In the course of recent excavation activities in Aquileia at the site of the insula of Wounded Beasts, the reuse of abundant broken murex shells as raw building material was documented in three different structures. Shell-bearing contexts have been preliminarily dated between the second half of the 4th century AD and the 5th century AD. As frequently reported in literature, this evidence is relatable to the common praxis of recycling shell by-products after purple-dye processing. These finds could be considered the first properly documented indication of this industry in Aquileia, although vats and tools related to dyeing have not been discovered, as far as we know. Unfortunately, our data do not provide information about the exact location, chronology and organization of the dye-production, which remains to be ascertained.
PURPLE-DYEING IN ROMAN AQUILEIA? NEW DATA FROM RECENT EXCAVATIONS AT THE INSULA OF THE WOUNDED BEASTS
SIMONE DILARIA
2022
Abstract
In the course of recent excavation activities in Aquileia at the site of the insula of Wounded Beasts, the reuse of abundant broken murex shells as raw building material was documented in three different structures. Shell-bearing contexts have been preliminarily dated between the second half of the 4th century AD and the 5th century AD. As frequently reported in literature, this evidence is relatable to the common praxis of recycling shell by-products after purple-dye processing. These finds could be considered the first properly documented indication of this industry in Aquileia, although vats and tools related to dyeing have not been discovered, as far as we know. Unfortunately, our data do not provide information about the exact location, chronology and organization of the dye-production, which remains to be ascertained.
Pubblicazioni consigliate
I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
