The Aquincum macellum

Lang Orsolya--Nagy Alexandra--Vamos Peter: The Aquincum Macellum. Researches in the area of the macellum in the Aquincum Civil Town (1882-1965). Applying new methods for old excavation materials. Aquincum Nostrum I. ISSN: 1217-3592, 3. Budapest History Museum. Budapest, 2014. ISBN: 978-615-5341-17-5. 198 pages with 42 figures and 44 tables

Recently has been released within the publication seires of the Budapest History Museum, Aquincum Nostrum I.3, the work of three distinguished reserchers, which is a synthesis about the macellum in the Aquincum Civil Town, based on the old excavations, that took place here between 1882 and 1965. There were publications, which already discussed the different aspects of this building, but this time the authors worked as a team of specialists to sum up all the information about previous researches and of those finds, which were unpublished untill now.

The authors have considerable experience with materials from this site, as they are archaeologists of the Aquincum Museum. Orsolya Lang is a researcher of the Aquincum Civil Town, and the presented work is mainly based on her MA thesis written in 2001. Peter Vamos is a specialist of local pottery production and generally of roman pottery of Aquincum. Alexandra Nagy is also a pottery specialist, her field of interest covers the range of Pannonian grey wares and stamped pots. It is necessary to mention the contribution of Anna Biller, who wrote chapter number 7.4 about archaeozoological finds.

The topic seems to be a very obvious choice, since the market building (macellum) is inbetween the most significant buildings in the centre of the Civil Town of Aquincum. Nevertheless the results of those excavations, which took place here, were not comprehensively published, only preliminary reports or short artickles appeared. The need for a synthesis for this site urged the authors to re-evaluate publications, to search for manuscripts from bequests, to revise the available old excavation documentations, and to investigate the finds.

Chapter 2,3 and 4 of this book relates those more than 130 years of archaeological researches in the Aquincum Civil Town's macellum.

The row of the so-called 'old' excavations starts with the systematic excavations led by Balint Kuzsinszky between 1882 and 1884. This 19th century excavation can be considered quite modern, and he gave great, detailed descriptions of architectural phenomenons. His interest for architecture appears also in the presentation of the finds, as besides of a bronze statue's foot fragment, he mainly discusses lead- and carved architectural stone objects. He uncovered only the latest building phases of the macellum, but he connected many analogies to all the features he found. His publication is a complete report of the four year excavation carried out in the area of macellum.

The next research, executed in 1929 by Lajos Nagy identified the building as a macellum, and mentioned a pottery workshop and a bronze smithing workshop here, dating to the turn of the 2nd-3rd century to 240 AD. The confirmation of these workshops in lack of the original documentation is impossible, and the report unfortunately doesn't gives us enough information.

Melinda Kaba's 1960-1962 excavation took place as part of a large-scale conservation programme. It's main objective was to specify the building phases of the area and to define the correlation of the macellum with the other important, known buildings of the city.

The research in 1965 done by archaeologist Klara Poczy and architect Gyula Hajnoczy finally brought a breaktrough, as it clarified some incorrect ideas, and assessed that the macellum was still in use at the turn of the 3rd-4th century AD. They have found a kiln or oven, but it's relation to the hypothetical pottery workshop could not be confirmed.

The revise of the results of these four excavations was published in an MA thesis and two more articles written by Orsolya Lang in 2001, in 2003 and in 2007. This research, based on the prevoius documentation, has identified the building phases of the macellum in Aquincum Civil Town, and toroughly examined the tipology of macella. Epigraphical research also took place, which intended to identify the possible builder of the macellum.

Technically the research leans on three major sources: on the previous publications, on the original excavation documentations and on the find material. All these sources had their specific problematics. The main stumbling block for the authors was, that the previous four researches were not comprehensively published, only one out of four. Besides this, there were many missunderstandings and incorrect outgrowths in the literature, so the publications as main source in this case must have been treated with care and with healthy critical sense.

The other possible source, the original documentation of the excavations was also problematic, because it was available only in two cases out of four. In addition these excavations were all carried out with different excavation methods using quite different standards.

