We would like to express our gratitude to Professors J. J. Wilkes and. G. B. Waywell, the directors of the ... Dumbarton Oaks, Washington. Nestorides, K. 1892.
TURNIP REMAINS FROM BYZANTINE SPARTA 1 JON G. HATHER, LEONOR PEI~IA-CHOCARRO, AND ELIZABETH J. SIDELL
Hather, Jon G., Leonor Peiia-Chocarro, and Elizabeth J. Sidell (Institute of Archaeology, University College, London). TURNIP REMAINSFROMBYZANTINESPARTA.Economic Botany 46(4): 395-400, 1992. Charred parenchymous tissue was recovered from Byzantine levels at the site of Sparta, Greece. On examination, using morphologwal and histological characteristics it was identified as being turnip, Brassica campestris ssp. rapifera (Metzg.) Sinsk. This discovery is of great significance in the study of the site, and also of Byzantine economy.
Restos de Nabo del Periodo Bizantino en Esparta. Restos biolrgicos para andlisis medio ambientales fueron recuperados en la excavaci6n de los niveles bizantinos del yacimiento de Esparta. Una de las muestras contenfa tejido parenquimatoso carbonizado identificado como parte de una rafz de Brassica campestris ssp. rapifera (Metzg.) Sinsk., es decir nabo. En este artfculo se describen los restos carbonizados y se sintetiza el proceso de identificaci6n seguido. La existencia de restos de este tub~rculo en este yacimiento se explica en relaci6n a los recursos alimenticios bizantinos y a la economfa del yacimiento. Key Words: archaeology; Brassica campestris ssp. rapifera; Byzantine Greece, Byzantine Sparta; palaeobotanical remains.
THE SITE The site o f ancient Sparta is situated on the plain o f Sparta in the modern region of Laconia, Greece (Fig. 1 [i]). It has barely been disturbed since its a b a n d o n m e n t in the thirteenth century, when it was replaced by Mistras as the regional urban centre. The town was never rebuilt, simply left to decay. The modern town o f Sparta built in the nineteenth century lies to the south o f the ancient site. In the nineteenth century interest in Sparta reawakened when three papers were written concerning the site and its topography. Two o f these were by Heinrich Stein (1890) and Konstantinos Nestorides (1892). The third paper was by Nicholas Crosby in the American Journal o f Archaeology (1893). This volume also included a report on an excavation carried out by the American School on the Classical structure known as the " R o u n d Building" (Fig. 1 [ii] B) (Walastein and Patou 1893). In the twentieth century the A m e r ican excavations were replaced by those o f the British School. In 1906 Traquair began work on
Received 22 February 1991; accepted 26 June 1992.
the " R o m a n Stoa," a long structure comprised o f a series o f chambers. However, this work was soon abandoned in favour o f the shrine o f Artemis Orthia which had been discovered on the bank o f the river Eurotas. Further excavation at Sparta by the British School took place between 1924 and 1928, on the site o f the theatre. Since then no large archaeological project has been undertaken in Sparta. The lack o f urban development and excavation have preserved a site with great potential for study o f its history and economy. The topography o f the town has long remained a problem. Pausanias, a Greek historian writing in the second century A.D. (translation by Jones and Ormeron 1926) gave a detailed account o f the city in his Guide to Greece, but only the theatre has been identified from his inventory. The key to solving the problem is the location o f the agora, the main market and commercial area o f Greek towns. F r o m this central location, much o f the rest o f the town, as documented by Pausanias, could be identified. Excavation o f the area would also provide a great insight into the econo m y of the town. The site seen as most likely is the area immediately to the south o f the acropolis hill, into which the R o m a n Stoa is built. This
Economic Botany 46(4) pp. 395-400. 1992
9 1992, by The New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, NY 10458 U.S.A.
