Baetican olive-oil trade under the Late Empire: new data on the production of Late Roman amphorae (Dressel 23) in the lower Genil valley

Abstract

From the Julio-Claudian era until around the third quarter of the 3rd c. A.D., the amphorae that H. Dressel referred to as the Dressel 20 type in his table of amphorae discovered at the Castra Praetoria and, to a lesser extent, at Monte Testaccio, was used to transport olive oil from Hispania Baetica to Rome and the NW provinces of the empire. The artificial mound of Testaccio, just over 40 m high and covering an area of 2.2 ha, is a huge dump composed mainly of Dr. 20 amphorae, standing near the Emporium on the left bank of the Tiber. As has been acknowledged, its abandonment, a direct consequence of the construction of the Aurelian Walls from 271 onwards, did not signal the end of olive-oil imports from Baetica. In a similar way, the end of Dr. 20 production, in c.260-270, does not point to the end of oil-amphora production in that province and, more precisely, in the Guadalquivir basin where this form originates.