Salting vats (piletas) of the Roman fish factory, Parque Smith, Algeciras · Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA)

Algeciras Fish Salting Factory

Caetaria (Portus Albus)

Garum FactoryHispania Baetica · Algeciras, Cadiz Province, SpainBuilt 1 CE

About

A fishing settlement called Caetaria on the Strait of Gibraltar took its very name from the salting vats, or cetariae, that anchored its economy. Founded around the 1st century BCE near the mouth of the Picaro River, the settlement's name survived antiquity, softening through the Middle Ages into Xetares and then the modern Getares, the bay where the ruins sit today. The surviving tanks, now preserved in a public park, cured fish caught in the same strait that fed Baelo Claudia's factories just up the coast. Spain declared the site a protected cultural asset, a Bien de Interes Cultural, on 27 June 2002.

What happened here

Rows of stone vats sunk into the ground beside the sea, and the smell reaches a long way inland. Small fish and the guts of larger ones are layered with salt and left in the sun for weeks; the liquid that separates off is drawn away as fish sauce and the residue is sold cheaply as paste. Grades run from a luxury sauce that costs more than good wine down to the version bought by everyone else. Tunny is netted in season from lookout towers on the headland, and the fishing, salting, potting and shipping all happen within a few hundred metres. Amphorae are stamped with the maker's name. Towns built on this are rich, and they are built downwind of themselves.