396
ECONOMIC BOTANY
area was selected for excavation under the combined direction o f Professors J. J. Wilkes (Institute o f Archaeology) and G. B. Waywell (Kings College, London) under the aegis o f the British School at Athens. A survey o f the acropolis hill was carried out in 1988 and excavation began in 1989, centred on the R o m a n Stoa (Fig. 1 [iii]). The stoa is o f brick-faced concrete and thought to have been constructed in the reign o f the Emperor H a d r i a n (A.D. 117-138), or shortly afterwards. The upstanding remains consist o f a row o f barrel-vaulted chambers. These are fiat-backed with two exceptions: a pair of apsed chambers each with a central concave niche between two fiat-backed ones. The area immediately to the south o f these two chambers was selected for excavation. The survey o f the area drew attention to the fact that the stoa formed part o f a line o f structures running east to west (see Fig. 1 [ii]): namely the stoa (a), the round building (b) and the theatre (c). On the ground there was no sign o f a western terminal to the stoa; however there was a wall in the same style parallel with the chamber walls by the round building. If the line of the stoa was projected, then it would reach the area beside the round building occupied by the wall. The ground level here is higher than the surviving ceilings o f the stoa, but it has been suggested that the stoa had double storied terminals at either end. An environmental project was established in order to answer questions concerning past diets, reconstruction o f the environment, type o f econo m y practised etc. This was to be achieved by the analysis o f biological remains recovered by the processes o f flotation and dry sieving. Structural remains on the acropolis hill date from the Classical to the Byzantine period. On the site o f the stoa, deposits have been found from the R o m a n period to modern although further excavation may reveal earlier deposits. F r o m this sequence we are able to study the R o m a n and Byzantine occupation o f the site which may not only apply the primary economic questions to the period o f Byzantine occupation, and examine the changes in and differences between the two communities. DESCRIPTION OF SAMPLE E W 9 Sample EW9 comes from an excavated refuse pit in the R o m a n Stoa (Fig. 1 [iii]) associated with a h u m a n skull which led to its selection for further study. The pit, roughly circular and one
[VOL. 46 LOCATION M A P
i)
SPARTA
THE PELOPONNESE
ii) ~
~ C
0
t \
~
............ A -
lOOm
THE ACROPOLIS HILL WITH; A, THE STOA, B, THE R O U N D BUILDING. C. THE THEATRE.
iii)
r~.
i3,l 1111111 '0
! 11 11111 1 1 l d i0. \
THE 'ROMAN $TOA"SHOWING THE LOCATIONOF PIT IOO9.
Fig. 1. i. The Peloponnese. ii. The acropolis hill with: A, The stoa, B, The round building, C, The theatre. iii. The "Roman Stoa," showing the location of pit 1009.
metre in diameter, was seventy centimetres deep and contained one single deposit. It was located in what was thought to be an occupation area o f the Stoa. The botanical remains recovered from the pit are presently temporarily located at the Institute o f Archaeology, University College, London, on loan from their permanent residence at the Sparta Archaeological Museum. The biological remains o f the sample comprised animal bones, shell fragments, wood charcoal and a considerable amount o f other charred plant remains and dung. Cultural material included pottery sherds and coins. The pottery has been dated to the Byzantine period. EW9 yielded a total o f 1478 identified seeds and a further 880 unidentified seed fragments. O f those identified, 350 were cereal remains mostly composed o f Hordeum vulgare L. (six rowed hulled barley), Triticum durum Dest. (durum, flint or macaroni wheat) and Triticum aestivum L. (bread wheat), o f which barley was the dominant.
