El Dr. Angelo Castrorao, miembro del LAAC (EEA, CSIC), participa con dos comunicaciones orales en el congreso “7th International Conference on Late Roman Coarse Wares (LRCW 7)”

El congreso internacional tendrá lugar los días 15 a 19 de octubre de 2019 en Valencia, Ribarroja del Turia y Alicante.

Las comunicaciones son las siguientes:

Pottery and production in Western Sicily between the 8th and 9th c. AD: the case of the rural settlement
of Contrada Castro (Palermo)

Angelo Castrorao Barba, miembro del LAAC (Escuela de Estudios Árabes, CSIC, Granada), Filippo Pisciotta (Aix-Marseille Université), Roberto Miccichè (Università degli Studi di Palermo), Giuseppe Montana (Università degli Studi di Palermo), Maurizio Gasparo Morticelli (Università degli Studi di Palermo), Carla Aleo Nero (Soprintendenza BB.CC.AA. di Palermo), Stefano Vassallo (Soprintendenza BB.CC.AA. di Palermo), Pasquale Marino (Bona Furtuna LLC), Giuseppe Bazan (Università degli Studi di Palermo).

Resumen: Following a first occupation dated to the 6th-5th c. BC, the site was re-occupied between the Byzantine and Islamic period (7th-11th c. AD). Under the 10th-11th c. AD structures, a large square buildinghas been uncovered, that shows two subsequent phases dated from the mid-8th c. AD to the 9th c. AD. The structures belonging to the first phase of the building have revealed traces of pottery production, as indicated by the recovery of a two-chambered kiln as well as the presence of several ceramic wastes. This paper presents the material evidence connected to this recently unearthed building and discusses its implication in terms of craft production in a rural area during the transition from the Byzantine to the early Islamic period. This analysis enables us to reassess the existing chrono-typology for specific ceramic vessels, such as painted amphorae- in particular the ones showing band and sinusoidal decoration-and cooking wares recovered from this building. Moreover, the possibility to study specific pottery types in association with both a sound stratigraphic sequence –the kiln lies under the 10th-11th c. AD structuresand new radiocarbon data acquired from several key contexts, provides important insights into the material culture of a rural community living in the inland of Sicily between the 8th and 9th c. AD. In addition, we will also introduce the preliminary outcomes of the geological prospection carried out to identify the raw materials suitable for potting within the area, combined with the petrographic analysis of modern clay samples. Such integrated approach enables us to gain a better understanding on ceramic craft-technology, clay procurement strategies and more broadly the consumption of household pottery in the countryside of western Sicily between the late Byzantine period and the early Islamic age, adding to our knowledge of a crucial as well as “dark” period in the history of Early Medieval Sicily.

Palermo (Sicilia). Contesti altomedievali dagli scavi urbani, dati archeologici e associazioni ceramiche

Carla Aleo Nero (Soprintendenza BB.CC.AA. Palermo), Filippo Iannì (Archeos S.C. Enna), Monica Chiovaro (Soprintendenza BB.CC.AA. Palermo), Stefano Vassallo (Soprintendenza BB.CC.AA, Palermo), Angelo Castrorao Barba, miembro del LAAC (Escuela de Estudios Árabes, CSIC, Granada), Filippo Pisciotta (Aix-Marseille Université, Università di Palermo).

Resumen: In the last ten years, as part of the protection activities carried out by the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, several interventions have contributed to the knowledge of the medieval phase of the city of Palermo; here we will focus in particular on some early medieval contexts brought to light in the heart of the ancient city that document in particular the material culture in the eighth century, still little known. In the first case, the most important, it is an excavation conducted in 2017 at the restoration site of the ancient Palazzo Galletti in Santamarina, built in the Middle Ages near the northern slope of the Punic fortification, where it was highlighted a large drainage ditch dug in the seat of one of the main roads eastwest of the Punic-Roman city, at a time when the road, used continuously since the fourth century BC, was no longer in use. The ceramic materials (including amphorae, cooking pots, oil lamps, a fragment of “pietra ollare”), found together with a bronze Byzantine coin, allow us to date the construction of the pit during the eighth century and return an interesting association of findings in a closed context, of which there will be an essential repertoire. These findings will be compared with the materials found in two other urban contexts excavated in 2011, which also document a chronological horizon related to the eighth century or slightly wider, the first emerged in the site of the Palazzetto Artale near Piazza Settangeli, in the western part of the ancient city, the second in Piazza Bologni, where during the construction of the new sewerage system was intercepted a discharge of materials of the Byzantine era.

Programme + Abstracts

https://www.icac.cat/en/actualitat/noticies/2019/lrcw7-conference-call-for-applications/