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Project overview

Façade orientale des Grandi Horrea
Eastern facade of the Grandi Horrea with shops joined side by side. In box, detail of the support brackets of storey (Photo N. Monteix, EFR)

The study of storage spaces directly affects the issue of the development capacities of transit trade and its organization in ancient economies. This cross-sectional area of study has never been treated as such for this period and the societies concerned. The current global knowledge of ancient storage systems is not satisfactory and research is too often confined, both geographically and chronologically.

The "Entrepôts et lieux de stockage du monde gréco-romain antique" project rests on three pillars:

-The resumption of the study of storage structures in three different places (Ostia-Portus, Italy; warehouses of Horrea Caelia, Hergla, Tunisia; Delos, Greece), and the resumption of written sources.

-The holding of two colloquia (March 2010 and November 2012) on the theme of warehouses and storage systems that allows establishing synthesis of current knowledge, to set in motion a participatory dynamic which researchers working on the subject of ancient warehouses are invited to join, and to further sustain this international collaboration.

- The creation of a computer tool / Website allowing the collaborative realization of a standardized inventory of ancient storage buildings, in the form of online database. Researchers, participating in the international meetings mentioned above, are called to participate in the implementation of this database.