1992]
HATHER ET AL.: TURNIP
Other Gramineae such as Setaria sp. and Panicum sp. were also present, the large seeded grasses such as Avena sp. and Lolium sp. outnumbering the small ones such as Phalaris sp. and Poa sp. Rachis remains o f the cereal taxa were also identified and those of Hordeum sativum were the most abundant. The ratio o f chaff and weed seeds (waste fraction) was calculated in relation to the n u m b e r o f cereal grains. Members o f the Leguminosae were also present in the sample, the species identified being
Cicer arietinum L., Vicia faba L., Vicia ervilia (L.) Willd., Pisium sativum L. and Lens culinaris Medik. The remains o f other plant foods such as olive, fig and grape pips were present, as well as seeds that could have been used as a food source such as Atriplex sp. and Malva sp. The weed seeds present are typical of arable lands belonging to families such as the Chenopodiaceae (e.g., Chenopodium album L., Atriplex spp.) and the Caryophyllaceae (e.g., Cerastium L. and Sagina L.). Particularly striking is the abundance of seeds ofPolygonum corrigioloides Jaub and Spache (450 identified seeds, 884 estimated). Many other families such as the Compositae, Scrophulariaceae and Malvaceae are present. The non-seed plant remains identified were a fragment o f Brassica campestris ssp. rapifera (turnip), the subject of this paper, and the remains of the basal tubers o f Hordeum bulbosum L. The latter is edible and m a y represent the remains o f a source o f food in this context. The identification o f the charred remains o f the edible tap root ofBrassica campestris ssp. rapifera, the turnip, is o f considerable interest and will be dealt with separately and in detail. T H E IDENTIFICATION OF
BRASSICA CAMPESTRIS SSP. RAPIFERA The identification o f the remains of charred parenchymous tissue is a process that relies on the comparison o f characters in modern reference material with the ancient preserved tissues (Hather 1988, 1991). These are best observed using scanning electron microscopy where both good resolution and depth o f field may be attained at high magnification. The characters employed in identification concern the gross anato m y o f the internal tissues, as well as the morphology o f the organ, if this is well enough preserved. However, the process o f charring partially destroys cellular tissue and greatly distorts many o f the classical anatomical characters used
397
systematically. Classical anatomical characters, therefore, are used in conjunction with characters derived from the process o f charring. The anatomy o f an organ together with the way in which the tissues deteriorate on charring is often characteristic o f a taxon or group o f taxa. Experimental work with a variety o f charred fleshy root and other vegetative parenchymous tissues from a number o f different families has indicated many important characters of diagnostic value (Hather 1988). Such characters o f importance are first, as seen in transverse section, radially oriented cavities which appear in the tissue o f the secondary xylem. Although in some cases the cavities may be small and distorted, this general trend in their orientation may still be seen. Second, the tissues of the phloem never survive intact, but c o m m o n l y deteriorate to a solid carbon mass without any cellular detail or they m a y degrade completely to leave a cavity. The fleshy " r o o t " of the turnip is made up o f the swollen root and hypocotyl o f the perennating plant. The morphology o f different varieties o f turnip m a y vary, but generally speaking the root o f those cultivated at the present time is globular in shape, almost spherical, with a sharply tapering apex. The anatomy o f the root has been described by Winton and Winton (1935) and Hather (1988). The root has an outer periderm internal to which lies a narrow region o f parenchyma and phloem adjacent to the cambium. The larger proportion o f the swollen tissue lies internal to the cambium. This is composed o f secondary xylem and parenchyma with tertiary vascular and associated parenchymous tissues. Secondary xylem vessels lie in rays adjacent to the c a m b i u m and opposite to concentrations of phloem external to the cambium. Isolated vessels, or groups o f up to four vessels, are found towards the centre o f the root surrounded by cambia and associated with tertiary phloem and parenchyma. This is anomalous tertiary growth and results in most o f the parenchyma that forms the swollen organ. The fragment of charred tissue recovered from sample EW9 and identified here as Brassica campestris ssp. rapifera root was large in comparison with most o f the charred parenchymous vegetative tissues preserved archaeologically. It is approximately 2.5 cm across with a clearly curved outer surface and fractured inner surface. The curved surface was such that, if extrapolated, the whole organ from which it came was both large
398
ECONOMIC BOTANY
[VOL. 46
Fig. 2. Tertiary vascular tissue in the xylem of charred archaeological Brassica campestris ssp. rapifera: 1) xylem, 2) phloem, 3) parenchyma.
