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Forging the Roman Rural Economy: A Blacksmithing Workshop and Its Tool Set at Marzuolo (Tuscany)

January 2022 (126.1)
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Forging the Roman Rural Economy: A Blacksmithing Workshop and Its Tool Set at Marzuolo (Tuscany)

126.1
Astrid Van Oyen
Gijs W. Tol
Rhodora G. Vennarucci
Alexander Agostini
Vincent Serneels
Anna Maria Mercuri
Eleonora Rattighieri
Alessandra Benatti
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As an Early Imperial rural site of approximately two hectares in the hinterland of southern Tuscany with evidence of crafting and dwelling, Marzuolo belongs to an expanding and diverse group of known Roman minor centers. Between 2017 and 2019, excavations at Marzuolo revealed a blacksmithing workshop that was in operation in the first half of the first century CE and was violently destroyed in a fire and abandoned thereafter. As a result, the Marzuolo smithy presents a unique opportunity to investigate a “living” workshop, complete with its ephemeral features, worked objects, and comprehensive tool set. After reconstructing the chaîne opératoire of blacksmithing in its spatial setting at Marzuolo, this article integrates the rare find of the in situ tool set to argue for both a greater geographical, social, and functional pervasiveness of metals in the Roman countryside than has hitherto been acknowledged and for the importance of minor centers in forging the ties that bound a dynamic rural economy.

More articles like this: 
Excavation
Metallurgy/Metalworking
Roman Period
Italy > Tuscany

Forging the Roman Rural Economy: A Blacksmithing Workshop and Its Tool Set at Marzuolo (Tuscany)
By Astrid Van Oyen, Gijs W. Tol, Rhodora G. Vennarucci, Alexander Agostini, Vincent Serneels, Anna Maria Mercuri, Eleonora Rattighieri, and Alessandra Benatti
American Journal of Archaeology Vol. 126, No. 1 (January 2022), pp. 53–77
DOI: 10.1086/718180
© 2022 Archaeological Institute of America

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