The article challenges the model of economic oppression in Galilee and argues that the development of Galilean fishing industry and trade gave an economic boost to the local economy. There has emerged a significant interest in ancient fishing technologies and fish production in recent classical scholarship. The article uses these discussions, together with recent archaeological findings in Galilee, especially in Magdala, to reconstruct a more accurate and nuanced portrait of the fishing economy in the region. It is argued that the expansion of the Galilean fishing economy opened up new economic possibilities not only for the elite but also for the members of local fishing collectives.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
S. De Luca and A. Lena, “Magdala/Taricheae,” in Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods, Volume 2: The Archaeological Record from Cities, Towns, and Villages (ed. D.A. Fiensy and J.R. Strange; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015) 280-342.
De Luca and Lena, “The Harbor,” 136-139. The continuation of the Roman quay to the northwest has been located in the excavations by the Universidad Anáhuac México Sur and Israel Antiquities Authority, see M. Zapata Meza, “Neue mexikanische Ausgrabungen in Magdala—das «Magdala Archaeological Project»,” in Bauern, Fischer und Propheten—Galiläa zur Zeit Jesu (ed. J.K. Zangenberg and J. Schröter; Darmstadt/Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2012) 85-98 (87, 89); D. Avshalom-Gorni and A. Najar, “Migdal,” Hadashot Arkheologiyot: Excavations and Surveys in Israel 125 (2013) http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/report_detail_eng.aspx?id=2304&mag_id=120, accessed in November 2016; De Luca and Lena “Magdala/Taricheae,” 308.
J.K. Zangenberg, “Archaeological News from Galilee: Tiberias, Magdala and Rural Galilee,” Early Christianity 1 (2011) 471-484 (476).
B. Callegher, “E le monete di Magdala ci raccontano che,” Terrasanta 4 (2009) 49; De Luca and Lena, “The Harbor,” 145.
Strabo, Geogr. 16.2.45: ἡ λίµνη µὲν ταριχείας ἰχθύων ἀστείας παρέχει. The name of the city is derived from the verb ταριχεύω (to preserve meat or fish by salting, pickling, or smoking) and related words (ἡ ταριχεία, a preserving, salting; in pl. αἱ ταριχεῖαι, factories for salting fish). For detailed discussions of the literary references to Taricheae and the idenfication of Taricheae with Magdala, see U. Leibner, Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Galilee: An Archaeological Survey of the Eastern Galilee (tsaj 127; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009) 217-221; De Luca and Lena, “The Harbor,” 280-291.
Avshalom-Gorni and Najar, “Migdal” (for the vats, see Fig. 6). The vats are associated with the production of fish also by De Luca and Lena, “Magdala/Taricheae,” 309; R. Bauckham and S. De Luca, “Magdala As We Now Know It,” Early Christianity 6 (2015) 91-118 (112).
A. Marzano, Harvesting the Sea: The Exploitation of Marine Resources in the Roman Mediterranean (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) 102-110.
See A. Trakadas, “The Archaeological Evidence for Fish Processing in the Western Mediterranean,” in Ancient Fishing and Fish Processing in the Black Sea Region (ed. T. Bekker-Nielsen; Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2005) 47-82 (56-57); J.M. Højte, “The Archaeological Evidence for Fish Processing in the Black Sea Region,” in Ancient Fishing and Fish Processing, 133-160 (142-148); A. Wilson, “Fishy Business: Roman Exploitation of Marine Resources,” jra 19 (2006) 525-537 (527); “Fish-Salting Workshops in Sabratha,” in Congreso Internacional Cetariae 2005: Salsas y Salazones de pescado en occidente durante la antigüedad (ed. L. Lagóstena, D. Bernal and A. Arévalo; baris 1686; Oxford: Archaeopress, 2007) 173-181; Ellis, “The Rise,” 61-67; Marzano, Harvesting, 98-102.
Wilson, “Fish-Salting Workshops,” 173-181; Marzano, Harvesting, 98-99.
Ellis, “The Rise,” 61-67. The vats were in use from the second half of the second century bce to the last years of the first century bce.
Wilson, “Fishy Business,” 527. For example, a Byzantine edict (Hexabiblos 2.4.22) tries to restrict the manufacture of garum and cheese within a city.