and rounded. The orientation o f the fragment as a piece o f a whole organ was unclear, hence a radial fracture plane was taken using pressure applied with a sharp razor blade. The resulting small fragment o f the larger piece was mounted on a Cambridge type stub and examined with a Hitachi $570 Scanning Electron Microscope. In the examination o f the fragment it can be seen that there is an outermost band of solid carbon. Internal to this lies a region o f vesicular, though radially oriented, deteriorated tissue. The
former represents the deteriorated secondary phloem and the latter the secondary xylem. The boundary between the two represents the cambium. Observed in the deteriorated secondary tissue o f the xylem were isolated vessels and groups o f vessels surrounded by solid featureless carbon.These are the remains o f anomalous tertiary bundles. The characters taken together: the general size and shape o f the fragment and therefore the original whole organ, the relative widths of the regions
1992]
HATHER ET AL.: TURNIP
o f secondary xylem and phloem and the presence o f anomalous tertiary bundles, allow an identification to be reached. In middle Byzantine Sparta root crops were probably u n c o m m o n , though as will be discussed later the turnip was almost certainly present. Wild root and tuber resources would have been utilised but these would have been mainly narrow roots, rhizomes and tubers. None of these would have had both the anatomy and morphology represented by the remains exa m i n e d here. The only possibility o f a swollen secondary root o f this nature is Brassica campestris ssp. rapifera. INTERPRETATION OF SAMPLE E W 9 The significance o f the remains o f Brassica campestris ssp. rapifera in this sample will be discussed in terms o f its own early history as a crop plant. Prior to that the context in which it was found must be mentioned. Sample EW9 appears to be d o m i n a t e d by cleanings originating from the process o f sieving cereal grain either with coarse or fine sieves. This fraction is mainly c o m p o s e d o f different types o f chaff, such as rachis, awns and straw nodes. Weed heads and weed seeds also form part o f this fraction. Tail grain would be expected since it will pass through the mesh together with weed seeds smaller than the prime grain (Hillman 1984). In this case, however, the grain recovered was considered to be prime grain. Its presence in the sample could be explained in several ways. Perhaps the most likely explanation is that o f spillage during cooking or when roasting the grain. Consequently, the grain would get charred and mixed with the other components o f the oven or hearth where these activities were taking place. Another possibility might be that the prime grain was mixed with the fine cleanings because o f defective sieves. Holes in the mesh would allow some prime grain to pass through together with weed seeds and chaff remains (Hillman 1984). It is possible that dung was used as a fuel since sheep/goat dung was found in the sample. This factor would explain the presence o f seeds such as Trifolium sp., Trigonella sp., and Medicago sp., traditionally used as fodder, although it should be r e m e m b e r e d that these species are also considered as weeds o f crops. The weed seeds are, in most cases, o f weeds associated with cereal crops. Therefore, their presence in the sample is most likely to be a result o f the sieving process,
399
the first aim o f which is to clean the chaff from the grain. Amongst the remains o f other food plants, olive, fig and grape pips are the most dominant. The economic importance o f these plants in Medieval Sparta was probably significant since they are well adapted to this area and are profitable resources. The amalgamation o f different kinds o f remains, such as a waste fraction, prime grain, discarded fractions o f food plants, seems to indicate the possibility o f the primary context (the source of charring) being a hearth or an oven. The contents would have been discarded into a midden which would probably have been removed annually and deposited in a rubbish pit. This, the secondary context, was recovered, in situ. The human skull recovered in association with this secondary context is not thought to be related to the primary context. DISCUSSION
Brassica campestris, a native o f central and southern Europe, is a weed crop. Its presence in fields o f older crops such as flax probably gave rise to its selection as oil seed: B. campestris subspecies olifera (Metzg.) Sinsk. Biennial forms o f this plant were probably selected for the food value o f the swollen hypocotyl: B. campestris subspecies rapifera, the turnip. The R o m a n s were thought to have introduced the turnip into Europe before the c o m m o n practice o f oil seed cultivation in medieval times. Both Pliny (Book 18, translation by Rackham, 1950) and Columella (Book 2, translation by Ash, 1977 and Book 11, translation by Forster and Heffner, 1968) in the first century A.D. discuss in detail the cultivation o f the turnip: the times o f sowing, types o f soil to use, and varieties o f the crop. Although its place and time o f first cultivation are unknown, somewhere in Southwestern Asia in pre-Classical times seems likely (Simmonds 1976). As a cultigen B. campestris ssp. rapifera appears in the thirteenth century in an assemblage at WawiU Hill in Poland in the form o f seeds (Wasylikowa 1978). The remains o f the turnip " r o o t " itself here are the earliest indication o f its presence in medieval Greece. It has been suggested that Byzantine society was characterised by undernourishment, a view substantiated by documents from Byzantine monastic establishments o f the eleventh century