Regarding the archaeological material difficulties occured as well. Finds were merely available for three cases out of four excavations, but the majority of the finds was accessible only for the last two campaigns. In addition those more than 50 years, which has passed since the last excavation, some objects were presumably mingled with other excavations' material, so the finds of this site were hard to identify.

The strenght of this work lies also in the fact, that the authors were needed to create their own methodology, or better said to find and apply those methods which allows in these restricted conditions to gather as much information, as possible, and to build up the coherent, well structured story of the macellum.

Despite the difficulties, researchers tried to find solutions to all the problems. Regarding the previous publications, the authors have checked the validity of all the published information, and we can have the detailed confutation or the contrary, the confirmation of every statement.

The second main source, the original excavation documentation was only available for the excavations in 1960-1962 and for the research from 1965 in the Archaeological Archives of the Budapest History Museum. The documentations were revised, and the data was postrecorded with modern, objective methods of archaeological documentation. In the matter of stratigraphy the Harris matrix was used, old photographs and plans were attached and re-evaluated, the different building phases got presented in consecutive ground-plans, and new conclusions were drawn.

The authors wanted in this book to present the available finds to make the analysis complete. The second part of the book focuses therefore on the possible pottery workshop (Chapter 5) and on the presentation of the finds (Chapter 6,7). At the end of the book a detailed catalogue of the objects can be found. The term 'finds' in this book mainly covers the wide range of ceramic objects, but glass, metal, worked bone objects, and different arhitectural elements (7.3), as well as the archaeozoological material (7.4).

Chapter 5 traces the exhaustive problematics of the possible pottery workshop, first attested by L. Nagy in 1929. In his publication he states the presence of a cellar and a well, and a series of vessels which he grouped by form. Unfortunately he did not describe in details the findings, no ground-plan survived, and the series of similar vessels can not be identified anymore in the inventory of the museum.

The idea of a pottery workshop appeared again in the course of the 1965 year's excavation, when a kiln/owen was unearthed. K. Poczy however considered that the ceramic finds attests rather a shop or a pottery storeroom, where the products of multiple workshops were sold, than a workshop in the middle of the city. The authors had shown, that by it's position in the stratigraphy, the owen is more suitable for baking, and it cannot belong to the presumed pottery workshop. The largest group of similar pottery can also be dated earlier, aproximately to the first half of the 2nd century AD.

The possibility of a nearby pottery workshop after all can not be excluded, because finds (deformed pottery fragments, lamp mould, kiln furniture fragment) were discovered, which could indicate pottery production, but despite of pro arguments, the workshop could not be identified, further excavations would be needed.

As mentioned above, the work with the find material was problematic. Mainly the material of the last two excavations was used for this work (1960-62; 1965). It was clear from the beginning of the research, that objects found from the 1929 excavation are just a small part of the originally excavated material, and that the finds from 1960/62 and 1965 were hand-picked. Even so a conservative valuation and statistic was still possible. The publication finally deals with 717 vessels.

The methodology of pottery processing is noteworthy (Chapter 6). As in the Roman Period the pottery workshops of Aquincum used the same local Oligocene Kiscell type of clay for pottery production, and presumably similar techniques, the end products became very likely to each other. Therefore, the authors used a macroscopical analysis, which descends to particulars. By the macroscopical characteristics of the material 31 fabric groups were separated. The differences in colour, the categories of roughness, the grain size and frequency and the porosity of the material was defined for every object.

It was confirmed during the study of the ceramic material, that not only the form, but also different technological characteristics are indicating the different periods of production. Therefore the vessels were first sorted by material, slip, firing technique, than the occurence of forms was investigated within these groups.

