Potter's stamps, painted labels or graffiti engraved in the fresh clay. The richness of the inscriptions on the amphoras of the Roman Betica province is well known. There are signs, letters, and sometimes even names of people and dates. But what had never been found was a fragment of a poem. And less by an author as renowned as Virgilio.
The author of the Aeneid, the Bucolics and the Georgics was the creator of a great work that revolutionized Latin poetry and became commonplace in all the school programs of the Roman Empire. Virgil was not only the most popular poet of his day, but he kept his fame many centuries later.
The Aeneid was taught in schools and its verses were habitually written as a pedagogical exercise for many generations. That is why it is common to find them in remains of ceramic construction materials and that is why many authors have given these tablets educational and funerary functions (Virgil's verses served as epitaphs on many occasions).
Seven years ago, researchers from the University of Córdoba found a small fragment of amphora six centimeters wide and eight centimeters long in the municipality of Hornachuelos, in the middle of the Cordoba countryside. The container was made about 1,800 years ago and included a written text, as explained in an article published in the Journal of Roman Archeology.
At first, the experts weren't too surprised. . There are billions of pieces of pottery from Ancient Rome. Rome's Monte Testaccio alone is already an infinite source of information about the Roman olive and wine industry.
In fact, at first, the research team was not particularly surprised to receive the fragment from the hand of Francisco Adame, a resident of the village of Ochavillo, the first person to notice that piece of ceramic when he was walking near the stream of Tamujar, in an area close to Villalón (Fuente Palmera).
"Nor is it especially original that printed words appear on the amphoras," they say in a statement. It was the data printed on the amphoras that have allowed archaeologists to reconstruct the history of Roman agricultural trade through its producers, control, quantities...
The Guadalquivir River is also considered one of the nerve centers of olive oil production and trade throughout the Roman Empire. In the surroundings of Corduba, present-day Córdoba, a large part of the olive oil consumed by Rome was produced and bottled, as attested, for example, by the remains of amphorae with the Baetic stamp preserved on Monte Testaccio.
S
go
avenue
glandemm
arestapoqv
tisqv
it
The engraved text didn't seem remarkable either. Until researchers from the University of Córdoba managed to decipher the abbreviations inscribed on the piece of amphora. From then on, the piece began to play a relevant role when it comes to measuring the degree of literacy of Roman rural society in the Guadalquivir Valley.
They superimposed over the single words an entire poem by Virgil, fragments of the seventh and eighth lines of the first book of the Georgics, a poem dedicated to agriculture and country life written in 29 BC. And the thing happened to have much more body:
Auonia [painted]
changed the bullet
arrest, poq[ulaque]
[inuen]tis Aqu[eloia]
[miscu]it [yes]
He [exchanged] the acorn aonia for the [fertile] spike [and mixed]
the wa[ter] [with the uncovered grape]
The main thesis of the authors of the study is that these verses were written in the lower area of the amphora with no intention that anyone would notice them, just as a sample of the knowledge and culture of the person who recorded it. It shows, however, a certain degree of literacy in a rural area, the plain of the Guadalquivir.
Archaeologists wonder if the writer was a specialized worker of the establishment with a certain degree of literacy or personnel from the nearby villas related to some aristocratic family that owns the industry. They also leave open the possibility that a child who worked in the establishment did it, since he has previously been present in this type of establishment.