400
ECONOMIC BOTANY
(Kazhdan and Constable 1982). If this is true then the consumption of unusual foods in times of scarcity is to be expected. Kazhdan and Constable state that the normal Byzantine m e n u consisted of bread, vegetables and wine; meat and fish were seldom served. Charanis (1973) may be more precise in describing a diet of hard bread, cheese, some legumes, various greens and roots, perhaps some olives, fish, and eggs. The taxa identified from the samples taken at Sparta confirm this: bread cereals, roots, several species of pulse, and other seeds likely to have been consumed. Though the components of Byzantine diet are beginning to be understood the relative importance of these different components is yet to be realised. The identification of one, although substantial, fragment of a root crop does not indicate that they formed a large part of Byzantine diet. It does, however, lay open the question of the role of both wild and cultivated root and tuber foods in past diets. While under present production rates biennial root crops may seem likely staples, it is probable that such crops in the past, without high seed yielding varieties, chemical fertilizer and pest control, would have been uneconomical as such. The lack of any biennial root crops as staples today, or any evidence of such in the past, does seem to bear this out. A n agricultural economy, therefore, has to be rich if it is to pass over much land to root crops that provide only variety to the diet. Root crops are unlikely to be c o m m o n in an area where cereals and legumes are the staples, and the agricultural economy is thought to be poor. If the suggested undernourishing Byzantine diet is correct, then root crops certainly would not be common, though wild "root and tuber" foods most likely would be. The roots referred to in suggested descriptions of the diet of this time are almost certainly wild and not cultivated. If root crops are c o m m o n in Byzantine Sparta then either the accepted view of diet at this time needs modification or Sparta was not typical. One fragment of a root crop, however, is not enough to assume one or the other. The environmental investigations at Sparta are yielding important data that will answer questions concerning Byzantine diet, economy and environment. For a fuller understanding of these problems, however, much more data needs to be collected, from more than one site.
[VOL. 46 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to express our gratitude to Professors J. J. Wilkes and G. B. Waywell, the directors of the site, for giving us the opportunity to carry out this work; for advice given by Gordon Hillman and for assislance by K. N. Wilkinson and Marta Moreno Garcia in preparing the text.
LITERATURE CITED
Charanis, P., ed. 1973. Social and political life in the Byzantine Empire. Variorum Reprints, London. Colamella: Ash, H. B. (trans.). 1977. De re rustica, Book II. Heinemann, London and New York. Columella: Forster, E. F., and E. Heffner (trans.). 1968. De re rustica, Book XI. Heinemann, London and New York. Crosby, N.E. 1893. The topography of Sparta. Am. J. Arch. 8(3):335-373. Hather, J.G. 1988. The morphological and anatomical interpretation of charred vegetative parenchymous plant remains. Ph.D. Thesis, University of London. 1991. The identification of charred archaeological remains of vegetative parenchymatous tissues. J. Archaeol. Sci. 18:661--675. Hillman, G.C. 1984. Interpretationofarchaeological plant remains: the interpretation of ethnographic models from Turkey. Pages 1-42 in W. Van-Zeist and W. A. Casparie, eds., Plants and ancient man. Balkema, Rotterdam. Kazhdan, A., and G. Constable. 1982. People and power in Byzantium. An introduction into modem Byzantine studies. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington. Nestorides, K. 1892. Topographia tes archaiou Spartes. Athens. Paesanius: Jones, W. H. S., and H. A. Ormeron (trans.). 1926. Description of Greece, Volume II, Book III, Laconia. Heinemann, London and New York. Pliny: Rackham, H. (trans.). 1950. Natural history, Book XVIII. Heinemann, London and New York. Simmonds, N.W. 1976. The evolution of crop plants. Longman, London. Stein, H. 1890. Topographie des alten Sparta nebst Bemerkungun uber einige Lakedidemonischen Gottheiten. Glatz. L. Schirmer. Walastein, U., and Z. M. Patou. 1893. Report on the excavations at Sparta in 1893. Amer. J. Archaeol. 8(3):429-437. Wasylikowa, K. 1978. Early and Late Medieval plant remains from Wawill Hill, Cracow (9-10th-15th C). Berichte der Deutschen Botanischen, Gesellschaft 91:107-120. Winton, A. L., and K. B. Winton. 1935. The structure and composition of foods, Vol. 2. John Wiley and Sons, New York.
