Abstract
The engineering marvel of Sebastos, or Portus Augusti as it was called in Late Antiquity (284–638 CE), dominated Caesarea’s harbor center along modern Israel’s central coast but it was only one part of a larger maritime complex. The Southern Anchorage provides a case study as one portion of the Caesarea complex, as well as a node within the regional network of anchorages and small harbors. Ceramics recovered from here show a high percentage of locally, and provincially, produced storage jars engaged in maritime trade. The ceramic evidence points towards an intensified regional trade or cabotage rather than favouring long distance trade from large port to port. Working out of these small harbors, opportunities arose for greater flexibility in specialization of commodities and materials passing through the network of subsidiary ports, contributing to a more diversified market economy. This analysis provides another example in the growing focus on how these simple and semi-modified anchorages in the Eastern Mediterranean were often the predominant economic networks connecting hinterland and coastal trade.
Notes
Analysis of the Iron Age material recovered from Caesarea’s Southern Anchorage will appear in a future article focused on the functionality of the anchorage in the Bronze and Iron Ages.
Palestine in this case will generally refer to the broad region that included the area of the Roman province of Syria Palaestina and the later Byzantine provinces of Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda, and Palaestina Tertia.
Archaeological evidence for a modified anchorage at Achziv is supported by the identification of quarrying of the kurkar ridge in the bay of Minet ez-Zev, mooring-posts and possible dry-docks (Galili and Rosen 200: 1931; Frankel and Getzov 1997: 65-67). Evidence from Dor has tentatively been identified in the North Bay where mooring stones have been found as well other Byzantine installations with an abundance of ceramic material to support the use of the bay as a harbor (Arkin 2015 (unpublished MA Thesis, University of Haifa, Department of Maritime Civilizations; Raban 1995: 295).
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Israel Antiquities Authority for granting us permission to analyze the material remains from Caesarea’s Southern Anchorage. Support for this project was through the Fulbright United States–Israel Education Foundation, the Department of Maritime Civilizations and the Laboratory of Coastal Archaeology and Underwater Survey at the University of Haifa, and a research Grant from the Mediterranean Sea Research Center of Israel.
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Ratzlaff, A., Galili, E., Waiman-Barak, P. et al. The Plurality of Harbors at Caesarea: The Southern Anchorage in Late Antiquity. J Mari Arch 12, 125–146 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11457-017-9173-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11457-017-9173-z