Les amphores de Bibracte Le matériel des fouilles anciennes

• Main Author: Laubenheimer, Fanette (auth)
• Format: Electronic Book Chapter
• Published: Paris Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme 1991
• Series: Documents d'archéologie française
• Subjects: Archaeology; vin; collections; timbre; catalogue; estampille; Bibracte; graphite; marques; circulation du vin
• Online Access: DOAB: download the publication; DOAB: description of the publication

This work, with a preface by the Minister of Cultural Affairs, is the first volume in a series devoted to the research currently being carried out on Mont-Beuvray, a site of major historical importance which was declared a "national heritage" by the President of France in 1985. Fanette Laubenheimer, a Research Director with the French government research council the CNRS, here makes a detailed study of the extraordinary mass of amphorae discovered at the turn of the century by two pioneers of archaeological investigation within France itself. The author first analyses how the collections were made up, the method used by the two archaeologists in dealing with a vast and difficult mass of material about which virtually nothing was known at the time. Until now only brief and summary publications of this material have been available: nonetheless, they have been widely used. They are now superseded by a rigorously organized and welldocumented catalogue presenting the whole of the collections for the first time, and giving an entirely new interpretation of the data. These 195 stamped amphorae, mostly italic, are exceptional in Gaul for their quantity, which demonstrates the extent of imports of Etruscan and Campanian wine into one of the largest oppida of independent Gaul during the 1st century BC, and the subsequent emergence of a new current of wine, oil and fisch sauce imports from the Iberian Peninsula. This work of reference, the first important publication since the recent reopening of excavations in the Aedui capital, bridges the gap between the diggers of the last century and the archaeologists of today.