La produzione di ceramica a Philosophiana (Sicilia centrale) nella media età bizantina: Metodi di indagine ed implicazioni economiche

Since 2009, through an international collaboration with Cambridge, Cornell and Messina Universities, the Philosophiana Project has investigated the Roman to medieval topographical, architectural, functional, economic and environmental transformations at the site of Sofiana in central Sicily, only 6 km as the crow flies from the Roman "Villa del Casale" of Piazza Armerina. By means of a global approach integrating field survey, open-area excavation, photogrammetry, archaeometry and bioarchaeology, the project shed light on settlement and economic patterns in a crucial area of the Mediterranean world: central Sicily, that served as the bread-basket of Rome in Late Antiquity, and of the Roman Church in the early Middle Ages. In 2010, some 40 m from the eastern side of the site of Sofiana, a field survey identified an 83th to 9th-century A.D. large craft-working district specialising in ceramic production. The site was covered by an extensive geomagnetic survey in 2011 and was subsequently tested by excavation in 2013. Despite the limited area investigated through excavation, this process enabled us to collect significant datasets that help us understand the precise chronology of the workshop, the technology of ceramic production and the wide range of ceramic repertoires manufactured at the first mid-Byzantine ceramic atelier ever excavated on the island. Combining the archaeological data with ancient pollen, faunal remains, ceramic thin-sections and organic residue analysis applied to a sample of jugs and small locally produced amphorae identified at domestic contexts excavated at the site of Sofiana, we are presenting here a preliminary reconstruction of the economic complexity of our site and the early medieval production strategies (both agricultural and artisanal) that determined the various forms of use of the local cultural landscape. The new picture which has emerged from this research suggests that some concepts, such as economic regression and simplification of the material culture, are inappropriate to describe mid-Byzantine Sicily.