Contando la historia. Experiencias de cuantificación y análisis volumétrico en centros artesanales púnicos de la Bahía de Cádiz

Production and commerce of fish by-products was for the western area of the Mediterranean and its Atlantic appendix a key resource during Antiquity. Specifically, its production and trade was a main ingredient of the economy of the Bay of Cádiz and the Phoenician-Punic city of Gadir. The importance of fishing, salt and salted fish resulted in the creation of an important network of productive infrastructure, mainly of many fish-salting facilities and pottery workshops (where transport amphorae were manufactured). The exponential growth of archaeological data available on this infrastructure and local amphorae in the last decades now provides a precise picture of the territorial model and the morphology of these industrial centers, as well as the formal evolution of the transport clay vessels. An approach to one of the stages of greater grandeur of this maritime-based economy is discussed in this paper, focusing on the analysis of the evidence dating from the 5th century BC of the Bay of Cádiz. Based on the data of pottery workshops and fish-salting facilities, a theoretical quantification of the standardization of forms, dimensions and weights of local amphorae and the productivity of these infrastructures (number of amphorae produced, quantities of fish and salt needed, etc.) is proposed.