BYZANTINE TRADE,

4TH–12TH CENTURIES
Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies

Publications
14
 BYZANTINE TRADE,
4TH–12TH CENTURIES
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF LOCAL, REGIONAL
AND INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE

Papers of the Thirty-eighth Spring Symposium

of Byzantine Studies, St John’s College, University
of Oxford, March 2004

edited by
Marlia Mundell Mango
First published 2009 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © Marlia Mundell Mango 2009

Marlia Mundell Mango has asserted her moral right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editor of this work.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies (38th : 2004 : St John’s College, University of
Oxford) Byzantine Trade, 4th–12th Centuries: The Archaeology of Local, Regional and
International Exchange: Papers of the Thirty-eighth Spring Symposium of Byzantine
Studies, St John’s College, University of Oxford, March 2004. – (Publications of the
Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies ; v. 14)
1. Byzantine Empire – Commerce – Congresses. I. Title II. Mango, Marlia Mundell.
III. Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies.
382’.09495

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies (38th : 2004 : St. John’s College, University of
Oxford) Byzantine Trade, 4th–12th Centuries: The Archaeology of Local, Regional
and International Exchange: Papers of the Thirty-eighth Spring Symposium of
Byzantine Studies, St John’s College, University of Oxford, March 2004 / [edited by]
Marlia Mundell Mango.
p. cm. – (Publications of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies ; 14)
Includes index.
1. Byzantine Empire – Commerce – Congresses. I. Mango, Marlia Mundell. II. Title.
HF405.S67 2004
382.09495–dc22 2008035555

ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-6310-2 (hbk)

SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF BYZANTINE STUDIES – PUBLICATION 14

 Contents

Acknowledgements ix
Abbreviations xi
List of Contributors xvii
List of Figures and Tables xxiii

Section I Mapping trade

1. Marlia Mundell Mango Byzantine trade: local,

regional, interregional and
international 3
2. Emilie Savage-Smith Maps and trade 15
3. Sean Kingsley Mapping trade by shipwrecks 31
4. Olga Karagiorgou Mapping trade by the amphora 37

Section II Local trade and production: shops and workshops

5. Yoram Tsafrir Trade, workshops and shops in

Bet Shean / Scythopolis,
4th–8th centuries 61
6. Elizabeth Rodziewicz Ivory, bone, glass and other
production at Alexandria,
5th–9th centuries 83
7. Rossina Kostova Polychrome ceramics in Preslav,
9th to 11th centuries: where were
they produced and used? 97

Section III Regional markets

8. Agnès Vokaer Brittle Ware trade in Syria between

the 5th and 8th centuries 121
9. Mark P.C. Jackson Local painted pottery trade in
early Byzantine Isauria 137
10. Nergis Günsenin Ganos wine and its circulation in
the 11th century 145

From Byzantine Trade, 4th-12th Centuries. Copyright © 2009 by the Society for the Promotion
of Byzantine Studies. Published by Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Wey Court East, Union Road,
Farnham, Surrey, GU9 7PT, Great Britain.

v
vi CONTENTS

Section IV Product tracking: pottery, glass, and metal fine wares

11. Pamela Armstrong Trade in the east Mediterranean

in the 8th century 157
12. Ioanna Dimopoulos Trade of Byzantine red wares, end
of the 11th–13th centuries 179
13. Hallie Meredith Evaluating the movement of
open-work glassware in late
antiquity 191
14. Natalija Ristovska Distribution patterns of middle
Byzantine painted glass 199
15. Marlia Mundell Mango Tracking Byzantine silver and
copper metalware, 4th–12th
centuries 221

Section V International trade: exports and imports

16. Michael Decker Export wine trade to West and East 239
17. Hiromi Kinoshita Foreign glass excavated in China,
from the 4th to 12th centuries 253
18. Philip M. Kenrick On the Silk Route: imported and
regional pottery at Zeugma 263
19. Anne McCabe Imported materia medica,
4th–12th centuries, and Byzantine
pharmacology 273

Section VI International trade: to West, South, East, and North

West and North

20. Ewan Campbell and Byzantine trade to the edge of the

Christopher Bowles world: Mediterranean pottery
imports to Atlantic Britain in
the 6th century 297
21. Christopher J. Salter Early tin extraction in the south-
west of England: a resource for
Mediterranean metalworkers
in late antiquity? 315
22. Sean Kingsley Great voyages, great ocean-going
ships? 323
 CONTENTS vii

South and East

23. Steven E. Sidebotham Northern Red Sea ports and

their networks in the late
Roman/Byzantine period 329
24. David W. Phillipson Aksum, the entrepot, and highland
Ethiopia, 3th–12th centuries 353

East and West

25. David Jacoby Venetian commercial expansion in

the eastern Mediterranean,
8th–11th centuries 371
26. I. Andreescu-Treadgold How does the glass of the wall
and Julian Henderson mosaics at Torcello contribute to the
study of trade in the 11th century? 393

North

27. Jonathan Shepard ‘Mists and portals’: the Black Sea’s

north coast 421
28. Nikolaj Makarov Rural settlement and trade
networks in northern Russia,
AD 900–1250 443

Index 463
 Acknowledgements

The Thirty-eighth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies was held in

St John’s College, Oxford in March 2004 on behalf of the Society for the
Promotion of Byzantine Studies. Generous financial support was given
by the A.G. Leventis Foundation, the British Academy, the Committee
for Byzantine Studies Oxford, the British Academy Black Sea Initiative,
the Hellenic Foundation, St John’s College Oxford, the Society for the
Promotion of Roman Studies (Hugh Last and Donald Atkinson Fund),
Astor Travel Fund Oxford, the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies,
the History Faculty Oxford, the Meyerstein Committee Oxford, the British
Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, the Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust, the
School of Archaeology Oxford, and Ashgate Publishing. The symposiarch
Marlia Mango depended on the organizational skills of the symposium
administrator, Lukas Schachner, and the kind help of Jackie Couling and
the Domestic Office of St John’s College. During the symposium further
help was provided by Simon Davies, Eleni Lianta, Ioanna Dimopoulos,
Anthusa Papagiannaki, James George, Theodore Papaioannou, Judith
Gililland, Meredith Riedel and Natalija Ristovska. For advice offered
in preparation of the symposium, thanks are extended to Cyril Mango,
Jonathan Shepard, James Howard-Johnston, Leslie Brubaker, Averil
Cameron, Jim Crow, Fergus Millar, Chris Wickham and Liz Strange. Lukas
Schachner, Priscilla Lange, Theodore Papaioannou, Alison Wilkins and
Cyril Mango helped with the preparation of the papers for publication.
My gratitude is also expressed here to Cyril Mango for the transliteration
of Russian used in three papers; readers may note that different systems
have been used in other papers. Finally, I should like to thank Elizabeth
Jeffreys, SPBS series editor, and John Smedley with his staff at Ashgate
Publishing, for their part in seeing this volume through publication.

From Byzantine Trade, 4th-12th Centuries. Copyright © 2009 by the Society for the Promotion
of Byzantine Studies. Published by Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Wey Court East, Union Road,
Farnham, Surrey, GU9 7PT, Great Britain.

ix
 Abbreviations

AAA Archaiologika Analekta ex Athenôn

AAAS Annales archéologiques arabes syriennes
AASOR Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research
ActaSS Acta Sanctorum
ADAJ Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan
AEMA Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi
AJA American Journal of Archaeology
AnatAnt Anatolia Antiqua
AnatSt Anatolian Studies
ANRW H. Temporini and W. Haase, eds., Aufstieg und Niedergang
der römischen Welt, Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel
der neueren Forschung, II.9.2 (Berlin–New York, 1978)
AntCl L’Antiquité Classique
AntJ Antiquaries Journal
ArabArchEp Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy
ArchDelt Archaiologikon Deltion
BAncLit Bulletin d’ancienne littérature et d’archéologie chrétienne
BAR British Archaeological Reports
BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
BASP Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists
BCH Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique
BIFAO Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale
BMGS Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies
BSA Annual of the British School at Athens
BSAA Bulletin de la Société d’archéologie d’Alexandrie
BSl Byzantinoslavica
BSOAS Bulletin of the Schools of Oriental and African Studies
BZ Byzantinische Zeitschrift
CahArch Cahiers archéologiques
CFHB Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae
CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
CMG Corpus Medicorum Graecorum
CQ Classical Quarterly
CRAI Comptes-rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et
Belles-Lettres

From Byzantine Trade, 4th-12th Centuries. Copyright © 2009 by the Society for the Promotion
of Byzantine Studies. Published by Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Wey Court East, Union Road,
Farnham, Surrey, GU9 7PT, Great Britain.

xi
xii ABBREVIATIONS

DAI Gy. Moravcsik and R.J.H. Jenkins, eds., De administrando

imperio (Washington, DC, 1967)
DCV R. Morozzo della Rocca and A. Lombardo, eds., Documenti
del commercio veneziano nei secoli XI–XIII (Turin, 1940)
DOP Dumbarton Oaks Papers
EHR English Historical Review
ESI Excavations and Surveys in Israel
ET Études et travaux. Studia i prace. Travaux du Centre
d’archéologie méditerranéenne de l’Académie des sciences
polonaise
GGM Geographi graeci minores
GRBS Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies
HUS Harvard Ukrainian Studies
IEJ Israel Exploration Journal
IFAO Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire
IGLS L. Jalabert, R. Mouterde, Cl. Mondésert and M. Sartre,
eds., Inscriptions Grecques et Latines de la Syrie (Paris, 1927–
82)
IJNA International Journal of Nautical Archaeology
INA Quarterly Institute for Nautical Archaeology Quarterly
IzvArhInst Izvestija na Arheologiceskija Institut
JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society
JARCE Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt
JbAC Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum
JEA Journal of Egyptian Archaeology
JG J. Zepos and P. Zepos, eds., Jus Graecoromanum, 8 vols
(Athens, 1931)
JGS Journal of Glass Studies
JOM Journal of the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society
JRA Journal of Roman Archaeology
JRAS Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
JRS Journal of Roman Studies
KSIA Kratkie Soobshcheniia Instituta Arkheologii
KS-VPZ T.I. Makarova and S.A. Pletneva, eds., Krym, Severo-
Vostochnoe Prichernomor’e i Zakavkaz’e v epokhu
srednevekov’ia IV–XIII veka (Moscow, 2003).
LRCW 1 J.M. Gurt i Esparraguera, J. Buxeda i Garrigós and M.A.
Cau Ontiverso, eds., Late Roman Coarse Wares, Cooking
Wares and Amphorae in the Mediterranean. Archaeology and
Archaeometry, BAR International Series 1340 (Oxford,
2005)
MAIET Materialy po Arkheologii, Istorii i Etnografii Tavriki
MAMA Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua
 ABBREVIATIONS xiii

