Neapolis Garum Works
About
Divers surveying the seabed off Nabeul in 2017 found more than 100 rock-cut vats scattered across 20 submerged hectares, probably the largest garum-making complex the Roman world ever built. Individual tanks held up to 138 cubic meters of fermenting fish, with sardine and mackerel intestines liquefying under the Tunisian sun for months. Pliny rated Neapolis among the empire's best garum sources, and amphorae recovered from the site still hold gritty residue of sauce, fish bones, and tiny vertebrae. A fourth-century tsunami eventually swallowed the waterfront, but in Trajan's day the factory was running at full capacity.
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
- Archaeology.org, 'Ancient Sunken City Found Off the Coast of Tunisia' (2017)
- Slim, Bonifay, Piton, Sternberg, 'Fish salteries in Africa Proconsularis: the officinae of Neapolis', in Cetariae 2005, BAR IS 1686
Nearby
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