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The Archaeology of Roman Surveillance in the Central Alentejo, Portugal

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The Archaeology of Roman Surveillance in the Central Alentejo, Portugal THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF ROMAN SURVEILLANCE IN THE CENTRAL ALENTEJO, PORTUGAL CALIFORNIA CLASSICAL STUDIES NUMBER 5 Editorial Board Chair: Donald Mastronarde Editorial Board: Alessandro Barchiesi, Todd Hickey, Emily Mackil, Richard Martin, Robert Morstein-Marx, J. Theodore Peña, Kim Shelton California Classical Studies publishes peer-reviewed long-form scholarship with online open access and print-on-demand availability. The primary aim of the series is to disseminate basic research (editing and analysis of primary materials both textual and physical), data-heavy re- search, and highly specialized research of the kind that is either hard to place with the leading publishers in Classics or extremely expensive for libraries and individuals when produced by a leading academic publisher. In addition to promoting archaeological publications, papyrolog- ical and epigraphic studies, technical textual studies, and the like, the series will also produce selected titles of a more general profile. The startup phase of this project (2013–2017) is supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Also in the series: Number 1: Leslie Kurke, The Traffic in Praise: Pindar and the Poetics of Social Economy, 2013 Number 2: Edward Courtney, A Commentary on the Satires of Juvenal, 2013 Number 3: Mark Griffith, Greek Satyr Play: Five Studies, 2015 Number 4: Mirjam Kotwick, Alexander of Aphrodisias and the Text of Aristotle’s Meta- physics, 2016 THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF ROMAN SURVEILLANCE IN THE CENTRAL ALENTEJO, PORTUGAL Joey Williams CALIFORNIA CLASSICAL STUDIES Berkeley, California © 2017 by Joey Williams. California Classical Studies c/o Department of Classics University of California Berkeley, California 94720–2520 USA http://calclassicalstudies.org email: [email protected] ISBN 9781939926081 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016963103 CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix List of Figures and Illustrations xi 1. The Archaeology of Surveillance Landscapes 1 Archaeological applications of visibility analysis 5 The study of Alentejan fortins and recintos-torre 10 Organization of chapters 12 Living between empire and resistance: negotiating a contested landscape 15 2. The Early Roman Alentejo in Context 17 The landscape and its natural resources 18 Locating the landscape 18 Natural resources 20 A history of the region from a Roman perspective 23 The Roman conquest of western Iberia 24 From Viriathus to Augustus: the formation of Roman Lusitania 29 The archaeology of the early Roman Alentejo 36 Indigenous sites in the central Alentejo 37 The Roman presence in the Alentejo: the first century BCE to the first century CE 39 3. Surveillance Structures in Ancient Art, Literature, and Archaeology 45 Surveillance structures in Roman art 45 Watchtowers, observation posts, and fortified villas in ancient texts 47 vi contents 4. A Catalogue of Watchtowers in Early Roman Central Portugal 54 Catalogue of fortins and recintos-torre in the central Alentejo 55 Definingfortins and recintos-torre 55 Format of the entries 57 Fortins 59 Recintos-torre 72 Surveillance structures after the first century BCE 77 5. The First Century BCE Watchtower at Caladinho 80 The archaeological remains 82 Dating the structure 85 Ceramic classes 88 Ceramic fabrics 91 Analysis of the ceramic assemblage 94 Other materials from Caladinho 100 Towards an understanding of fortins and recintos-torre 101 The identity of Caladinho’s inhabitants 102 6. Visibility Analysis of a Roman Colonial Landscape 108 Geographic information systems and visibility analysis: building a database 108 Methodology and sources of information 108 Defining the entries 109 Estimating height of observers 111 Visibility analysis of the central Alentejo in the first centuryBCE 112 7. Toward a Theory of Surveillance in a Roman Colonial Landscape 121 Archaeological remains of surveillance structures 123 Villas and their towers: an archaeology of exploitation 123 Static defenses of the Hadrianic frontier, northern England 125 Surveillance and the quarries at Mons Claudianus, Egypt 127 Toward a typology of surveillance 128 Border control 128 Oversight 129 Borderless surveillance 130 contents vii Defining surveillance in ancient colonial landscapes 131 Entangled landscapes 132 Empire and surveillance beyond the panopticon 135 Conclusions and future directions 138 Select Figures and Illustrations 141 Bibliography and Abbreviations 147 Index 167 Acknowledgments This book would not have been possible without the encouragement, assis- tance, and generosity of numerous institutions and individuals. First and fore- most, I must thank the faculty at the University at Buffalo, especially my advisor Prof. Bradley Ault, for shepherding this project from inception to dissertation. Much of my perspective on archaeological materials was shaped by Prof. J. The- odore Peña and Prof. Archer Martin. They have both offered abundant encour- agement and guidance, and