MGH Ep., Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolae; Scriptores

ScriptRerGerm Rerum Germanicarum
MIA Materialy i issledovania po Arkheologii SSSR
MIFAO Mélanges de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale
MM F. Miklosich and I. Müller, eds., Acta et diplomata graeca medii
aevi, 6 vols (Vienna, 1860–90)
MMIFAO Mémoires publiés par les membres de l’Institut français
d’archéologie orientale du Caire
NARCE Newsletter of the American Research Center in Egypt
NC Numismatic Chronicle
ODB A.P. Kazhdan, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium,
vols 1–3 (New York–Oxford, 1991)
PEQ Palestine Exploration Quarterly
PG J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus completus. Series graeca
PL J.-P.Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina
PmBZ R.-J. Lilie et al., eds., Prosopographie der mittel-byzantinischen
Zeit. Prolegomena, 6 vols (Berlin–New York, 1998–2002)
PSAS Proceedings of the Seminar in Arabian Studies
PVL V.P. Adrianova-Peretts and D.S. Likhachev, eds., Povest’
Vremennykh Let; revised by M.B. Sverdlov (St Petersburg,
1996)
RCRF Acta Rei Cretariae Romanae Fautorum Acta
RDAC Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus
REA Revue des Etudes Anciennes
REArm Revue des Etudes Arméniennes
REB Revue des Etudes Byzantines
REG Revue des Etudes Grecques
RossArkh Rossiikaia Arkheologiia
SA Sovetskaia Arkheologiia
SBS Studies in Byzantine Sigillography
SOMA Symposium of Mediterranean Archaeology
TAPA Transactions of the American Philological Association
TIB Tabula Imperii Byzantini
TIR Tabula Imperii Romani
TM Travaux et Mémoires
VizVrem Vizantiiskii Vremennik
VSPE A. Maya Sanchez, ed., Vitae sanctorum patrum Emeretensium,
Corpus christianorum, Series latina 116 (Turnholti, 1992)
ZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik
xiv ABBREVIATIONS

Frequently cited publications:

Bakirtzis, ed., Céramique Médiévale: C. Bakirtzis, ed., VIIe Congrès sur la

Céramique Médiévale en Méditerranée, Thessaloniki, 11–16 octobre 1999
(Athens, 2003)
Bass and Van Doorninck, Yassı Ada: G.F. Bass and F.H. van Doorninck,
Yassı Ada, vol. I: A seventh century Byzantine shipwreck (College Station,
TX, 1982)
Bass et al., Serçe Limanı: G.F. Bass, S.D. Matthews, J.R. Steffy and F.H. van
Doorninck, Serçe Limanı: an eleventh-century shipwreck, vol. I: The ship
and its anchorage, crew, and passengers (College Station, TX, 2004)
Déroche and Spieser, eds., Recherches: V. Déroche and J.-M. Spieser, eds.,
Recherches sur la céramique byzantine (Paris, 1989)
Expositio: J. Rouge, ed., Expositio Totius Mundi et Gentium, Sources
Chrétiennes 124 (Paris, 1966)
Goitein, Cairo Geniza: S.D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: the Jewish
communities of the Arab world as portrayed in the documents of the Cairo
Geniza (Berkeley, LA, 1967–93)
Harris, Cultural Identity: A. Harris, Byzantium, Britain and the West: the
archaeology of cultural identity, AD 400–650 (Stroud, 2003)
Hayes, Pottery: J.W. Hayes, Late Roman Pottery (London, 1972)
Hayes, Saraçhane: J.W. Hayes, Excavations at Saraçhane in Istanbul, vol. 2:
The Pottery (Princeton, 1992)
Jacoby, ‘Byzantine Crete’: D. Jacoby, ‘Byzantine Crete in the navigation
and trade networks of Venice and Genoa’, in L. Balletto, ed., Oriente
ed Occidente tra medioevo ed età moderna. Studi in onore di Geo Pistario,
Università degli Studi di Genova, Sede di Acqui Terme, Collana di
Fonti e Studi 1.1 (Aqui Terme, 1997)
Kingsley, Barbarian Seas: S. Kingsley, Barbarian Seas: late Rome to Islam
(London, 2004)
Kingsley and Decker, eds., Economy and Exchange: S. Kingsley and M.
Decker, eds., Economy and Exchange in the East Mediterranean during Late
Antiquity (Oxford, 2001)
Laiou, ed., Economic History: A.E. Laiou, ed., The Economic History of
Byzantium (Washington, DC, 2002)
Lauffer, Diokletians Preisedikt: S. Lauffer, Diokletians Preisedikt (Berlin,
1971)
Mango and Dagron, eds., Constantinople: C. Mango and G. Dagron, eds.,
Constantinople and its Hinterland (Aldershot, 1995)
Margueron, ed., Le Moyen-Euphrate: J.C. Margueron, ed., Le Moyen-
Euphrate, zone de contacts et d’échanges. Actes du colloque de Strasbourg
10–12 mars 1977 (Leiden, 1980)
 ABBREVIATIONS xv

McCormick, Origins: M. McCormick, Origins of the European Economy:

communications and commerce AD 300–900 (Cambridge, 2001)
Morrisson and Lefort, eds., Hommes et richesses: C. Morrisson and J. Lefort,
eds., Hommes et richesses dans l’Empire byzantin, IV–VII siècles (Paris,
1989)
Parker, Shipwrecks: A.J. Parker, Ancient Shipwrecks of the Mediterranean and
the Roman Provinces (Oxford, 1992)
Sedov, ‘Qana’: A.V. Sedov, ‘New archaeological and epigraphical material
from Qana (South Arabia)’, ArabArchEp 3 (1992), 110–37
Villeneuve and Watson, eds., La céramique byzantine et proto-islamique:
E. Villeneuve and P.M. Watson, eds., La céramique byzantine et proto-
islamique en Syrie-Jordanie (IVe–VIIe siècles ap. J.-C.). Actes du colloque
tenu à Amman les 3, 4 et 5 décembre, 1994 (Beirut, 2001)
 List of Contributors

Dr Irina Andreescu-Treadgold has since 1975 surveyed mosaics from

scaffoldings, using the format she designed as Field Director for campaigns
in San Marco for the Corpus for Wall Mosaics in the North Adriatic area. She
has directed and advised other mosaic projects, identifying chronological
sequences, workshop profiles and medieval repairs at Torcello and San
Vitale, and discovering that the Berlin mosaics allegedly from San Michele
in Africisco, Ravenna are copies from 1850–51.

Pamela Armstrong is Research Member of Common Room, Wolfson

College, Oxford. She is an experienced excavator and landscape
archaeologist, publishing ceramics dating from AD 300 to 1800 from a
range of regions in Greece and Turkey, the Greek islands and Cyprus, as
well as historical interpretations of the evidence of material culture.

Dr Christopher Bowles is Archaeology Officer, Scottish Borders Council.

His publications include Rebuilding the Britons: the postcolonial archaeology
of culture and identity in the late antique Bristol Channel region, BAR British
Series (Oxford, 2007).

Dr Ewan Campbell is Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University

of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ, Scotland, UK. He has published widely
on trade in early medieval north-west Europe, and the role of material
culture in the development of the early medieval identities.

Dr Michael Decker is Maroulis Professor of Byzantine History and

Orthodox Religion at the University of South Florida. His publications
include Economy and Exchange in the Eastern Mediterranean during Late
Antiquity, ed. with S. Kingsley (Oxford, 2000), and Tilling the Hateful Earth
(Oxford, 2009).

Dr Ioanna Dimopoulos (DPhil, Oxon) specializes in glazed pottery of the Middle

Byzantine period. Her publications include: ‘Byzantine Sgraffito Wares from
Sparta, 12th–13th centuries’, in B. Böhlendorf-Arslan, A.O. Uysal and J. Witte-
Orr, eds., Byzas 7: Late Antique and Medieval Pottery and Tiles in Mediterranean
Archaeological Contexts (Istanbul, 2008).

From Byzantine Trade, 4th-12th Centuries . Copyright © 2009 by the Society for the Promotion
of Byzantine Studies. Published by Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Wey Court East, Union Road,
Farnham, Surrey, GU9 7PT, Great Britain.

xvii
xviii LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Prof. Nergis Günsenin is Professor at Istanbul University’s Vocational

School of Technical Sciences, and Chair of its Underwater Technology
Program. Research interests include: late Byzantine amphorae, their kilns,
and monastic wine commerce in the Sea of Marmara. She has conducted
land and underwater surveys and excavations. Having authored
approximately 50 articles, she is currently preparing publication of her
Çamaltı Burnu I shipwreck excavation and is consultant to the Yenikapı
excavations at the portus Theodosiacus in Istanbul.

Prof. Julian Henderson is Professor of Archaeological Science, Nottingham

University. His research has focused on the relationships between
archaeology, technology and science, and on glass of all ancient periods
(and ceramics). He directs the Raqqa (Syria) ancient industry project, the
first interdisciplinary investigation of an Islamic industrial complex, which
seeks to provenance glass geologically. He has published extensively in
archaeological and scientific journals and a number of books, including The
Science and Archaeology of Materials (London, 2000).

