Ground up Spices: Investigating the Role of the Marginalized and Unseen in the Distribution, Processing and Consumption of Spices and Aromatics During the Roman Imperial Period

A confluence of new perspectives, techniques and bodies of evidence is substantially altering our understanding of the economic and social impacts of spice and aromatic consumption within the Roman Empire during the early to mid-first millennium CE. Earlier discourses, which were heavily informed by textual analysis, often focused on the (negative) economic impacts of the “spice trade” and elite conspicuous consumption. However, new methods of analysis and bodies of data (notably archaeobotanical remains) have made it increasingly apparent that a much wider proportion of the population were engaged in the consumption of these spices than has often been assumed (Rowan 2017; Cobb 2018; Simmons 2021) and that the volume of goods being moved presented a significant organisational and logistical undertaking (Cobb 2022). Furthermore, archaeometric methods (like residue analysis) are enabling a more complex understanding of the processing of these spices and aromatics and the materiality of the objects linked to their consumption (Ribechini et al. 2008; Cramp and Evershed 2015). It is evident that marginalised individuals were (in)directly tied into this phenomenon. Particularly the enslaved, who played important roles in activities like incense production, perfume manufacture and food preparation, and non-elites involved in their transit (including nomads). The present paper investigates the distribution, processing and consumption of spices and aromatics from a ground up perspective. Special attention is paid to way that new (archaeometric) techniques and bodies of evidence can be integrated into our historical analysis.