Abstract:

Since the last 3rd of the 2nd century BC, coinciding with an important increase of the Italic imports in the Mediterranean, a change occurred in the amphorae used for transporting wine. Greco-Italic amphorae give way to two containers of higher resistance and size. The Dressel 1, produced mainly on the Tyrrhenian coast, but widely imitated in other Mediterranean areas, and the Lamboglia 2, the container in which the wines produced on both shores of the Adriatic coast would be traded. Both types were produced and traded during more or less the same period, roughly from the last third of the 2nd century until the last quarter of the 1st century BC. This explains their frequent comparison in studies about the trade of Italian wine during the late Republican period. These two amphorae present an unequal distribution in the western and eastern Mediterranean. Traditionally, it has been accepted that Dressel 1 amphorae supplied the western part of the Mediterranean, while the Lamboglia 2 supplied the eastern area, especially in the Aegean, with only a minor presence in the western part. Thus, although there is much more information published in the west than in the east, the map published by Lindhagen shows that the concentration of the remains is much higher in the scarce eastern sites with quantitative data available.