Dr Mark P.C. Jackson is Lecturer in Archaeology, School of Historical

Studies, Newcastle University. He directs the excavations of the Byzantine
levels at Kilise Tepe in southern Turkey and is currently working on finds
from Alahan and ceramics from the Göksu Archaeological Project.

Prof. David Jacoby is Emeritus Professor of History, The Hebrew

University of Jerusalem, Israel. His research and publications focus on
Byzantium and its former territories; the Crusader states of the Levant,
Cyprus and Egypt; and intercultural exchange between the West and the
eastern Mediterranean in the 9th–15th centuries. He is currently writing a
book on medieval silk production and trade in the Mediterranean region.

Dr Olga Karagiorgou (D.Phil., Oxon) is Researcher, Academy of Athens,

Research Centre for Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Art. Her main research
interests are urbanism and economy in late antiquity; Middle Byzantine
architecture; prosopography; and sigillography. See: http://www.academyo
fathens.gr/ecportal.asp?id=64&nt=109&lang=2, http://www.amoriumex
cavations.org/Team.htm; kragiorgou@academyofathens.gr, olga.kara
giorgou@gmx.net

Dr Philip M. Kenrick Abingdon, Oxfordshire, UK. Freelance pottery

specialist, President of the Rei Cretariae Romanae Fautores. Currently
involved in the study of pottery from excavations at Vagnari (Gravina-in-
Puglia, Italy). Principal publications: Excavations at Sidi Khrebish, Benghazi
(Berenice) iii.1, The fine pottery (Tripoli, 1985). Excavations at Sabratha 1948–
 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS xix

1951 (London, 1986). A. Oxé & H. Comfort , Corpus Vasorum Arretinorum,

2nd ed., completely revised and enlarged by PMK (Bonn, 2000).

Dr Sean Kingsley is Visiting Fellow at the Research Centre for Late

Antique and Byzantine Studies, University of Reading. He has authored
six books, most recently Shipwreck Archaeology of the Holy Land (London,
2004) and Barbarian Seas: Late Rome to Islam (London, 2004).

Dr Hiromi Kinoshita is Assistant Curator of Chinese Art, Museum of Fine

Arts, Boston, and consulting curator for The First Emperor exhibition at the
High Museum of Art, Atlanta. She has contributed to The First Emperor:
China’s Terracotta Army (London, 2007); Gilded Splendor: treasures of China’s
Liao Empire (907–1125) (New York, 2006); China: the Three Emperors (1662–
1795) (London, 2005); and Recarving China’s Past (Princeton, 2005).

Prof. Rossina Kostova (Ph.D. in Medieval Studies) is Associate Professor

in Medieval Bulgarian Archaeology and Medieval Archaeology of the
Balkans, SS Cyril and Methodius University of Veliko Turnovo. Her research
interests include: medieval Bulgarian archaeology, Byzantine archaeology,
monastic archaeology, medieval graffiti, medieval archaeology of the west
Black Sea coast. She is director and deputy director of excavations of
medieval monastic sites in Preslav, Varna and Sozopol, and has published
over 40 articles.

Dr Anne McCabe is Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of

Ancient Documents, Oxford. She works on the Agora Excavations of the
American School of Classical Studies at Athens and with the Oxford team
at Al-Andarin in Syria. She has authored A Byzantine Encyclopaedia of Horse
Medicine: the sources, compilation, and transmission of the Hippiatrica (Oxford,
2007).

Dr Nikolaj Makarov is a corresponding member of the Russian Academy

of Science and Director of the Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy
of Science. He specializes in medieval archaeology and history of Russia.
Additional research interests are the culture of Iron Age and medieval
Eastern Europe, and that of medieval Slavs, Finns and Scandinavians. He
leads various field research projects on medieval sites in Russia and is
author of more than 180 published works including four monographs.
Among them: Medieval Settlement in Beloozero Region (Moscow, 2001);
The Archaeology of the Rural Areas of Northern Rus’ 900-1300, V.1 (Moscow,
2007).
xx LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Dr Hallie Meredith is Lecturer at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She

has published on cultural differences in Roman and Sasanian late antique
glassware, and on late antique art and texts inherited from the Greek and
Roman world. Her three current projects are: Re-Viewing Open-work Vessels
in Context; Art in Ancient Texts: layered objects, layered meanings; and an
edited volume of symposium papers, Objects in Motion: the circulation of
religion and sacred objects in the late antique and early medieval world.

Dr Marlia Mundell Mango is Research Lecturer in Byzantine Archaeology

and Art, Oxford University. She directs the Oxford team’s Excavations
and Survey at Al-Andarin/Androna in Syria. Her publications number
approximately 100, including studies on northern Mesopotamia, Syria,
metalware (Silver from Early Byzantium; with A. Bennett, The Sevso Treasure,
I) and the forthcoming Artistic Patronage: buildings, silver plate and books in the
Roman diocese of Oriens, AD 313–641.

Prof. David W. Phillipson retired in 2006 from the University of Cambridge,

where he had been Professor of African Archaeology and Director of the
Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology. He is a Fellow of the British
Academy, an Emeritus Fellow of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge,
and a past-President of the British Institute in Eastern Africa. He directed
major archaeological excavations at Aksum in the 1990s and has recently
completed a study of early Ethiopian churches.

Natalija Ristovska is a D.Phil. student in Archaeology, University of Oxford.

Her research interests include various aspects of Byzantine minor arts,
such as: patronage, ownership and patterns of use; production centres and
distribution patterns of medieval vessels, furnishings and jewellery made
of metal and glass; exchange in crafted goods and skilled artisans between
the Byzantine Empire and foreign polities; as well as the impact of such
exchange on production and tastes of recipient societies.

Dr Elizabeth Rodziewicz is an historian of ancient Art and Archaeology, and

researcher of ancient bone and ivory carvings in the Mediterranean. She is a
member of Polish archaeological missions in Alexandria, of French archaeological
missions, at Centre d’Etudes Alexandrines of CNRS, and at Fustat/Old Cairo,
IFAO; and a member of German–Swiss missions on Elephantine. She has
authored numerous archaeological publications, including the recent Bone and
Ivory Carvings from Alexandria, IFAO (Cairo, 2007) and the forthcoming Bone
Carvings from Fustat: French excavations.
 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS xxi

Christopher J. Salter is Senior Analyst, BegbrokeNano/OMCS, Department

of Materials, Oxford University. His research interests include ancient and
historic iron production, artefacts, and metal production debris from all
types of metals up until the early historic period. He is currently working
on Byzantine Chersonesos, Crimea, with the University of Texas, Austin.
Recent publications include: with B.G. Scott, R.R. Brown and A.G. Leacock,
The Great Guns like Thunder, Derry City Council (2008), and Metalworking
Debris in Late Saxon and Early Medieval Occupation at 26–27 Staples Gardens,
Winchester, Winchester Studies (2008).

Dr Emilie Savage-Smith is Professor of the History of Islamic Science, Oriental

Institute, and senior research fellow, St Cross College, both at Oxford University.
Recent publications include: Magic and Divination in Early Islam (Aldershot,
2004); with E. Edson, Medieval Views of the Cosmos (Oxford, 2004); with P.E.
Pormann, Medieval Islamic Medicine (Edinburgh, 2007); and with Y. Rapoport,
The Medieval Islamic Views of the Cosmos: the Book of Curiosities, available as
of March 2007 at: http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/bookofcuriosities.

Dr Jonathan Shepard specializes in the history of early medieval Russia

and Byzantine diplomacy. For many years, he has been a lecturer in
Russian history at Cambridge University. He has co-authored with
Simon Franklin, The emergence of Rus 750–1200 (1996), and has edited The
expansion of Orthodox Europe: Byzantium, the Balkans and Russia (2007) and
The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire (2008).

Prof. Steven E. Sidebotham is Professor of Classical Archaeology and

Ancient History, University of Delaware, USA. He has authored, co-
authored, edited or co-edited 10 volumes, including six on excavations
at Berenike, Arikamedu, India and Caesarea Maritima, Israel; Roman
economic policy in the Erythra Thalassa; and The Red Land, in addition to
some 80 articles and other publications. His 53 seasons of archaeological
fieldwork since 1972 both on land and underwater have occurred in Italy,
Greece, Tunisia, Libya, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan
and India.

Prof. Yoram Tsafrir is Emeritus Professor in the Institute of Archaeology,

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a member of the Israel Academy
of Sciences and Humanities. His research and numerous publications focus
on the archaeology and historical geography of Palestine and the East in the
Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Early Islamic periods. He is Co-director
of the Hebrew University’s excavations at Bet Shean-Scythopolis, Rehovot in
the Negev, Sartaba-Alexandrion, Horvat Berachot, and other sites.
xxii LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Dr Agnès Vokaer is Chargée de recherches du F.N.R.S., Université libre

de Bruxelles. She has worked on several late Antique and early Islamic
sites in Syria. She is Field Director and is in charge of the ceramic study
at Apamea. Her research interests include common wares and amphorae,
late antique economy, and ethno-archaeology.
 List of Figures and Tables

