Storage in the Eastern and Southeastern Carpathians, 1st–6th Centuries AD

This volume explores storage practices in the eastern and southeastern Carpathians between the 1st and 6th centuries AD, examining pits, dolia, and warehouses as evidence for economic life along the Roman frontier. Drawing on archaeological, literary, and ethnographic sources, it offers the first comprehensive study of regional storage systems.

Storage in the Eastern and Southeastern Carpathians, 1st–6th Centuries AD presents a holistic image of a regional response to the new realities created by its inclusion in the Roman Empire. It focuses on three storage methods: storage pits, storage vessels, and warehouses, with a chapter devoted to each. Analysis begins with literary, epigraphic, and iconographic evidence and continues with ethnographic and archaeological sources. This theme is all the more important as it considers both household and large-scale storage, which involve different economic actors. Thus, an analysis of the economy of the eastern and southeastern Carpathians is built up, beginning with the density and storage capacity of pits, supply vessels, and warehouses. Capacity calculations for pits and supply vessels in this region were hitherto almost non-existent, and this book seeks to fill this gap. The work is the first attempt to present all the storage systems from the eastern and southeastern Carpathian areas during the 1st-6th centuries AD, eschewing a purely schematic approach to integrate the data into the empire’s economic system. Their typology and analogies with structures from the other Roman provinces will assist in their accurate identification, enabling them to be incorporated into discussions regarding the economy of the Roman Empire.

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Introduction

Historiographic context

Geographical and methodological framework

Chapter 2: Storage pits

Introduction

Sources

Storage pits in eastern and southeastern Carpathian regions

Conclusions

Chapter 3: Storage vessels

Introduction

Sources

Chapter 4: Typology of storage vessels

Introduction

Dolia

Petrographic analyses

Medium-sized storage vessels

Small-sized storage vessels

Conclusions

Chapter 5: Food storage in warehouses

Introduction

Typology of warehouses

Sources

Storage structures between the Danube and the Black Sea

Conclusions

Chapter 6: Conclusions

Considerations on economic history in the eastern Carpathian area

Considerations on economic history in the southeastern Carpathian area

Abbreviations

Bibliography

• By (author) Bianca-Elena Grigoraș