they are greatly appreciated. The PortAnta Archae- ological Cooperative and the National Museum of Archaeology in Lisbon have supported my work since I first visited Portugal as a field school student. Without their generosity this project would never have been conceived. The support of the municipality of Redondo continues to be essential to the excavation at Caladinho and other archaeological projects in Alentejo. I must of- fer profound thanks especially to Rui Mataloto. Our work together provided the stimulus for this project, and I am forever grateful that he agreed to excavate a little hilltop called Caladinho with me. Caladinho has grown significantly since those first days, and I have many people to thank for bringing that fieldwork to fruition. The staff, volunteers, and friends of the Caladinho Archaeological Proj- ect—Catarina Alves, Brandi Bethke, Rui “Josué” Clemente, Inês Conde, Andrew Donnelly, José Inverno, Michael Kat, Emma Ljung, Mark Nakahara, Mark Paw- lowski, Karilyn Sheldon, and Rhodora Vennarucci—were instrumental in com- pleting the four seasons of excavation that anchor this book. I must also thank our field school students, too numerous to mention individually, whose hard work in difficult conditions made all this possible. I am also grateful to my excavation colleagues for allowing me to publish here their photos and drawings related to Caladinho and other sites in Portugal. Specif- ic credits are included in the captions. Please note that only a few select Figures are printed in this book, while the entire set is freely available online at eScholarship. org, the website that provides open-access viewing of this work. The anonymous referees and the editorial board of California Classical Stud- ies were indispensable in reshaping this project from dissertation to publication ix x acknowledgments Donald Mastronarde read and commented on multiple drafts of this book, and it has improved a great deal thanks to his guidance. I am also thankful for the editorial assistance provided by Elizabeth Ditmars in the final stages of the manu- script’s preparation. Any remaining errors in the text are mine alone. This book was made possible by several institutions. The Department of Classics at the University at Buffalo supported my work in its doctoral program through fellowships, summer research funds, and teaching assistantships. The University at Buffalo also provided the software necessary for the chapter on visibility anal- ysis. Financial support for some of the fieldwork was also provided by the Mark Diamond Research Fund of the University at Buffalo’s Graduate Student Associ- ation. Over many summers, Rui Boaventura and Maia Langley of the PortAnta Research Cooperative provided me with food, shelter, and good company (the three primary needs of any archaeological research). I must thank them both for introducing me to the archaeology of Portugal. The completion of this research was made possible by a doctoral exchange fellowship offered by the Faculté des Lettres at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. My deepest gratitude goes to Brandi Bethke. She has enthusiastically supported and patiently endured the writing of my dissertation and the writing of this book. There are no words sufficient to express the depth of my affection. Thank you. Finally, this book is dedicated to my grandmother, Ava Crossno, who was an excellent storyteller. Joey Williams Norman, December 2016 list of figures and illustrations NOTE: The entire set of figures is available in open access online at eScholar- ship.org (search for the title of this book to locate the page for this book, which will have a link to the Supplement of images). Only a select set of figures (those marked with an asterisk below) are printed in this book (following Chapter 7) for the convenience of the reader. *Fig. 1.1. The central Alentejo, Portugal *Fig. 1.2. Map of small fortified structures in the central Alentejo Fig. 1.3. Defensive tower from the walls of the Roman town of Ammaia Fig. 2.1. The Serra d’Ossa viewed from near Alandroal, Portugal Fig. 2.2. Cities and settlements of the first century BCE central Alentejo Fig. 2.3. Marks of ancient tools from the quarries near Vila Viçosa, Portugal Fig. 2.4. An unnamed Roman mine near the site of Castelinhos do Rosário, Portugal Fig. 2.5. First century BCE structures from Rocha da Mina Fig. 2.6. Granite wine or olive press weight reused as a sundial at Santa Susana *Fig. 3.1. Watchtower on the Column of Trajan *Fig. 3.2. Watchtowers on the Column of Trajan Fig. 4.1. Visible schist walls from the fortim at Beiçudos (F2) Fig. 4.2. View of the fortim of Cortes (F5) from the north Fig. 4.3. Hydraulic feature encountered near Outeiro Pintado (F6) Fig. 4.4. Extant wall from the fortim at Três Moinhos (F7) Fig. 4.5. View from Monte do Almo (F8) toward the western pass over the Serra d’Ossa Fig. 4.6. View of Caladinho (F9) from the northwest Fig. 4.7. Castelinho (F10) from the north with the Ribeira de Lucefécit in the foreground Fig. 4.8. Castelinhos do Rosário (F12) from the air Fig. 4.9. Northern external wall from Castelinhos do Rosário (F12) Fig. 4.10. Interior of the cistern from Castelinhos do Rosário (F12) Fig.
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