Figures

A Istanbul, excavations at Yenikapı, shipwreck

with Günsenin I amphorae. Photo: U. Kocabaş xxxii
1.1 Map of main sites and areas discussed in papers 1–28.
Drawing: A. Wilkins. 11
2.1 A map of Syria. Al-Istakhri, Kitab al-Masalik
wa-al-mamalik. Bodleian Library, MS Ouseley 373,
fol. 33b. Reproduced with permission from the Bodleian
Library, Oxford. 19
2.2 The bays of Byzantium. Kitab Ghara’ib al-funun wa-mulah
al-‘uyun. Bodleian Library, MS Arab. c. 90, fol. 38a.
Reproduced with permission from the Bodleian Library,
Oxford. 21
2.3 The Indian Ocean. Kitab Ghara’ib al-funun wa-mulah
al-‘uyun. Bodleian Library, MS Arab. c. 90,
fols 29b–30a. Reproduced with permission from the
Bodleian Library, Oxford. 22
2.4 The Mediterranean. Kitab Ghara’ib al-funun wa-mulah
al-‘uyun. Bodleian Library, MS Arab. c. 90, fols
30b–31a. Reproduced with permission from the Bodleian
Library, Oxford. 23
2.5 The city of al-Mahdiyah. Kitab Ghara’ib al-funun wa-mulah
al-‘uyun. Bodleian Library, MS Arab. c. 90, fol. 34a.
Reproduced with permission from the Bodleian Library,
Oxford. 24
2.6 The island of Cyprus. Kitab Ghara’ib al-funun wa-mulah
al-‘uyun. Bodleian Library, MS Arab. c. 90, fol. 36b.
Reproduced with permission from the Bodleian Library,
Oxford. 26
4.1 Classification of 20 amphora types according to
G. Kuzmanov, in Archeologija (Sofia) XV.1 (1973), table 1. 40
4.2 Riley’s ‘standard package of amphora types’, based on
J.A. Riley, ‘Fieldwork on the Red Sea coast: the 1987 season.
The pottery’, JARCE 26 (1989), 151. 42

From Byzantine Trade, 4th-12th Centuries. Copyright © 2009 by the Society for the Promotion
of Byzantine Studies. Published by Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Wey Court East, Union Road,
Farnham, Surrey, GU9 7PT, Great Britain.

xxiii
xxiv FIGURES AND TABLES

4.3 Distribution maps of LRA 1 and LRA 2. After C. Scorpan,

in Dacia n.a. 21 (1977), figs 13 and 11. 44
4.4 Distribution map of LRA 1. After J.A. Riley, in
J.A. Lloyd, ed., Excavations at Sidi Khrebish, Benghazi
(Berenice), vol. II: Libya Antiqua, Supplement V.2
(Tripoli, 1979), figs 42 and 41. 49
4.5 Distribution map of LRA 2 with histogram of amounts
found at Berenice, Carthage and Istanbul. After J.A. Riley,
in J.A. Lloyd, ed., Excavations at Sidi Khrebish, Benghazi
(Berenice), vol. II: Libya Antiqua, Supplement V.2
(Tripoli, 1979), figs 44 and 43. 50
4.6 Amphora finds at the site of the Yassı Ada shipwreck.
Drawing: O. Karagiorgou. 54
4.7 Amphora finds at St Polyeuktos, Istanbul.
Drawing: O. Karagiorgou. 55
4.8 Amphora finds from survey at Louloudies-Kitros.
Drawing: O. Karagiorgou. 56
5.1 Bet Shean/Scythopolis plan. Drawing: B. Arubas. 63
5.2 Bet Shean/Scythopolis. Plan of the city centre.
Drawing: B. Arubas. 65
5.3 Bet Shean/Scythopolis. Palladius Street and the Sigma
during excavation. Photo: G. Laron. 68
5.4 Bet Shean/Scythopolis. Plan of the Roman–Byzantine
shops in the Street of the Monuments. Drawing: B. Arubas. 68
5.5 Bet Shean/Scythopolis. The shops in the Street of the
Monuments, looking south-east. Photo: G. Laron. 71
5.6 Bet Shean/Scythopolis. The Byzantine bazaar near the
north-eastern city gate, looking south. Photo: G. Laron. 71
5.7 Bet Shean/Scythopolis. Pottery workshop from the
Umayyad period in the amphitheatre. Photo: G. Laron. 76
5.8 Bet Shean/Scythopolis. Northwestern Street after the
earthquake of 749, looking south-east. Photo: G. Laron. 76
5.9 Bet Shean/Scythopolis. Umayyad shops and workshops
in the Street of the Monuments. Drawing: B. Arubas. 77
5.10 Bet Shean/Scythopolis. Shops in Silvanus Street in the
Umayyad period, looking south-east. Photo: G. Laron. 79
5.11 Bet Shean/Scythopolis. A bronze weight of Sa’id b.
Abd al-Malik. Drawing: B. Arubas 80
5.12 Bet Shean/Scythopolis. Shops and the bazaar of
the caliph Hisham. Drawing: B. Arubas. 81
5.13 Bet Shean/Scythopolis. Hisham’s bazaar at Bet Shean,
looking north-west, after the earthquake of 749.
Photo: G. Laron. 82
 FIGURES AND TABLES xxv

6.l Major finds of bone/ivory carvings located on the

map of ancient Alexandria. Drawing: El Falaki, 1872. 85
6.2 Bone relief of satyr carrying wine in a goat-skin bag.
Drawing: M. Rodziewicz. 88
6.3 Ivory relief of chlamydatus with fragment of horse.
Drawing: M. Rodziewicz. 88
6.4 Bone relief of warrior. Drawing: M. Rodziewicz. 88
6.5 Bone relief of Christ among disciples.
Drawing: M. Rodziewicz. 90
6.6 Bone relief of man carrying animal.
Drawing: M. Rodziewicz. 90
6.7 Ivory offcut found in workshop material at Fouad site,
Alexandria. Drawing: M. Rodziewicz. 92
6.8 Tools from artisans quarter, Kom el-Dikka site,
Alexandria. Drawing: M. Rodziewicz. 92
7.1 Production sites and findspots of polychrome
ceramics in Preslav. 101
7.2 Sites of production of polychrome ceramics in Preslav 106
7.3 A fragmentary medallion of St George from the
Round Church. After T. Totev, The Ceramic Icon in Medieval
Bulgaria (Sofia, 1999), table XVII.27. 111
7.4 A fragmentary icon of St Cyril [?] of Alexandria and
another saint from the Palace Monastery. After T. Totev,
The Ceramic Icon in Medieval Bulgaria (Sofia, 1999),
table XLIX.68. 111
7.5 ‘Wasserblätter’ tiles from Patlejna. After K. Miatev,
Keramik von Preslav (Setia, 1936), fig. 48. 115
7.6 A fragmentary icon of the Apostle Philip from
Tuzlalăka. After T. Totev, The Ceramic Icon in Medieval
Bulgaria (Sofia, 1999). 115
8.1 Map of the Brittle Ware sites studied.
Drawing: A. Vokaer. 123
8.2 Photograph of a thin section of a Fabric 1 fragment,
by A. Vokaer. 126
8.3 Photograph of a thin section of a Fabric 4 fragment,
by A. Vokaer 127
8.4 Photograph of a thin section of a Fabric 6 fragment,
by A. Vokaer. 128
8.5 Brittle Ware cooking set of the Byzantine period.
Drawing: A. Vokaer. 129
8.6 Brittle Ware shapes specific to Apamea.
Drawing: A. Vokaer. 130
xxvi FIGURES AND TABLES

8.7 Brittle Ware cooking set of the Umayyad period.

Drawing: A.Vokaer. 130
8.8 Brittle Ware distribution in the Byzantine period.
Drawing: A. Vokaer. 132
8.9 Brittle Ware distribution in the Umayyad and
Abbasid period. Drawing: A. Vokaer. 133
8.10 Distribution of the ‘Northern Syrian’ or
‘carinated amphora’ in Syria. Drawing: A. Vokaer. 134
9.1 The Göksu Valley, southern Asia Minor.
Drawing: M.P.C. Jackson. 138
9.2 Jar painted with interlocking spiral and dot,
from Kilise Tepe. Photo: Bronwyn Douglas. 141
9.3 Pottery sherds painted with bird, fish and foliage,
from Kilise Tepe. Photo: Bronwyn Douglas. 141
10.1 Map showing the locations of Ganos (Gaziköy),
Chora (Hoşköy), Constantinople, and the Serçe Limanı
shipwreck. Inset map: Marmara Island (Proconessos).
Drawing: N. Günsenin. 148
10.2 Map showing findspots of Günsenin I wine amphorae.
Drawing: N. Günsenin and A. Wilkins. 153
11.1a Cypriot Red Slip Ware bowls. After H.W. Catling
and A.I. Dikigoropoulos, ‘The Kornos Cave: an early
Byzantine site in Cyprus’, Levant 2 (1970), pl. xxx. 160
11.1b Line drawings of Cypriot Red Slip Ware bowls
after Hayes, Pottery, figs 81–2. 161
11.2 Map of north-west Cyprus after H.W. Catling
and A.I. Dikigoropoulos, ‘The Kornos Cave: an early
Byzantine site in Cyprus’, Levant 2 (1970), fig. 1. 162
11.3a Map of the east Mediterranean. Drawing: P. Armstrong. 172
11.3b Detail of inset from fig. 11.3a. After A. Uscatescu,
‘Report on the Levant pottery (5th–9th century AD)’, in
Bakirtzis, ed., Céramique Médiévale, fig. 1. 173
12.1 Distribution map of Byzantine Sgraffito Ware.
Drawing: I. Dimopoulos. 180
12.2 Location of Byzantine shipwrecks.
Drawing: I. Dimopoulos. 180
12.3 Distribution map of Measles Ware.
Drawing: I. Dimopoulos. 187
12.4 Distribution map of Measles Ware. After
D. Papanikola-Bakirtzi, ‘Serres Ware’, in H. Maguire,
ed., Materials Analysis of Byzantine Pottery (Washington,
DC, 1997). 187
 FIGURES AND TABLES xxvii

