In 2017 Alessandra Pecci (Ramón i Cajal; ERAAUB) and Paul Reynolds (ICREA; ERAAUB) were given a three-year grant (2017-2020) by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad for the analysis of early Imperial Roman amphora contents from excavations in Cadiz, Rome and Pompeii: HAR2017-84242-P: Ánforas romanas y análisis de contenidos. El consumo de alimentos de la Baetica, Africa y el Oriente levantino en Gades, Pompeii y Roma (ss I a.C.- I d.C.) (RACAMed).

In this first stage, the project concentrated on identifying the content of specific amphorae of the 1st century BC and 1st century AD, with a series of analyses being applied to North African and Baetican ovoid amphorae for the first time. Work was carried out in collaboration with D. Bernal Casasola and his team from the University of Cadiz on Baetican amphorae recovered in Cadiz at the garum factory site of El Olivillo.  Ovoid 1 and 5 amphorae of the 1st century BC produced in Cadiz and the ‘Circulo del Estrecho’ were analysed and wine products were  identified in many (Pecci et al. 2020). Samples of Haltern 70 amphorae from El Olivillo also evidence both wine (one example only) and either re-use or mixtures of substances.

Early Roman African amphorae were analysed in collaboration with A. Contino and L. Toniolo, primarily from Pompeii, with some from La Longarina-Ostia. Most of them were selected among the amphorae already studied petrologically by Contino and Capelli in order to identify their provenance. Though these amphorae were expected to contain olive oil or olives, and thus represent precursors of the major oil exports of the Imperial period, all those that were recovered in Pompeii bore traces of wine residues and some bore a mix of wine and possible plant oils. Experiments are currently in progress to understand if the data can be the result of a re-use of the amphorae or could possibly be interpreted as olives in vinegar (Pecci et al. 2021).

In collaboration with the Parco Archeologico di Pompei, during RACAMed I and II, early Imperial Agora G 198 amphorae from eastern Cilicia were also sampled, a distinctive variant of Koan-style amphorae with large, bowed double-rod ‘horn’ handles and a wider neck and body than usual, a type particularly common in Pompeii. As expected, given the special typological characteristics of this type, there were wine residues in some cases combined with other vegetal and animal substances. Further work is needed to determine if this amphora, as well as another similar type from the same region (Agora M 54), carried a mixed product, such as garum with wine, attested by the sources.