2023-06-23 15:48:57
In October 2016, Spanish archaeologists found numerous fragments of tiles and Roman ceramics at the Noguera site, a few meters from the village of Villalón, near Córdoba, as well as pieces of oil amphorae dating back to about 2,000 years ago. Among these, one given to researchers by Francisco Adame, a local resident, who had noticed that letters were engraved on one of the pieces. Now, a study published in the ‘Journal of Roman Archeology’ of the University of Cambridge reveals that among those remains were found the first verses of the poem ‘The Georgics’ by Virgil, the great poet whose texts were used in ancient Rome to teach children to read.
What is most striking, and what makes the find “exceptional”, is that the verses had also been engraved on the base of an amphora. Why? The epigraphic richness of the amphorae of the Andalusia area has been known since antiquity, since it is known that Roman potters engraved their seals or wrote labels (“tituli picti”) with names of people, dates or places, but never poems.
For this reason, the study – signed by a team of archaeologists from the Universities of Barcelona, Montpellier, Seville, Cordoba and the Catalan Institute of Classical Archeology – specifies that it is an “unprecedented” find. These are five lines made up of groups of two or three words. They were written with a stylus when the vase was drying upside down, early on in the assembly. The preserved fragment is 1.2 cm thick, 8 cm long and 6 cm wide.
The fact that all the seals engraved on the amphorae recovered during the excavation of Cordova came from “figlinae” (pottery workshops) owned by the senatorial family Fabii clarissimi viri (the famous Fabii), suggests that the graffiti with the poem was made in a of their properties. “The authorship and the true intention of whoever wrote it are difficult to determine, but all the clues lead to think that someone did not want it to be seen, since it was engraved on the lower part of the amphora,” explained Iván González Tobar of the University of Barcelona interviewed by the newspaper ‘El País’.
Archaeologists in the study delivered to the ‘Journal of Roman Archaeology’ point out that children are known to have been present in the workshops where these large vases were made in rural settings, which offers clues as to their authorship. It may have been made by an adult to teach a small child to read, or it may have been a child who memorized the verses and engraved them. “The presence of graphite in the production chain implies a remarkable literacy of the environment of the Baetic ceramic workshops, which contrasts with the classic vision of an isolated rural world”, highlighted Iván González Tobar.
Virgil was the most popular poet of his time. “The Aeneid” was taught in schools and his verses have been a pedagogical exercise for many generations. For this reason, it is common to find them on the remains of ceramic building materials, which has led many authors to link them to educational functions (Roman schoolchildren wrote Virgil on their blackboards). But why on an amphora and why “The Georgics” and not “The Aeneid”?
Bearing in mind that the first book of the “Georgics” is dedicated to agriculture, and that the excavation area around Cordova is an eminently rural area, its pedagogical use “is not unreasonable, especially if the significant presence of children in the ceramic workshops”, Tobar always speculated. Experts are therefore debating whether this graffiti was a “mechanical exercise, as simple entertainment, or a writing practice by someone who recorded some verses he had learned as a child and left the quote unfinished, either due to a memory lapse or because has suddenly changed activities”.
The Noguera site, despite the accumulation of pottery found, was not a center for the production of oil amphorae. The abundance of remains could be explained by the reuse of waste from a nearby potters’ workshop, to build or repair walls and rural housing structures. Archaeologists believe that the site corresponds to a “residence with the characteristics of a rustic villa that produced olive oil”. The fragments of amphorae studied are dated between the 2nd and 3rd century AD.
“All these considerations lead us to an individual who is literate enough to write or recite poetry, but not with perfect spelling, as he makes several mistakes,” explained archaeologists Antonia Soler and Piero Berni Miller. Be that as it may, the author wrote in memory of him: “he Exchanged the aonia acorn (from northern Greece) for the fertile ear and mixed the water with the uncovered grapes.” Actually in the seventh and eighth verse of the first book of the “Georgics”, written in 29 BC by Virgil, we read: “… if it is true that by your grace the human race replaced the chaony acorns with fat ears of wheat and mixed the water of the Achelous with the wine he had discovered…”
(by Paolo Martini)
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