Chapter 7 relates the wide variety of pottery finds, starting with the finds of the 1929 excavation. As expected, the material of the latest two excavations was way much varied. The following categories of pots are presented: thin walled/colour coated/coarse beakers, the handle fragment of an early Roman glazed patera, Terra Sigillata vessels and their imitations, imitations of Pompeian red wares, stamped PGW-s (Pannonische Glanztonware), Amphorae, vessels with name-stamps, glazed and slipped pottery, the so called ,,Kiscell red wares", which covers the very good quality redish pottery produced by the military pottery workshop of the Aquincum cannabae, flagons and jugs, the two and three handled vessels, coarse wares, and cooking wares. The publication shows an interest for the different types of bowls, which are quite varied: flanged bowls (Kragenschussel), bowls with small flange (Leichtenschale, Ringschussel, ,,Patka" bowls), barbotine decorated bowls, S-profiled bowls, flattened hemispherical bowls, hemispherical bowls with beaded rims, and tripod vessels. The mortaria, caccabi, lids, strainers, turribula and storing vessels are presented in details as well. The categories of lamps and lamp-moulds, terracotta objects, ,,lighthouse" pots and tiles are described and discussed here too. At the end of chapter 7 the glass, metal, bone and worked stone objects are also listed.

The authors intention is clear: they wanted to present the finds as detailed as possible, the complete collection in it's complexity, meanwhile the short history of vessel-forms is there as well, just like the dating and possible production place so we can track the route of almost every single potsherd from the pottery workshop to the Aquincum macellum.

The examination of the archaeozoological material has shown, that from the area of the macellum mainly the meaty parts of cattle, swine and large ungulates were discovered. These attes butchery activity the meaty parts were separated from those, which possibly were used for other purposes.

The last descriptive chapter of the book (Chapter 8) were separated summarizes the results of the old and new reserches. The emphasis falls on the coherent chronological reconstruction of the building phases of the area, completed with comprehendible ground-plan of every phase and with the evidence provided by the ceramic material.

According to Chapter 8 the earliest signs of human activity are marked by some pits and a fossa, probably part of the southern part of a vilage-like settlement at the end of the 1st--first decades of the 2nd century AD.

Two wall fragments and filling layers belong to the second phase, possibly dating to the first half of the 2nd century AD.

The remains of the third phase are marked with three walls, which could have been in use sometime during the middle of the 2nd century AD.

Phase 4 is the period, when the presumed pottery workshop could have operated. The ground-plan of the same building is showing on the map. This has had most probably a commercial function. Seems, that it had been destroyed by fire around the middle of the 3rd century AD.

The building of the macellum was only erected in the 5th phase at the middle of the 3rd century, which corresponds to the last economical and architectural boom of the Civil Town. The remains of the previous phase were leveled, and a large building was constructed with a paved inner courtyard and with a tholos in its middle. Two rows of shops were opening to the neighbouring road and to the inner courtyard. Along the Western facade presumably a parking place for carriages was built. According to the archaeozoological investigations, meat-processing was one of the most plausible activities at this site in the second part of the 3rd century AD.

In the last roman period (phase 6), between the end of the 3rd--beginning of the 4th century AD, the building of the macellum was possibly already in ruins. We have evidence only for the usage of the Western road and of a smaller building on the Western side of the investigated area.

The last phase (nr. 7) dates to the modern times, since refilled archaeological trenches and second world war bomb craters were documented.

The elegant aspect of the book is in concordance with it's content and as the work is written in english, the latest results of this research are accesible for foreign researchers as well. We have now a very accurate, traceable, well structured presentation of the history of the area and of the market-building, hence the macellum of the Aquincum Civil Town became a great source of analogy for the macella type of constructions in the province and in the whole Roman Empire.

From the point of view of pottery-researchers, one of the greatest merits of the book is, that it has proposed methodology for pottery processing which is actually based on the fastest and in the same time the most accurate macroscopical analysis man can make with a large quantity of ceramic material. Functional, useful illustration was added to it, just like recent literature. These features and the fact, that it represents such a large variety of finds, presented in such a detailed way, makes this book an excelent handbook for provincial pottery research.

One of the major objectives of this work was, to re-think and to sum up the accumulated information of the previous excavations. This effort draws the attention to a serious challenge in the archaeological research, namely to the urging need to reevaluate old excavations and their material. The authors of this book therefore are presenting us an elaborated methodology in this topic.

Agota Ferencz-Matefi