 - Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya - Barcelona 2014.JPG?width=800)
Villaricos Fish Salting Factory
About
Fish pools, warehouses, and wells lined the estuary shoreline at this old Phoenician trading post, declared a Roman municipality in 75 CE with its salted-fish industry already well established. Wealth from the sea here ran alongside silver drawn from the nearby Sierra Almagrera. By 117 CE Baria had spent decades as a working Roman town whose economy stood on salting vats as much as mining.
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.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →