Le travail des peaux et du cuir durant le Haut-Empire à Bordeaux/Burdigala (Gironde), d’après les vestiges mis au jour sur le site de la rue Jean-Fleuret

Abstract

Successive excavations in and around the Mériadeck neighbourhood of Bordeaux have revealed the occupation of a humid suburban area on the western edge of the city’s capital, dominated by numerous small streams and regularly affected by flooding. From the 1st century BC onwards, it is particularly indicative of the establishment of iron and non-ferrous metalworking crafts, as well as workshops dedicated to the working of hides, leather, animal bones and possibly textiles. Strong clues point to the immediate proximity of the oldest glassmaking workshop in Burdigala, as well as the presence of horn makers.Within this artisanal neighbourhood, the Jean-Fleuret site offers an exceptional mix of archaeological material, including: 8,800 botanically tanned leather scraps, 26 of which bear tanners’ marks, over 6,300 animal bone remains, wooden objects and equipment, specific tools and alum amphorae from Lipari. This evidence sheds light on techniques used in hide working and the production of leather goods in the Early Roman Empire. It also serves at least partially to reveal the organization of this kind of workshop and the operational sequence of the crafts practised in it. Its importance and novelty lie in the fact that it provides insight into a poorly known and under-documented craft, that of hide working, as well as the production of leather objects. It also enables us to track the changes in workshop practices over almost a century.From the earliest period, between 50 and 110/120, artisanry was practiced around a large earthen and wooden building erected on the highest part of the site. Close to the Peugue stream, to the south, a 65 m2 basin may have been used as an area for “river work”, the purpose of which was to clean, scrape and prepare hides for further processing. To the north, a tank with a capacity of almost 2 m3, with clay-sealed walls, was undoubtedly used to impregnate goat skins with a mixture including alum and/or oil, and may also have been used for “chamoisage” or buffing. The building would then have housed the dressing-finishing activities, together with the production of objects from tanned hides processed in another workshop and alum-treated hides. Olive oil was used to treat goat skins, but it is not known whether it was used during the alum treatment, during the dressing-finishing operations or whether it was used to buff the skins, i.e. for oil-only treatment. The use of lithic macro-tools and metal pins is also linked to the specific treatment of the hides of small ruminants, whether for finishing or to facilitate the impregnation of treatment products. A circular, recessed hearth may have been used to heat the room in which these activities took place, in this case acting as an oven to facilitate oil penetration during lubrication. It may also have been used to heat water, fat or any other liquid in an overhead container. The cupped quadrangular pits identified in the other rooms could have been used for finishing, a process in which various substances were applied and the skins were buffed.Between 110/120 and 130/140, the workshop’s specialty changed. The focus shifted from goats to adult cattle. This is the first evidence in Antiquity of the use of alum for the “whitening” of cattle hides, a process previously thought to have appeared in modern times. The use of alum increased, while Baetican olive oil was no longer employed. Hides of this type may have been finished using locally-sourced vegetable oils, such as linseed, with which it is possible to produce a glue used in the manufacture of a “white finishing paste”. Animal fats can also be used exclusively to treat these hides. The dressing and finishing processes differed from those used for goatskins, with no macro-tools or iron plugs being employed.Later, long-bone and horn production supplemented the work on cattle hides. Leather objects continued to be assembled, although it is not clear whether tanned cattle hides were used. Nearby, a glassmaker’s workshop appears. The craft activity identified at Jean-Fleuret ceased around 150/160, at which time the area appears to have been put under cultivation, perhaps until the end of the 2nd century. The neighbouring site of Fly Islet, 100 m to the east, then appears to have taken over in terms of craft activity, as indicated by the series of vats comparable to those at Jean-Fleuret, distributed within two spaces separated by a line of wooden stakes and piles perpendicular to the channel and served by a wooden landing stage. By the 3rd century, the installations had been abandoned, and a midden on the banks of the river reflects activity practised nearby by horn-makers, in the vicinity of which hide-processing probably remained active, indicated by the combined presence of Lipari amphorae and African oil amphorae.