A Late Roman Wine Shop at Sikyon, Greece (20 min)

Presenters

Scott Gallimore, Wilfrid Laurier University, and Martin Wells, Austin College

Abstract

For the last two decades, intensive survey and large-scale excavations on the Sikyonian plateau in the northeastern part of the Peloponnese region of Greece have greatly added to our understanding of the habitation and building projects of the Hellenistic and Roman periods at the archaeological site of Sikyon. The site was originally investigated in the first half of the 20th century by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and by Orlandos with the Archaeological Society of Athens. In 2016 and 2017, the renewed excavations revealed a large complex of workshops related to pottery production and olive oil or wine processing located just south of the city’s agora. Along with six kilns and at least a further six pressing and collecting installations, this complex included a room at its northern end which, during the late fourth and early fifth centuries C.E., appears to have served as a wine shop. The finds recovered from the room include transport amphorae, both imported and of local Sikyonian manufacture, tablewares from North Africa, locally manufactured coarse wares including several funnels, glass vessels, bronze items, fragments of two marble table tops and, possibly, a marble counter top, and 60 coins. The location of this shop among the industrial installations and the proximity of it, and the amphorae inside, to the very kilns that manufactured these vessels (some 20 m away) and potentially to the pressing floors that produced some of the wine for sale is something quite unique in the archaeological record for this place and time. In this paper we present a first look at the wine shop assemblage, the functional relationships between the workshops of this industrial area, and some preliminary conclusions about the wine trade in late Roman Sikyon.