The rise and reorganization of the Pompeian salted fish industry

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The rise and reorganization of the Pompeian salted fish industry is explored through recent archaeological findings. This research aims to reconstruct the developmental history of Pompeii by integrating data from excavations and its architectural context, offering insights into trade practices and societal influences impacting the industry prior to the catastrophic eruption in AD 79. Key contributors discuss how the study of stratified remains provides a nuanced understanding of Pompeii's urban evolution and its economic activities related to salted fish production.

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Fig. 1. The Bay of Naples showing locations of many of the sites mentioned throughout this book (de/. Amanda Pavlick).

such street-front vats, five of the 10 trenches which we excavated next to streets yielded such a facility. In every example the vats were set just behind the thresholds to each street- side room. That production centered on the street front is hardly surprising given the com- mercial advantages to retailers of allowing access to the sights and (perhaps even in this instance) smells of manufacturing processes (thus reflecting an urban practice for many profit-making merchandises). Their location so close to the open street must equally have facilitated the occasional but necessary ventilation of the facilities. At other times, however, the vats would probably have been covered by some kind of wooden structure to permit

Fig. 3. Fish-salting vat (B) at left, with small cistern at right, at VIII.7.9-11 (Porta Stabia Project).

Fig. 4. Fish-salting vat (C) containing later fill for subsequent floor and drain (which runs across it at left), at VIIN.7.9-11 (Porta Stabia Project).

Fig. 5. Fish-salting vat (A) at VIII.7.7-8 (Porta Stabia Project).

Fig. 7. Fish-salting vat (E) at I.1.1-2/10. Note the unusual ‘step’ leading into it (Porta Stabia Project). Fig. 6. Fish-salting vat (D) at VIII.7.12 (Porta Stabia Project).

Fig. 8. Public well at [.1.1-2/10, looking west towards the via Stabiana. Note the rope marks on the uppermost W (street-side) block (Porta Stabia Project).

Fig. 10. Some of the fish-salting vats at Baelo Claudia (author). more localized and it differed particularly in terms of production capacity. These urban workshops produced considerably less salted fish products from fewer and smaller vats and for a more localized clientele. The average volume (c.2-3 m?) of each vat at Pompeii (which accords with other urban salteries) points toward a cottage industry where family- run establishments (complete with their own living quarters) produced enough to satisfy local retail sale and probably even some limited regional export, but not enough to sustain any level of organized trade or extensive export. The productive capacity of the urban salteries at Sabratha, for example, where 49 vats are known from 18 installations (c.2-4 vats, each of about 2 m’, per workshop), have been conservatively estimated to have pro- duced c.60 m? of salted fish which, assuming a 6-week period per batch while also antici- pating twice as many vats in the unexcavated areas, amounts to c.16,000 amphorae (of 60-litre capacity) of salted-fish products. Even if we were to adopt the same reasonable assumption of 60% volume of salt-fish for each vat, that would amount to a little more than 1 m? of salted fish for each batch from each installation at the Porta Stabia. Other unknown variables in these estimations are the length of time per batch and the number of batches per year. The seasonal migration of fish in the Bay of Naples occurs (only) from April/ May until September/October, which could allow for about 4-5 batches per season. How far that quantity would go in a retail environment (especially a competitive one) remains unknown. But the fact that we are dealing here with sizeable, hydraulic plaster-lined vats

Fig. 11. Tannery at VIII.7.9-11 (Porta Stabia Project). A real difficulty in comparing the productive capacities of urban salteries, both between and among towns, is variable access to seasonal and migratory routes of fish that shoaled along the coasts to spawn.’” The Pompeian workshops must have pursued ways of adapt- ing to seasonal migration of fish. The salting of pork, for example, which was available year-round and subjected to the same salting process (Colum., Rust. 12.55.4), might have taken place during the quieter months. P. Halstead has pointed out that, in rural Greece of the early 20th c. A.D., prior to the advent of refrigeration and probably echoing more ancient practices, pigs and sheep were typically slaughtered in the autumn and winter and preserved in salt.’' An adaptation to limited seasonal access to abundant fish is best seen in the property at VIII.7.9-11 (vats B and C) where our excavations revealed that, for the phases in which the vats were in operation (i.e., 2nd c. B.C. until the Augustan period), a tannery (fig. 11) was also in business at the rear of the building. This is only the second tannery known at Pompeii, the other being across the street at insula 1.5.’* Combining fish- salting and tanning within a single premises, whether in tandem or at different seasons, was probably a feature of the cottage industries and workshops of Pompeii.

No known disaster can account for these transformations: no earthquake or violent destruction (as with the premature demise of those businesses at the N end of VI.1, which in any event would have damaged the urban landscape in a more indiscriminate fashion) caused the abandonment of the Pompeian fish-salting vats. Instead, we should seek an economic explanation, and one that was so pervasive as to persuade capitally-constrained Fig. 12. Vat B at VIII.7.9-11 filled with construction débris for the leveling of a new floor (through which the drain runs) (Porta Stabia Project).

J around OUY Im FOr the last Malik OF the istc. B.C. (1g. lo). LMS vOlumMe IS aS large as 1U 1S onservative, given its dependence on our limited knowledge of vats and their capacities. uch volumes were patently to meet the newly-enhanced export market. At Ostia, where ‘alian transport amphorae once far outnumbered those of Spanish origin, by the first years f the Ist c. A.D. Spanish containers account for more than half of all known amphorae.* he recovery of vessels at urban sites from Britain and Gaul to the Greek East demon- trates the infiltration of the Spanish product throughout much of the Roman world.™ Jot only do we find more Spanish amphorae moving across the Mediterranean, but they ppear to have been commissioned to carry salted fish products more often than other inds of commodities. Between 50 B.C. and A.D. 250, 66% of the quantified amphorae from 8 shipwrecks of Iberian origin were for the transport of salted fish products, while olive il registers 26.5%. This statistic for salted fish must have been higher still for the Augustan eriod. Eventually from the mid-2nd until the mid-3rd c. A.D. olive-oil containers would vertake the containers for salted fish.®

Fig. 14. The two properties at VIII.7.7-8 and 9-11; note the doorways at A and B.