Arnie, miele e api nella Grecia antica

Raffaella Bortolin,

Abstract

This paper aims to review and discuss a particular class of materials in coarse ware attested in several sites in mainland Greece and the Aegean, along chronological overview that goes from the Minoan to the Byzantine period: the terracotta beehives. Although the main indicators of the production of honey and wax, there are many difficulties in recognizing archaeological traces of this type of ceramics, so that only the GC-MS analysis are able to confirm the function. Having now a sufficiently large amount of evidence, it is possible to pro- pose a framework for reconstruction, taking into account not only the archaeological evidence, but also differ- ent types of sources available, such as written and iconographic.

Recognized for the first time in 1955, in Rachi near Isthmia, and shortly after in 1959, in the Justinian’s Fortress at the Isthmus of Corinth, the available data have allowed to identify at least two different models of terracotta beehives, one vertical, the only one which it is possible maybe to attribute a precise denomination, and the other one horizontal. Further data suggest that beehives constituted a specialized manufacture in a few areas and islands of Greece, highlighting as the beekeeping was, above all during the Classical and Hellenistic period, an activity based on local and regional production.