae are known to archaeologists and from other excavations, but only on the shards from Testaccio one can see complete information about the amphora and the product. Most of the epigraphic fragments on many of the fragments of amphorae from the hill have been perfectly preserved to this day thanks to the lime mortar with which the discarded shards were watered.
tituli picti and stamps on the amphora recorded information about the product: the amphora was first weighed empty, and its weight was noted on the outside of the vessel. Then the weight of the oil contained in the amphora was also indicated (minus the previously determined weight of the vessel itself). The name of the oil trader and the names of the people who weighed and controlled the bottling of the oil were also noted. The location of the property where the oil was made and the name of the area where the oil was originally bottled were indicated. The amphora manufacturer often stamped the handle of the vessel.
Tituli picti on the amphorae from the hill had standard inscriptions, indicating a strict trade control and fraud prevention system. Thanks to these inscriptions, archaeologists were able to establish that the olive oil was imported under state supervision and was intended for annona urbis (for the population of Rome) or annona militaris (for the needs of the army). Some of the inscriptions have information that the oil they contained was delivered to the prefect of Annona, an official in charge of the state food distribution service in Rome. Perhaps the prefect of Annona also managed the organization of the entire dump.
Many inscriptions on amphorae testify to the structure of the olive oil trade: both individual entrepreneurs and joint ventures, perhaps small workshops in which father and son worked, hired workers from qualified freedmen, were engaged in this craft.
And now I remember that I met a similar place - it is in Chersonesos (Sevastopol). I also remember walking on a heap of shards scattered along the shore and even took one home:-)
The large number of amphorae fragments on Monte Testaccio indicates the enormous amount of food that was needed for the lives of the million people of imperial Rome. Scientists have calculated that the hill contains fragments of about 53 million olive oil amphorae, in which about 6 billion liters of oil were imported. The import of olive oil to Rome peaked at the end of the 2nd century AD. e., when more than 130 thousand amphorae were taken to the landfill every year. The vast majority of these vessels held about 70 liters of oil, and it was estimated that Rome imported at least 7.5 million liters of olive oil per year. The vessels found at Monte Testaccio prove that the olive oil was mainly supplied with state support, although it is likely that a significant proportion of the olive oil was supplied to Rome by private traders.
The epigraphic data from Testaccio also significantly improved the way in which the numerous finds of amphorae from Betica found in northern and central Europe are dated.