COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF AYLA-AKSUM AMPHORAE FROM THE RED SEA COAST OF ERITREA

Archaeological excavations in the ancient port of Adulis (in present-day Eritrea) yielded a large corpus of amphorae, that most specialists would call Ayla-Aksum. Presently only scarce archaeometric information on the Ayla-Aksum pottery complex at Adulis is available. Within this frame, the current work considers amphorae samples recovered from the on-going excavations at Adulis . The Ayla-Aksum amphorae are studied in comparison with local pottery, Late Roman Amphorae 1, torpedo jars, dolia samples and red-slipped ware. Moreover, Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy has been exploited to investigate organic residues found in the samples belonging to the torpedo jars. Complementary analytical techniques (XRD, SEM-EDS and ICP-OES) are further envisaged in the future to corroborate the petrographic information. The overall investigation aims to shedding light on the extent of the diffusion of the Ayla-Aksum amphorae over the Red Sea World by the 1st millennium CE. Similarly, the work intends to systematically help in building the ceramic sequence at Adulis.