La Picola Fish Salting Factory

Portus Ilicitanus

Garum FactoryHispania Tarraconensis · Santa Pola, Alicante Province, SpainBuilt 1 CE · Destroyed 300 CE

About

This harbor town served as the port outlet for the inland colony of Ilici, its cetariae vats built specifically to render tuna and mackerel into garum for export. Warehouses, a necropolis, and a mosaic-floored villa grew up around the fish-salting works over the 1st century CE. By 117 CE Portus Ilicitanus had spent decades shipping preserved fish out through the same harbor that once brought colonists to Ilici.

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.