R.I. Curtis, Garum and Salsamenta: Production and Commerce in Materia Medica (Studies in Ancient Medicine 3; Brill: Leiden, 1991) 151.
Thus Curtis, Garum, 148-152; “Sources for Production and Trade of Greek and Roman Processed Fish,” in Ancient Fishing and Fish Processing in the Black Sea Region (ed. T. Bekker-Nielsen; Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2005) 31-46 (37); Marzano, Harvesting, 116-117.
D. Kraemer, “Food, Eating, and Meals,” in The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Daily Life in Roman Palestine (ed. C. Hezser; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 403-419 (409-411). See also J.D. Rosenblum, Food and Identity in Early Rabbinic Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) 185-192.
J. Lev-Tov, “ ‘Upon What Meat Doth This Our Caesar Feed . . .?’ A Dietary Perspective on Hellenistic and Roman Influence in Palestine,” in Zeichen aus Text und Stein: Studien auf dem Weg zu einer Archäologie des Neuen Testaments (ed. S. Alkier and J. Zangenberg; Texte und Arbeiten zum neutestamentlichen Zeitalter 42; Tübingen: Francke, 2003) 420-446 (432).
A. Fradkin, “Long-Distance Trade in the Lower Galilee: New Evidence from Sepphoris,” in Archaeology and the Galilee: Texts and Contexts in the Greco-Roman and Byzantine Periods (ed. D.R. Edwards and C.T. McCollough; Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1997) 107-115.
J. Lepiksaar, “Fish Remains from Tell Hesban, Jordan,” in Faunal Remains: Taphonomical and Zooarchaeological Studies of the Animal Remains from Tell Hesban and Vicinity (ed. Ø.S. LaBianca and A. von den Driesch; Hesban 13; Berrien Springs: Andrews University Press, 1995) 169-210 (173-175, 188-192).
For the inscription, see Lytle, “Marine Fisheries,” 76-78; Marzano, Harvesting, 42-43. Marzano comments that the inscription possibly but not certainly dates to the first century bce.
Cf. P. Ørsted, “Salt, Fish and the Sea in the Roman Empire,” in Meals in a Social Context: Aspects of the Communal Meal in the Hellenistic and Roman World (ed. I. Nielsen and H. Sigismund Nielsen; Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1998) 13-35 (19). Ørsted says that is was a communis opinio among earlier scholars that fishing was the monopoly of the state.
See Ørsted, “Salt,” 20; E. Lytle, “Ἡ θάλασσα κοινή: Fishermen, the Sea and the Limits of Ancient Greek Regulatory Reach,” ClAnt 31 (2012) 1-55 (8-9); Marzano, Harvesting, 241.
Lytle, “Fish Lists,” 275; “A Customs House of Our Own: Infrastructure, Duties and a Joint Association of Fishermen and Fishmongers (ik, 11.1a-Ephesos, 20),” in Tout vendre, tout acheter; Structures et équipements des marchés antiques: Actes du colloque d’Athènes, 16-19 juin 2009 (ed. V. Chankowski and P. Karvonis; Scripta antiqua 42; Bordeaux: Ausonius/Athens: Ècole française d’Athènes, 2012) 213-224 (217-218); Marzano, Harvesting, 243.
Lytle, “A Customs House,” 220. Thus also Marzano, Harvesting, 245.
F. Udoh, “Taxation and Other Sources of Government Income in the Galilee of Herod and Antipas,” in Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods, Volume 1: Life, Culture, and Society (ed. D.A. Fiensy and J.R. Strange; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014) 366-387 (380).
B. Callegher, “Note su un peso fenicio in piombo da Magdala,” Quaderni Ticinesi di Numismatica e di Antichità Classiche 37 (2008) 321; S. De Luca, “La città ellenistico-romana di Magdala /Tarichaee. Gli scavi del Magdala Project 2007 e 2008: Relazione preliminare e prospettive di indagine,” sbfla 59 (2009) 343-562 (371-372).
