Long Distance Trade in CBM

It became quite clear when I was working on the CBM of Beirut in 1995-7 that a large quantity of it was imported. I was also able to work in Carthage in 2000 where I was able to record analyse a stratified sequence of CBM from the Punic through to the late Byzantine period. This also suggested that the scale of imported CBM was beyond that which would be expected within a strict understanding of Moses Finley's consumer city model.

This was the subject of my PhD, awarded in 2006 and I hope to be published very soon, where it is clear that CBM is an expensive and therefore high status commodity.

Since finishing work on my thesis I have been working in the commercial sector in the UK, as well as on a project at Ras el Bassit, which has enabled me to keep up the research on this phenomenon. 

I have managed to put together a preliminary map of regional industries of CBM: Cilicia supplying the Levant coast and sites along the Orontes; Clay used by Dichin/ Nicopolis ad Astra being used for building in Varna; Italian supply for North Africa.

In Britain, we have a number of regional suppliers. at least in the latter part of the Roman period, often connected with specialist ceramic production, and showing the same geographical range as these other products: Horningsea, Harrold, Towcester, Crambeck, Severn Valley and  Throlham