Researcher: Professor Marijke van der Veen

Aubergine calyces (Solanum melongena) from India (c. 13th century AD)

Spices from South and South East Asia have long represented a significant and lucrative commodity in Europe and the profits of the pepper trade, as well as cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and nutmeg, made Venice a key player in world trade during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Little is known, however, about the earlier history of this trade, other than from records in classical and early Islamic sources, but these sources, given their nature, are largely silent on the inhabitants and living conditions at the port.

Recent excavations at Quseir al-Qadim (the ancient Myos Hormos), located on the Red Sea coast of Egypt, have revealed direct evidence for this trade in the form of botanical remains, such as black pepper, rice and coconut. Moreover, the excavations have also recovered ample remains of the food of the inhabitants of these ports.

Peppercorns (Piper nigrum ) from India (early 1st century AD)

This project (funded by a major NERC research grant to Dr Marijke van der Veen) consists of two major components: firstly, the analysis of the extraordinarily rich and well-preserved botanical food remains recovered at the Red Sea port of Quseir, Egypt. The site of Quseir functioned as one of only two ports for the trade with India and beyond during the 1st-3rd and 12th-15th centuries AD.

Its occupation during both the Roman and Islamic rule of Egypt make it a critical site, providing a unique chance to test the effect of long-distance trade in foodstuffs on both diet and agriculture in Egypt. Examples of the foods imported are black pepper and rice during the Roman period (see photos) and lemon and aubergine during the Islamic period. Many more remain to be identified.

The second component of the project concerns the dispersal histories of Mediterranean foods into North West Europe during the Roman period and other exotic foods (especially the South Asian and South East Asian spices such as black pepper, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves, but also the citrus fruits, aubergine, and sugar cane) during both the Roman and Medieval periods. This component of the project will consist of collating the relevant published archaeobotanical data from North West Europe into a database, and interrogating this data set in order to analyse the process, chronology and ecology of these introductions, and the differential access to these foods enjoyed by different groups of the European populations (differences in social status, rural versus urban, ecological region etc.).

The project started in June 2004 with the appointments of Alexandra Livarda and Jacob Morales, and of Alison Cox in February 2005. It will run for three years.