ovoid amphorae

The discovery of an original Baetican oil amphora workshop in a plateau area on the left bank of the Guadalquivir, between Palma del Río and Cordoba, marks a crucial stage in the new research conducted since 2013 on the issues of these production centres. The workshop in Fuente de los Peces, which dates from the Augustan period, has also delivered several copies of the two oldest known stamps on amphora Dr. 20, as well as the testimonies of a local manufacture of amphorae of Iberian tradition. After having presented in detail the material elements collected by field surveys, the authors question the contributions of this discovery to the location of the first oil amphora workshops and discuss the origin and status of the founder of this workshop, associated with a vast rural settlement.

amphorae, sometimes with organic remains, but only a few with confirmed Lusitanian amphorae have been consistently studied and their organic remains analysed. More recently chemical analysis of amphora residues came to determine the nature of the content carried in them, but only a few Lusitanian amphorae have been subjected to this kind of study. Progress has been very slow but the last few decades have produced new data, not only new amphorae with contents, but also the products likely to be carried in amphorae, which can be inferred from the fish remains in the fish-salting units. In this study the available evidence on Lusitanian amphora contents will be considered and discussed, and a reassessment of the principal content of the main types of amphorae will be attempted.