12.5 Sgraffito Ware dish from Pelagonnesus wreck. After

D. Papanikola-Bakirtzi, Byzantine Glazed Ceramics: the art of
sgraffito (Athens 1999). 188
12.6 Zeuxippus Ware bowl found in Cherson. After
A. Romanchuk, ‘Befunde der glasierten Keramik
der spätbyzantinischen Zeit in Chersonesos: Ärtliche
Herstellung und Import’, in Bakirtzis, ed., Céramique
Médiévale, 101–14. 188
12.7 Measles Ware bowl from Corinth. After
D. Papanikola-Bakirtzi, Byzantine Glazed Ceramics: the art of
sgraffito (Athens 1999) 190
13.1 Diagram of glass open-work vessel. After D.B. Harden
et al., Glass of the Caesars (Milan, 1987), 241.. 193
13.2 Distribution map of glass open-work vessels in the
late Roman Empire. Drawing: H. Meredith. 194
14.1 Painted glass vessels, a, g: Corinth; b, f: Paphos;
c: Tarquinia; d, e, i: Novogrudok; h: Novgorod;
j: Staraia Ladoga. After a: G. Davidson, ‘Glass-factory’;
b: Megaw, ‘Supplementary excavations’; c: D. Whitehouse,
‘Un vetro bizantino di Tarquinia’, Archeologia Medievale 9
(1982), 471–5; d, e, i, j: Gurevich et al., Steklo; f, g: Megaw,
‘Glass’; h: I. Shchapova, Steklo. 211
14.2 Painted bracelets, a: Varosh; b: Orizari; c, p, q:
Yumuktepe; d: Bosporos; e, h, m, o, s: Vezha; f,
j: Morodvis; g: Nicaea [?]; i, l, r, t, w: Amorion;
k: Jerusalem [?]; n: Bulgaria; u: Fustat; v: Shokshovo.
After a, b, f, j: E. Maneva, Srednovekoven nakit od
Makedonija (Skopje, 1992); c, p, q: G. Köroğlu,
‘Yumuktepe Höyüğü’nden Bizans Dönemi
Cam Bilezikleri’, in N. Şaman, ed., Ortaçağ’da
Anadolu: Aynur Durukan’a Armağan (Ankara, 2002),
355–72; d: A. Sazanov, ‘Les niveaux de la première moitié
du XIe siècle à Kerch (Crimée)’, AnatAnt 4 (1996), 191–200;
e, h, m, o, s: Z.A. L’vova, ‘Stekliannye braslety i busy iz
Sarkela-Beloĭ Vezhi’, in M.I. Artamonov, Trudy Volgo-
Donskoi arkheologicheskoĭ ekspeditsii, vol. II: Materialy
i issledovaniia po arkheologii SSSR 75 (Moscow–Leningrad,
1959), 307–23; g: Whitehouse et al., ‘Stain’; i, l, r, t, w: Gill
et al., Amorium; k: M. Spaer, Ancient Glass in the Israel
Museum: beads and other small objects (Jerusalem, 2001),
25, no. 484; n: G. Djingov, ‘Bracelets en verre à décor
peint de la Bulgarie médiévale’, in Annales du 7e
Congrès International d’Étude Historique du Verre
xxviii FIGURES AND TABLES

(Liège, 1978); u: Scanlon, ‘Bracelets’; v: V.V. Kropotkin,

‘O proizvodstve stekla i stekliannykh izdeliĭ v srednevekovykh
gorodakh Severnogo Prichernomor’ia i na Rusi’, Kratkie
soobshcheniia Instituta istorii material’no kul’tury 68
(1957), 35–44. 212
14.3 Distribution map of Byzantine painted glass vessels.
Drawing: N. Ristovska. 214
14.4 Distribution map of Byzantine painted glass bracelets.
Drawing: N. Ristovska. 215
14.5 Detail of map fig. 14.2. Drawing: N. Ristovska. 220
14.6 Distribution map of Islamic enamelled glass vessels.
Drawing: N. Ristovska. 220
15.1 Map of south-east Asia Minor, showing mining and
production. Drawing: A. Wilkins and M. Mundell Mango. 225
15.2 Map of metal sources, production centres and
findspots of analyzed silver. Drawing: A. Wilkins. 225
15.3 Distribution map of silver plate. Drawing: A. Wilkins. 228
15.4 Distribution map of silver and copper metalware found
outside the Empire. Drawing: A. Wilkins. 229
15.5 Cast and hammered bronze and copper objects.
After 1–3: R.L.S. Bruce-Mitford, The Sutton Hoo
Ship Burial (London, 1983), fig. 531; 4–7: G.M. Fitzgerald,
Beth-Shan Excavations 1921–1923: the Arab and Byzantine
levels (Philadelphia, 1931), and The Anatolian Civilisations,
vol. II: Greek/Roman/Byzantine (İstanbul, 1983), no C.37;
drawing author; 8–9: J.C. Waldbaum, Metalwork from Sardis:
the finds through 1974 (Cambridge, MA, 1983), pl. 35. 234
15.6 Distribution map of provenanced brass buckets.
Drawing: A. Wilkins. 235
15.7 Distribution map of provenanced tinned copper objects.
Drawing: A. Wilkins and M. Mundell Mango. 235
17.1 Roman glass found in the Wei, Jin, Northern
and Southern Dynasties periods. Photos and
drawing adapted by H. Kinoshita 257
17.2 Sasanian-type glass, 3rd–7th centuries. Photos and
drawing adapted by H. Kinoshita 258
17.3 Islamic glass, 7th–12th centuries. Photos and
drawing adapted by H. Kinoshita 259
18.1 Map with Zeugma. Drawing: P.M. Kenrick. 264
18.2 Zeugma. A selection of pottery from Group D.
Drawing: P.M. Kenrick. 267
18.3 Zeugma. A selection of pottery from Group F.
Drawing: P.M. Kenrick. 268
 FIGURES AND TABLES xxix

18.4 Zeugma. A selection of pottery from Group F.

Drawing: P.M. Kenrick. 269
18.5 Zeugma. A selection of pottery from Group G.
Drawing: P.M. Kenrick. 271
19.1 Cinnamon-oil. Dioscorides, De materia medica, M652,
fol. 229r. Reproduced with permission from the
Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. 279
19.2 Ginger. Dioscorides, De materia medica, M652, fol. 57v.
Reproduced with permission from the
Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. 281
19.3a Musk-deer. Cosmas Indicopleustes, The Christian
Topography, Sinai gr. 1186, fol. 202r. Reproduced with
permission from the Holy Monastery of
St Catherine, Sinai. 283
19.3b Pepper-tree. Cosmas Indicopleustes, The Christian
Topography, Sinai gr. 1186, fol. 202v. Reproduced with
permission from the Holy Monastery
of St Catherine, Sinai. 283
19.4 Cumin. Dioscorides, De materia medica, Par. gr. 2179,
fol. 34r. Reproduced with permission from the
Bibliothèque Nationale de France. 285
19.5 Ingredients. Hippiatrica. Phillipps 1538, fol. 393r.
Reproduced with permission from the
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. 290
20.1 Britain. Relative abundance of Mediterranean amphorae
in Insular contexts (MNV). Drawing: E. Campbell. 300
20.2 Comparison of vessels in western Mediterranean
and Britain. Drawing: E. Campbell. 300
20.3 Britain. Distribution of imported glass.
Drawing: E. Campbell. 302
20.4 Tintagel sherd size curves. Drawing: E. Campbell. 303
20.5 Britain. Distribution of Mediterranean imports in relation
to metal deposits and mines. Drawing: E. Campbell. 309
21.1 Location of evidence for post-Roman trade in Devon.
Drawing: C. Salter. 322
23.1 Map of northern Red Sea. Drawing: A. Hoseth. 330
23.2 Abu Sha’ar, fort interior. Photo: S.E. Sidebotham. 337
23.3 Abu Sha’ar, main (west) gate. Photo: S.E. Sidebotham. 337
23.4 Abu Sha’ar, Latin inscription from gate.
Photo: S.E. Sidebotham. 338
23.5 Abu Sha’ar, cloth from the principia-church.
Photo: S.E. Sidebotham. 339
23.6 Berenike, oblique plan of the site. Drawing: A.M. Hense. 346
xxx FIGURES AND TABLES

23.7 Berenike, storage magazine with amphorae.

Photo: S.E. Sidebotham. 347
23.8 Berenike, residential–business building with courtyard.
Photo: S.E. Sidebotham. 347
23.9 Berenike, residential–business building with niche.
Photo: S.E. Sidebotham. 348
23.10 Berenike, church (5th century AD).
Photo: S.E. Sidebotham. 348
23.11 Berenike, terracotta lamps found in the church
(fig. 23.10). Photo: S.E. Sidebotham. 349
24.1 North-easternmost Africa and the Red Sea, with
location of Aksum. Drawing: D. Phillipson. 354
24.2 Gold coin of the Aksumite king MHDYS.
Staatliche Münzsammlung, Munich. Photo courtesy of
Prof. Dr W. Hahn. 356
24.3 Components of ivory throne, Tomb of the Brick Arches,
Aksum. Photos: L Phillipson. Drawing: G. Reed. 359
24.4 Imported pottery and glass excavated at Aksum.
Photos (top, right): D. Phillipson; (left): L. Phillipson. 361
24.5 Glass beaker from a 3rd-century tomb at Aksum.
Photo: M. Harlow. 362
24.6 Gold coin of the late 3rd-century king Endybis.
Photo: D. Phillipson. 363
24.7 Copper-alloy coin of the late 6th-century king Gersem.
Photo: D. Phillipson. 365
26.1 Mosaic on the west wall at Torcello. Photo: I. Andreescu. 397
26.2 Overheated glass frit. Photo: J. Henderson. 405
26.3 A single-chambered tank furnace. Drawing: J. Henderson. 406
26.4 A bi-plot of potassium oxide versus sodium oxide.
Figure: J. Henderson. 408
26.5 A bi-plot of potassium oxide versus magnesium oxide.
Figure: J. Henderson. 410
26.6 A bi-plot of aluminium oxide versus magnesium oxide.
Figure: J. Henderson. 410
26.7 A bi-plot of alumina versus calcium oxide.
Figure: J. Henderson. 413
26.8 A bi-plot of alumina versus magnesia from Torcello,
the Serçe Limanı shipwreck and other Middle Eastern
sites. Figure: J. Henderson. 413
28.1 Map of excavations of unfortified medieval
dwelling-sites in northern Russia. Drawing: N. Makarov. 446
28.2 Map with finds of coins, weights and scales.
Drawing: N. Makarov. 449
 FIGURES AND TABLES xxxi

28.3 Map with evidence of fur-bearing animal hunting.

Drawing: N. Makarov. 452
28.4 Minino I dwelling-site. Glass beads. Photo: N. Makarov. 455
28.5 Finds of Byzantine origin from Beloozero town.
Photos: N. Makarov. 459

