An urban warehouse for foodstuffs in the Iulia Valentia Banasa colony (Mauretania Tingitana, Morocco)

Abstract

The archaeological evidence of grain stores and warehouses in North Africa is limited; knowledge is mainly based on epigraphic and literary sources. The recent research conducted by INSAP of Rabat and Siena University in the city of Thamusida (Morocco) shed new light on the study of large and small warehouses. This article identifies a quadrangular building with buttresses in the city of Banasa as another example of a warehouse built to satisfy the need of an urban micro-economy. The study includes a modelling of the territorial context in the period between the end of the 1st century A.D. and the second half of the 2nd century A.D., when with the construction of the great horreum of Thamusida, it is argued the Banasitan grain was included in the cereal production context on an extra-territorial scale.

Keywords

• Morocco
• Mauretania Tingitana
• Iulia Valentia Banasa (Sidi Ali Bou Djenoun)
• warehouses
• storage
• cereal production