Dressel 21-22 Italic amphorae for fish: the archaeozoological confirmation from the garum shop at Pompeii

Between 2008 and 2012, a joint project called ‘Fishing and Fish-processing at Pompeii and Herculaneum’ explored the exploitation of marine resources in the region around mount Vesuvius in the Roman period. All available evidence for the marine species fished and consumed in the area (from iconography to archaeozoological remains), the fishing tackle, the areas used for processing and preparing fish, and the local/regional ceramic vessels (mainly amphorae and urcei) used for trading with fish marine foodstuffs were collected and analyzed. Field work was conducted in the so-called Garum Shop or Bottega del Garum (1, 12, 8), the only place clearly being used at the time of the Plinian eruption in AD 79 for the preparation and sale of fish preserves. An exceptional deposit of around one hundred complete amphorae, stored in the second courtyard of the Garum shop (room 13), known as the ‘pila d’anfore’, was analyzed; most of these containers belonged to the Dr. 21-22 family. The deposit was dug, analyzed in detail and partially published. The importance of this deposit is that for the first time we were able to demonstrate Botte’s hypothesis, that these italic amphorae were used for the bottling of fish products and not dried fruit. Most of the Dr. 21-22 contained archaeozoological remains, as they had been emptied just before the eruption (scales, vertebrae and other fish bones attached to their walls). The archaeozoological study carried out determined the existence of different fish-families (Clupeidae, Engraulidae, Carangidae, Scombridae and Sparidae); especially interesting is the connection of these archaeozoological remains with the tituli picti that refer to the palaeocontent (mainly MAL, SP and COP but also AB, CE, COP AB and VR are known) of the amphorae. Based on this evidence, we can argue that these are not abbreviations of fish names as previously assumed, but products manufactured with the said species, as in many cases the same fish species are associated with amphorae bearing different inscriptions. In this paper, the ichthyological palaeocontent of 8 amphorae from the ‘Pila d’Anfore’ is presented in detail, which confirms the use primarily of two taxa as the main ingredients (picarel — Spicara smaris and anchovy — Engraulis encrasicolus). These data verify the relations