Tables

4.1 Classifications of the LRA 2 amphora used in

publications 1959 and 1999. 38
7.1 Structure and size of the workshops for polychrome
ceramics in Preslav. 102
7.2 Equipment of the workshops for polychrome
ceramics in Preslav. 104
7.3 Types of polychrome ceramics produced in the
workshops in Preslav. 108
7.4 Distribution patterns of polychrome ceramics in
Preslav and Bulgaria. 110
18.1 Zeugma 2000, Oxford Archaeology trenches:
dated groups 265
21.1 Relative abundances of metals. 316
24.1 The languages of Aksumite coin inscriptions.
The numbering of types follows S. Munro-Hay and
B. Juel-Jensen, Aksumite Coinage (London, 1995). 365
Figure A Istanbul, excavations in the harbour of Theodosius (Yenikapı),
shipwreck 12, loaded with Günsenin type I amphorae. See paper 10
by Nergis Günsenin.
 Section I
Mapping trade
 1. Byzantine trade: local, regional, interregional and
international

Marlia Mundell Mango

The purpose of the symposium whose papers are published here was
to examine the nature and extent of Byzantine trade prior to and in the
wake of the Arab Conquest of the Levant in the 7th century, and during
subsequent centuries. Trade is taken broadly as monetized or bartered
exchange, but alternative mechanisms of circulation such as gift and pillage
are also considered. The following papers focus on recent archaeological
or other work related to local and international trade between the 4th and
12th centuries, rather than to the interregional movement of basic staples
within the Mediterranean.
Given the state management of much of this last type of circulation, it
does not meet the criteria of a monetized trade, a reason in itself to omit it
here. The role of the state features prominently in discussions of ancient
productivity by Rostovtzeff, Finley, Polanyi, Hopkins and others, who have
provided us with sophisticated models of the economy. These models are
of course relevant to the late Roman/early Byzantine economy; however,
since one may distinguish between economy and trade as subjects of study
and speculation, these economic models will not be examined directly
here. So often questions posed about the general economy set the agenda
for discussions of trade. Instead, these symposium papers cover trade as
distinct from the economy as a whole, and consider the concrete evidence
of traded materials, locations of trade, and mechanisms of operation – to
start from the bottom up, so to speak. Leaving aside the state and the
economy, the papers concentrate mainly on local and international trade
where state involvement was limited.
The Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire conveniently (for us)
encompassed both the period of late antiquity when the role of the state
was overtly large, at least within the annona system that moved basic
staples, and a period in the middle ages when the civil annona and the
state’s role within it had ceased. This second period comprises a time
during which Byzantine society is often described as being so little
interested in trade that, left to its own devices (i.e. without a large state
role), it had allowed merchant colonies from the West to take control of

From Byzantine Trade, 4th-12th Centuries Copyright © 2009 by the Society for the Promotion
of Byzantine Studies. Published by Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Wey Court East, Union Road,
Farnham, Surrey, GU9 7PT, Great Britain.

3
4 BYZANTINE TRADE

commercial transactions by the 12th century. One may ask how these two
realities – early and later – can be reconciled, or whether they are in fact
realities. Were the strategic skills and organizational resources deployed
by the state until the 7th century lost thereafter, leaving Byzantine society
incapable of lower-scale or individual management? Did Byzantine and
Mediterranean trade virtually cease between the 7th and 10th centuries?
If so, how does one explain the well-established activities of local and
international trade recorded so soon after AD 900 in the Book of the
Eparch and the Cairo Geniza documents?1 Thus, the bridging period of
the 8th to 9th centuries is particularly important here, as in other contexts.
Altogether, ten papers here (5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 15, 17, 19, 24, 25) discuss the 8th
century.
This analysis could have been carried out in the recent three-volume
study edited by A. Laiou and published in 2002. Entitled The Economic
History of Byzantium, it promised thorough coverage. Instead, the late
antique/medieval dichotomy is perpetuated by focusing on the 7th to 15th
centuries, thus failing to analyze at the same level the preceding period of
formation that links Byzantium to the ancient world. The editor2 simply
explains that the earlier centuries – that is, late antiquity – have already
been adequately examined by A.H.M. Jones.3 However, not only did Jones
make little use of archaeological evidence, but an abundance of excavated
and surveyed material relevant to the study of trade and questions of
economic history has been made available since his time. In The Economic
History, late antiquity is allotted only 160 out of 1205 pages.4 Excellent as
this discussion is, an opportunity has clearly been missed to explore the
two periods equally.
If The Economic History of Byzantium published in 2002 failed to bridge
the perceived break between the ancient and medieval periods, Richard
Hodges and David Whitehouse in their Mohammed, Charlemagne and the
Origins of Europe (1983)5 had already compounded the chronological with
a geographical gap, namely the cessation of activity in the Mediterranean
attributed to the Arab Conquest. However, this reiteration of Pirenne’s
thesis provided new archaeological evidence for the development of
a northern bypass between Bagdad and Aachen. Since the Hodges and

1
Das Eparchenbuch Leon des Weisen, ed. J. Koder (Vienna, 1991); Goitein, Cairo Geniza.
2
Laiou, ed., Economic History.
3
A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284–602: a social, economic and administrative
survey (Oxford, 1964).
4
Written by C. Morrisson and J.-P. Sodini, in Laiou, ed., Economic History, 171–220.
5
R. Hodges and D. Whitehouse, Mohammed, Charlemagne and the Origins of Europe
(London, 1983); R. Hodges and D. Whitehouse, Mahomet, Charlemagne et les origines de
l’Europe, trans. C. Morrissson, with a preface by C. Morrisson and J.-P. Sodini (Paris, 1996).
 MARLIA MUNDELL MANGO 5

Whitehouse publication, two others have re-examined the Mediterranean.

In The Corrupting Sea, published in 2000, Peregrine Horden and Nicholas
Purcell6 identified and analyzed the ecology of its microregions
continuously engaged in small-scale activities such as cabotage, but
occasionally externally stimulated to larger enterprise. They asserted
furthermore that no qualitative distinction in economic life need be
made between the ancient and medieval periods. The following year
(2001), Michael McCormick’s Origins of the Medieval Economy, taking a
macro-view, demonstrated that viable conditions for Mediterranean
transport and trade continued to exist as documented by 828 instances
of long-range movement on the Sea between AD 609 and 968.7 Travel
within the Byzantine world was the subject of an earlier British Byzantine
symposium, edited by Ruth Macrides and published in 2002.8 Since the
Oxford symposium took place in 2004, Christopher Wickham’s study of
Europe and the Mediterranean during 400–800 appeared, in 2005, and
demonstrated how a detailed use of trading patterns, in particular those
of fineware pottery, can elucidate economic realities within and between
regions.9
So, several massive studies have set the stage for further work and
publication, including this collection of papers taking a different and more
modest perspective. Its objectives may be summed up as follows. First,
it aims to examine trade, but not the economy per se. Second, to point
up correspondences between the early and medieval periods, the papers
concentrate mainly on local and international trade as two areas where
state management, as distinct from state regulation and taxation, was
minimal. The opposite approach – to consider comparatively areas state-
managed in the early period and free in the medieval – was also possible,
but less appealing because, from an archaeological perspective, this is a
subject relatively over-studied in the early period and largely neglected
in the medieval. Third, the papers will focus in greater detail on specific
items and places of trade, often looking beyond the Mediterranean itself
to the West, East, South and North. Although the papers focus on trade
that was presumably entirely or largely monetized, they do not – given
limited space – discuss per se the monetary side of the subject – that is,
coin finds, questions of control and profit, etc.

6
P. Horden and N. Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: a study of Mediterranean history (Oxford,
2000).
7
McCormick, Origins.
8
R. Macrides, ed., Travel in the Byzantine World (Aldershot, 2002).
9
C. Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean 400–800
(Oxford, 2005).
6 BYZANTINE TRADE

In principle, given the nature of trade (or its near equivalents),

greater attention ought to be paid to the items traded in order to broaden
understanding. Although the study of late antique transport amphorae
has been refined as an analytical tool – and some papers here (e.g. 4,
10, 16, 20, 24) discuss the subject –, other material has been neglected,
sometimes dismissed as elitist and marginal to the general economy – in
other words, high-value and low-volume. However, this other material
represents wants, not needs: it must have been market-driven and so
should be considered. To draw an analogy, it is difficult to imagine a study
of economy that takes account of copper but not gold coin.
How can this so-called elitist material be characterized? Does it
include metal but not glass, or glass but not pottery? Looking at the
material from the consumer’s end: what did people own, how valuable
or elitist was it, and how did they acquire it? Diocletian’s Price Edict,10 of
course, provides the most comprehensive idea of what was available and
for how much. Inventories and related texts provide some notion of the
range of possessions in a given household. At a socially modest end of the
scale, an Egyptian will dated 583/4 states that an illiterate sailor (nautes)
and his wife owned by purchase or inheritance ‘houses, objects of gold,
silver, copper, brass, clothing, cloths and minor objects’, some at least
therefore explicitly bought, not bartered or homemade.11 A document of
564 preserved at Ravenna lists the possessions of one Stephan that were
evaluated for resale. These include some valuables (fibulae, spoons etc.),
furniture (chairs etc.), soft furnishings (tapestries, etc.), four copper objects
(barrel, pitcher, cooking pot, lamp), clothing (silk and cotton shirt, linen
trousers), agricultural equipment (tools, mortars, trough, barrels, vats,
etc.), and a female slave.12 Both medieval Byzantine domestic inventories
of the 11th to 14th centuries (1017–1401) and Jewish trousseau lists of the
10th to 12th centuries preserved at Fustat are similar.13 Excavation contexts,
particularly domestic and commercial, provide further information. Some
individual preserved or excavated items record that they were bought
and the amount paid. In 622, John bar Sergius of the village of Haluga in
Osrhoene bought a codex of Pauline Epistles for 14 carats, apparently for
his own use; in 624, an unnamed woman bought an Acts of the Apostles
for 12 carats, which she gave to the village church at Gadalta; both books