For the text of the weight, see Qedar, “Two Lead Weights,” 29; Kushnir-Stein, “Two Inscribed Lead Weights,” 144; M. Sigismund, “Small Change? Coins and Weights as a Mirror of Ethnic, Religious and Political Identity in First and Second Century c.e. Tiberias,” in Religion, Ethnicity, and Identity in Ancient Galilee: A Region in Transition (ed. J. Zangenberg, H.W. Attridge and D.B. Martin; wunt 210; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2007) 315-336 (332).
Qedar, “Two Lead Weights,” 32-33. For agoranomoi in rabbinic sources, see D. Sperber, “On the Office of the Agoranomos in Roman Palestine,” zdmg 127 (1977) 227-243. For the role of agoranomoi in Roman Palestine markets, see B.-Z. Rosenfeld and J. Manirav, Markets and Marketing in Roman Palestine (JSJSup 99, Leiden: Brill, 2005) 160-163.
Bekker-Nielsen, “The One That Got Away,” 126-127. Cf. Philo, Spec. 4.193: “Again those who handle weights and scales and measures, merchants, pedlars and retailers and all others who sell goods to sustain life, solid or liquid, are no doubt subject to market-controllers” (ἀγορανόµοι; translated by F. H. Colson in lcl).
Lytle, “Fish Lists,” 253-303. Two Hellenistic fish lists dated to the late third century bce have been found in the Boiotian town Akraiphia and in Delphi.
Lytle, “Fish Lists,” 290. Thus also Marzano, Harvesting, 283-284.
Cf. Apuleius, Metam. 1.25-26 referred to by Bekker-Nielsen, “The One That Got Away”, 125-126.
S.L. Mattila, “Revisiting Jesus’ Capernaum: A Village of Only Subsistence-Level Fishers and Farmers,” in The Galilean Economy in the Time of Jesus (ed. D.A. Fiensy and R.K. Hawkins; sblecl 11; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013) 75-138; “Capernaum, Village of Nahum, from Hellenistic to Byzantine Times,” in Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods, Volume 2: The Archaeological Record from Cities, Towns, and Villages(ed. D.A. Fiensy and J.R. Strange; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015) 217-257.
Thus also J. Zangenberg, Magdala am See Gennesaret: Überlegungen zur sogenannten “mini-sinagoga” und einige andere Beobachtungen zum kulturellen Profil des Ortes in neutestamentlichen Zeit (Waltrop: Hartmut Spenner, 2001) 61-62; J.S. Kloppenborg, “Q, Bethsaida, Khorazin and Capernaum,” in Q In Context, Vol. ii: Social Setting and Archaeological Background of the Sayings Source (ed. M. Tiwald; bbb 173; Bonn/Göttingen: Bonn University Press/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015) 61-90 (86-88).
Cf. D.R. Edwards, “Identity and Social Location in Roman Galilean Villages,” in Religion, Ethnicity, and Identity in Ancient Galilee: A Region in Transition (ed. J. Zangenberg, H.W. Attridge and D.B. Martin; wunt 210; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2007) 357-374; S.L. Mattila, “Inner Village Life in Galilee: A Diverse and Complex Phenomenon,” in Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods, Volume 1: Life, Culture, and Society(ed. D.A. Fiensy and J.R. Strange; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014) 312-345.
A. Wilson, “The Economic Influence of Developments in Maritime Technology in Antiquity,” in Maritime Technology in the Ancient Economy: Ship-Design and Navigation (ed. W.V. Harris and K. Iara; JRASup 84; Portsmouth, Rhode Island: jra, 2011) 211-233.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 487 | 84 | 4 |
Full Text Views | 326 | 13 | 1 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 214 | 32 | 2 |
The article challenges the model of economic oppression in Galilee and argues that the development of Galilean fishing industry and trade gave an economic boost to the local economy. There has emerged a significant interest in ancient fishing technologies and fish production in recent classical scholarship. The article uses these discussions, together with recent archaeological findings in Galilee, especially in Magdala, to reconstruct a more accurate and nuanced portrait of the fishing economy in the region. It is argued that the expansion of the Galilean fishing economy opened up new economic possibilities not only for the elite but also for the members of local fishing collectives.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 487 | 84 | 4 |
Full Text Views | 326 | 13 | 1 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 214 | 32 | 2 |