Italian and Sicilian amphorae and their contents: a general overview

This paper deals with Italian and Sicilian amphorae and their contents. The methodology takes into account some general issues: episodic/systematic recycling; planned use of certain amphorae forms for foodstuffs different from those they would usually contain; widespread use of small and non-ceramic containers. These issues need to be considered for fish products and olive oil in particular, as the Italian amphorae containing these foodstuffs were chronologically and quantitatively limited according to the archaeological evidence, while literary works and the resources of the Italian sea and countryside, from the ancient times up to present day have given a different picture. On the contrary, as is known, the production of Italian wine is archaeologically well documented and recent research has increased the number of known workshops of labelled and non-labelled wine amphorae. The importance of archaeometric studies applied to the contents of amphorae has been highlighted in the hope that this type of scientific analysis will become standard procedure in future for archaeological research.