10
Lauffer, Diokletians Preisedikt.
11
A.S. Hunt and C.C. Edgar, eds. and trans., Selected Papyri (London–Cambridge, MA,
1952), 257–9.
12
K. Randsborg, The First Millennium A.D. in Europe and the Mediterranean: an archaeological
essay (Cambridge, 1993), 158–9.
13
N. Oikonomides, ‘The contents of the Byzantine house from the eleventh to the fifteenth
century’, DOP 44 (1990), 205–14; Goitein, Cairo Geniza, IV, 310–33.
 MARLIA MUNDELL MANGO 7

are now in London.14 Inscriptions record the cost of panels of mosaic

pavement given to a synagogue in Gadara; one panel refers to payment
made in ‘cloth’ as well as 3–5 (?) solidi. At Beth Alpha, another pavement
was paid for by the sale of 100 modii (bushels) of wheat.15
The other end of the social spectrum, the genuinely elitist, is thought
to be represented by items imported from the East, the most important of
which are considered to have been spices, silk, precious stones, and ivory.
But even here, the status of imports could be broadly based. Detailed study
of the materials of this trade by Warmington and more recently Raschke16
reveals economic complexity within this market. Raschke stresses the non-
elitist use of silk in both China and the Roman Empire.17 Goitein remarks
in a similar vein about the remarkable popularity of silk in medieval trade:
‘this strong, clean and fine yarn probably answered many needs now
fulfilled by modern synthetic fabrics’.18 Stephan in 6th-century Ravenna,
as we have seen, had a silk and cotton shirt. Late antique imported silk has
been excavated in more marginal areas, such as the villages of Nessana
and Oboda in the Negev, and at Zenobia on the Euphrates.19 Warmington
points out that pepper, of which three grades (black, white, long) were
available, was not elitist, but widely used in Roman society, in medicine
as well as seasoning.20
Many things were produced and acquired locally, in cities and even
villages. A 6th-century tax list demonstrates that the village of Aphrodito
in Egypt was well supplied with craftsmen. In addition to its 100
peasant proprietors, a notary, letter-writer and barber, bakers, butchers,
greengrocers, millers and beekeepers, it had one dyer, eight fullers,
four to five linen-weavers, wool-weavers, three tailors, shoemakers,
one potter, three carpenters, two boatbuilders, coppersmiths, and five
goldsmiths.21 However, many things were obviously made in quantity
for export from production centres. The range of goods brought into

14
W. Wright, Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1870–72),
I, 81–2, 90–91.
15
E.L. Sukenik, ‘The ancient synagogue at el-Hammeh’, Journal of the Palestine Oriental
Society 15 (1935), 147–9; J. Naveh, On Stone and Mosaic: the Aramaic and Hebrew inscriptions from
ancient synagogues [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1978), 11.
16
E.H. Warmington, The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India, 2nd edn (London–
New York, 1974); M.G. Raschke, ‘New studies in Roman commerce with the East’, in ANRW,
604–1378.
17
Raschke, ‘Roman commerce’, 622–37.
18
Goitein, Cairo Geniza, IV, 169–70.
19
M. Mundell Mango, ‘Byzantine maritime trade with the East (4th–7th Centuries)’, ARAM
8 (1996), 143 n. 16.
20
Warmington, The Commerce, 180–205, 212–16.
21
Jones, Later Roman Empire, 847.
8 BYZANTINE TRADE

late antique Anazarbus, capital of Cilicia Secunda, numbered at least 42

items on a fragmentary tariff list, of which the surviving 15 items include
rope, nets, silk, tin, lead and slaves, as well as wine, salt, garlic, garum,
saffron, fenugreek, gourds, vegetables, other plants, and cattle.22 Mixed
cargoes of higher-value goods are recorded in horoscopes cast in 475 and
479 for delayed ships travelling from Alexandria to Athens and Smyrna
respectively. The first carried camels from Cyrenaica, high-grade textiles
(kortinas phrontalia kai akoubetalia), and items of silver (litters: argyra
basternia). The second carried (live) small birds (pterota tina, strouthia),
books or leaves of papyrus (biblia tina e chartas, charten liton), objects of
bronze and kitchen utensils (skeue chalka, skeue mageirika), and a chest full
of medicines (iatrika skeue, pharmakotheken pepleromenen).23 Comparable
cargoes were said to have been carried into the Adriatic by the 13 or more
ships of the patriarchal fleet of Alexandria nearly 150 years later (AD 610–
20), namely dried goods (xerophorta), clothing (himatia), silver (argyros)
and ‘other objects of high value’ (pragmata anagkaia) with a total value of
34 kentenaria (3400lbs gold).24 This would amount to a value of c. 16,000
solidi per ship25 as against the value of 70 solidi for the wine carried on the
Yassı Ada ship (AD c. 626).26
The complex nature of trade is marked by choice and imitation.
Although wine apparently formed part of the annona system, and was
thus considered a basic staple, certain varieties were popular and travelled
great distances, sometimes to other wine-producing areas. Gaza wine
was praised by Sidonius Apollinaris (Poems 17.15) and Gregory of Tours
(History 7.29) in Gaul, Cassiodorus (Variae 12.12.3) in Italy, and Corripus
(In laudem Iustini 3.88) at Constantinople. Pottery lamps of North Africa
and Asia Minor were copied, one might say counterfeited, at Athens and
Corinth.27 The Cairo Geniza documents reveal that Byzantine brocade
covers and bridal chests often appear in 11th- to 12th-century Jewish
trousseau lists in the Islamic world, although alternatives were available
locally.28 These documents also reveal that 22 types of Egyptian flax were

22
G. Dagron and D. Feissel, Inscriptions de Cilicie. TM Monographies 4 (Paris, 1987), 170–
85.
23
G. Dagron and J. Rougé, ‘Trois horoscopes de voyages en mer (5e siècle après J.-C.)’,
REB 40 (1982), 117–33; M. Mundell Mango, ‘Beyond the amphora: non-ceramic evidence for late
antique industry and trade’, in Kingsley and Decker, eds., Economy and Exchange, 95–102.
24
A.J. Festugière, Léontios de Néapolis, Vie de Syméon le Fou et Vie de Jean de Chypre (Paris,
1974), 550, 594; Mundell Mango, ‘Beyond the amphora’, 95–102.
25
Mundell Mango, ‘Beyond the amphora’, 98–9.
26
Bass and Van Doorninck, Yassı Ada, 315 and n. 25.
27
A. Karivieri, The Athenian Lamp Industry in Late Antiquity (Helsinki, 1996).
28
Goitein, Cairo Geniza, I, 46 and IV, 130.
 MARLIA MUNDELL MANGO 9

traded around the medieval Mediterranean, of which the most popular in

Sicily was Barrani.29
Once exported, an object could assume new meaning and value in
a different society. One example is provided by the royal Saxon burial
excavated in 2003 at Prittlewell in Essex, which includes a common
Byzantine copper flask and bronze basin30 (perhaps deposited for their
utility rather than their economic or aesthetic value). In Byzantium,
the regulations for provisioning the imperial baggage train for military
campaign show that social status required that silver vessels be given to
the emperor and tinned copper to officers.31
In order to focus on traded materials, papers published here discuss
consumables such as wine and materia medica (papers 10, 16, 19), raw
materials such as gold from Africa, silver from Asia Minor, tin from Britain,
ivory via Africa, and fur from northern Russia (papers 15, 21, 23–24, 28), as
well as alum from Egypt and ship-building timber from Dalmatia and Asia
Minor (paper 25), the latter two materials traded by Venice via Byzantium.
Other papers (6, 11–15) are also based on finished manufactured products
of ivory and bone, metal, glass, and pottery. In some cases, these products
were traded abroad – namely, glassware excavated in Afghanistan, Russia
and China, and mosaic tesserae of recycled Levantine glass used at Torcello
(papers 13–14, 17, 26–27); metalware excavated in northern Europe and
Africa (paper 15); and silk exported particularly to Europe (paper 25).
Pottery, which, in fact, has received far more scholarly attention than
glass or metal, had a more restricted circulation abroad, in the form of
fine wares, cooking and household wares, or glazed wall tiles (papers
7–9, 11–12, 18, 20). The circulation patterns of Byzantine fineware pottery
were varied and complex. In late antiquity, African Red and other slip fine
wares travelled widely, as John Hayes’s published maps demonstrate,32
until at least the 7th century, and some probably later (paper 11), but it
is not until the 12th to 13th centuries that we find shipwrecks – three of
them – with a main cargo of fine wares (paper 12). By the 7th century, the
Chinese had introduced porcelain; by the 8th century, it was traded into
the Islamic world where apparently new glazing techniques, using tin
opacifiers added to soda-lime glaze, were devised in imitation. Porcelain
itself did not reach the Byzantine world, to judge from excavation
records, but Islamic imitations did. These, imported in limited numbers,
may have inspired the new Byzantine glazed polychrome ware, which,

29
Goitein, Cairo Geniza, I, 224, 455–7 n. 61.
30
See paper 15, note 44 below.
31
J.F. Haldon, Constantine Porphyrogenitus: three treaties on imperial military expeditions,
CFHB 28 (Vienna, 1990), 106–13.
32
Hayes, Pottery, maps 20–30 for African Red Slip Ware, for example.
10 BYZANTINE TRADE

combining earlier Roman-style lead glazing and a new white fabric – the
clay apparently available at Constantinople itself and at Preslav (paper
7) –, achieved a comparable effect without the Chinese and Islamic
technology innovations. Chinese porcelain is not found in Constantinople
until the 16th century.33 Nevertheless, a single 10th-century porcelain vase
is preserved at Venice among San Marco’s prized vessels,34 many of which
are identified by their distinctive 10th-century mounts as being high-status
Byzantine booty of the Fourth Crusade (paper 15). Was this porcelain
vase once at Constantinople, perhaps arriving there as a diplomatic gift?
Chinese sources record Byzantine embassies to China in 643, 667, 701, and
possibly 719; the first of these brought Byzantine purple glass,35 a good
example of which is also preserved at San Marco.36 Could a later embassy
have returned with porcelain? More surprising than the general absence
of Chinese porcelain is the lack of imports from adjacent Sasanian Persia
of pottery (paper 18), glass (paper 13), or metalware. Nor, apparently, has
Byzantine pottery or metalware been found in Sasanian Persian contexts,
although Byzantine glass has been found at two Sasanian sites.37 Is this
near lack of mutual exchange explained by political realities, preferences
of taste, or an unidentified trade mechanism? Procopius refers to the
revenues Persia gained through the Byzantine silk trade with the Far East.
Thus, Persia did not prevent this trade (as so often stated), but profited
from it. In contrast to the Sasanian and Chinese ceramics, pottery from the
Islamic world did circulate in Byzantium (paper 12).
As stated earlier, the symposium looks beyond the Mediterranean to
the West, East, South and North. The dust jacket of this publication shows
the map of the world devised for the mid-6th-century text of Christian
Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes. This shows the Mediterranean,
the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Caspian, all surrounded by the
ocean. But Cosmas himself knew that the Far East lay beyond India and
Taprobane (which he visited), and he knew what things were imported
from all those lands. Exports from the late antique Mediterranean have
been identified across three continents (fig. 1.1).

