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Iron Bar Trade between the Mediterranean and Gaul in the Roman Period: 14C Dating of Products from Shipwrecks Discovered off the Coast of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (Bouches-du-Rhône, France)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2017

Emmanuelle Delqué-Količ ,
Stéphanie Leroy ,
Gaspard Pagès  and
Julie Leboyer
Emmanuelle Delqué-Količ*
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Mesure du Carbone 14 LMC14/LSCE, CEA de Saclay, Bât. 450 porte 4E, 91191 Gif sur Yvette cedex, France
Stéphanie Leroy
Affiliation:
Laboratoire Archéomatériaux et Prévision de l’Altération LMC-IRAMAT UMR5060/NIMBE UMR3685, CEA Saclay - Bât. 637, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette cedex, France
Gaspard Pagès
Affiliation:
Archéologie et Sciences de l’Antiquité ArScAn UMR7041, Maison Archéologie & Ethnologie, René-Ginouvès, 21, allée de l’Université, 92023 Nanterre Cedex, France
Julie Leboyer
Affiliation:
5, chemin entre les murs, 17290 Chambon, France
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

The large number of iron-laden wrecked ships discovered off Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (south of France) since the 1990s has enriched our knowledge of both maritime trade in the Mediterranean and the ferrous bars used during antiquity. This exceptional corpus has spawned numerous studies in the fields of archaeology, history, and archaeometallurgy, but, despite a relatively well-documented context, the chronology of wrecks is still to be clarified. Until recently, the chronology of the corpus was mainly supported by the archaeological remains found in the cargo of the wrecks, resulting in a chronological range from the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD. However, the 14C dating of an iron bar from Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, older by more than a century from the expected chronological range, has revived discussions about the chronology of all the wrecks. Thanks to the development of a new protocol for dating ferrous alloys, based on an extensive study of the ferrous material, 34 samples of iron extracted from 13 ferrous bars constituting the cargo of seven ships could be 14C dated. The 14C results and the archaeological and historical data were subjected to Bayesian analysis to build a chronological framework for the antique shipwrecks of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. It appears that all these ships could belong to a larger phase than the one deduced from archaeological remains alone. Consequently, this study helps to support a new vision of the trade between the northeastern Mediterranean and western Europe.

Keywords

archaeometallurgyBayesian modelingradiocarbon AMS datingRoman period
Type
Puzzles in Archaeological Chronologies
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 59 , Special Issue 2: Proceedings of the 22nd International Radiocarbon Conference (Part 1 of 2) , April 2017 , pp. 531 - 544
Copyright
© 2017 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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Footnotes

Selected Papers from the 2015 Radiocarbon Conference, Dakar, Senegal, 16–20 November 2015

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