33
Hayes, Saraçhane, 261–4.
34
H.R. Hahnloser et al., Il Tesoro di San Marco, vol. II: Il Tesoro e il Museo (Florence, 1971),
no. 138.
35
F. Thierry and C. Morrisson, ‘Sur les monnaies byzantines trouvées en Chine’, Revue
numismatique 6e ser., XXXVI (1994), 132, 140.
36
Hahnloser et al., Tesoro, no. 123.
37
Personal communication by St-John Simpson. The silver bowls on a high foot
introduced in 6th-century Persia – see P.O. Harper, ‘Evidence for the existence of state controls
in the production of Sasanian silver vessels’, in S.A. Boyd and M. Mundell Mango, Ecclesiastical
Silver Plate in Sixth-Century Byzantium (Washington, DC, 1992), 147–53 – show evidence of late
Roman/Byzantine influence on their shape.
Figure 1.1 Map of main sites and areas discussed in papers 1–28; dots = findspots of early Byzantine artefacts outside the Empire;
dots in box = artefacts found in North Russia (see fig. 15.4), but possibly traded first into Central Asia (see M. Mundell
Mango, ‘Beyond the amphora: non-ceramic evidence for late antique industry and trade’, in Kingsley and Decker, eds.,
Economy and Exchange, 87, fig. 5.1.
12 BYZANTINE TRADE

The papers published here consider, in turn, local, regional and

interregional trade as a prelude to a longer look at international trade,
in both its products and key regions. The introductory section of papers
(2–4) discusses mapping trade, to discover the means (maps, shipwrecks,
amphorae) whereby one can know where trade moved and how. Section II
papers (5–7) cover local trade and commerce operating by means of shops
and workshops (sometimes combined) in three cities – Scythopolis / Bet
Shean (4th–8th centuries), Alexandria (4th–9th centuries), and Preslav (9th–
11th centuries) –, examining specific production (glass, ivory/bone, glazed
tiles, fine wares) from the point of view of its type, volume, duration, and
its immediate or distant destination. Were these producer or consumer
cities, and how were commercial activities organized within them on the
ground?
Section III papers are region-based and consider, respectively, one
regional market, in Syria (paper 8), for cooking wares (5th–8th centuries);
the range of pottery imported into another, smaller region of Isauria
(possibly in the Dark Age) (paper 9); and one medieval supplier operating
on a regional as well as a much wider basis (paper 10). This last type of
supplier to Constantinople of a basic staple (wine) may have replaced the
annona-style circulation of the early period. This wine was transported
from Ganos to nearby Constantinople, from where it may have reached
its wider market. Section IV papers (11–15) consider diachronically the
circulation – local, regional, interregional and international – of general
classes of fine and other wares, namely of pottery (papers 11–12), glass
(papers 13–14), and metal (paper 15). Paper 11 demonstrates the continued
production and trade of a Late Roman fine ware well beyond its accepted
terminus in 700, possibly until the 9th century. Papers 12–14 consider
innovative types of glass and pottery produced and traded in either late
antiquity or middle Byzantium, while paper 15 covers metalwork of both
periods.
The remaining two sections are devoted to international trade that
was controlled in the early period by commerciarii who imposed a 12.5
per cent duty on the goods brought into the Empire through designated
entry points at Clysma and Iotabe in the Red Sea; Callinicum, Nisibis,
Dara and Dvin in the east; and Hieron on the Bosphoros and the Danube
in the north.38 The lead seals of the commerciarii were apparently affixed
to the goods, and the duty collected funded the local military as stated
in Anastasius’s Edict posted in several locales.39 By the 7th century, much

38
Jones, Later Roman Empire, 826–7.
39
N. Oikonomides, ‘Silk trade and production in Byzantium from the sixth to the ninth
century: the seals of the kommerkiarioi’, DOP 40 (1986), 33–53; M. Sartre, IGLS 13 fasc. 1 (Paris,
1982), no. 9046.
 MARLIA MUNDELL MANGO 13

of what had been interregional trade becomes international, thanks to

regime change in so many areas. The shift from one to the other is neatly
illustrated by the remains and evidence of cargoes and crews of two well-
known shipwrecks both off the southern coast of Asia Minor, that of the
7th century at Yassı Ada and that of the 11th century at Serçe Limanı.40
Sections V–VI on international trade begin with four papers (16–19)
discussing selected types of exports out of the Empire, namely wine (to
the Iberian and Arabian peninsulas) and glass (to China), followed by
one type of import, materia medica, and the observed absence of another
(Sasanian or other eastern pottery). Section VI looks at four regions,
starting with three papers (20–22) on the West, namely 5th- to 6th-century
Britain as reached by way of the Atlantic (rather than the Rhine); these
papers consider, respectively, types of ships used, a prime raw material
available (tin), and evidence of Mediterranean contact.
The next two papers (23–24) look both to the South and the East to
consider the Red Sea as the principal gateway in exploring the continuity
of the trade described in the 1st-century AD Periplus Maris Erythraei.41 Was
trade between the Mediterranean, East Africa and the Far East stopped
before the 4th century by economic inertia; or in the 6th century by the
Persians or the plague; or in the 7th century by the Umayyad Arabs; or in
the 8th century by the Abbasids? Or did it continue? If it was interrupted,
when did it revive? Literary evidence relates to the 6th-century phase
of trade: Cosmas Indicopleustes, author of the Christian Topography and
merchant of Alexandria, refers to fellow traders operating in Aksum
and, himself included, travelling to Sri Lanka; the pilgrim from Piacenza
recounts eating bright green nuts obtained from ships from India docked
at Clysma in c. 570. Roberta Tomber reports that sherds of at least four
types of Late Roman amphorae have now been identified at several sites
in India and Sri Lanka.42 These sites occur in the main areas of West–East
trade discussed by Cosmas, especially Gujurat and Sri Lanka (where on
fig. 1.1 all relevant dots also refer to coin finds).43 Paper 23 examines Red
Sea ports and linked sites for evidence of late antique activity, finding
the most promising at Berenike where a range of imports was uncovered.
Paper 24 examines the Kingdom of Aksum, principal entrepot between

40
Bass and Van Doorninck, Yassı Ada; Bass et al., Serçe Limanı.
41
L. Casson, The Periplus Maris Erythraei: text with introduction, translation and
commentary (Princeton, 1989).
42
R. Tomber, ‘Rome and Mesopotamia: importers into India in the first millennium
AD’, Antiquity 81 (2007), 972–88, esp. 979–84, figs 5–6; eadem, Indo-Roman Trade: from pots to
pepper (London, 2008), 39–43, 83, table 1 and 126, fig. 21.
43
Mundell Mango, ‘Maritime trade’, 155–7.
14 BYZANTINE TRADE

the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, finding locally carved ivory that recalls
work known within the Empire.
Papers 25–26 return to the medieval Mediterranean, to East and West.
Paper 25 examines a triangular system of trade networks linking the
Adriatic with Constantinople and Alexandria, as developed by Venice
between the 8th and 11th centuries. Trade goods varied according to local
demands and included alum, timber and Cretan cheese, as well as silk.
Paper 26 makes a scientific case study of related contacts, namely the use
in 11th-century mosaic decoration at Torcello of glass chemically similar to
that of Levantine glass found as cargo on the contemporary ship wrecked
at Serçe Limanı and probably bound for Constantinople.
The two final papers look to the North, as viewed from Constantinople,
to the Black Sea and beyond. Paper 27 considers the Crimea as the trading
gateway to the North, in particular at the evidence of exchange at Cherson
and Tmutarakan. Paper 28 takes the subject further into northern Russia,
tracing the links between new rural settlement and trade from the 10th
century, based on survey and excavation.
At the centre of the commercial network of Byzantine trade lies
Constantinople, the subject covered at the symposium by Cyril Mango. He
will publish his discussion of the capital as consumer or producer in his
forthcoming study of the urban history of the city. Extensive excavations,
begun in 2004,44 of its largest harbour (that of Theodosius at Yenikapı
summarized by Nergis Günsenin in paper 10; see Figure A) promise to
change the chronological profile of trade at Constantinople.
Other papers delivered at the symposium, held at Oxford in 2004, have
been or are to be published elsewhere, namely those of Franck Goddio
and Jonathan Cole on excavations in the Canopic region and port of
Alexandria; of Mark Horton on Zanzibar and Shanga; and of John Hayes
on pottery in late 12th-century Cyprus.

44
Gün Işığında. Istanbul’un 8000 yılı. Marmaray, Metro, Sultanahmet kazıları
(Istanbul, 2007), 164–299.