The harbourscape of Gades: An archaeological and geoarchaeological state-of-the-art El paisaje portuario de Gades: un estado del arte arqueológico y geoarqueológico En Es

Résumé En

Gadir/Gades was undoubtedly the most important port city in the Western Mediterranean in diachrony, from the Phoenician Archaic period to at least the Antonine or early Severan times. Studies in recent years have made it possible to update our knowledge of its port system, a synthesis of which, with new data, is presented in these pages. Firstly, we analyse the Roman wharfs known in the bay, of which there are currently two (“Los Cargaderos”, from the Flavian period, a platform in the inner area of the bay made from reused amphorae; and the “Depósito de Tormentas”, an area of interconnection of the north coast of the island of Antipolis - now San Fernando - with the bay between the Late Punic period and the High Empire). And secondly, by analysing and discussing the evidence of the main port of Cadiz, so important in the Atlantic-Mediterranean redistribution trade. On the one hand, the data provided by classical sources (basically Strabo), which allude to the famous Portus Gaditanus built by Cornelius Balbus the younger on the mainland, and to an existing dyke in the urban port, from which Posidonius studied the tides. Secondly, the known archaeological evidence, ancient and recent, which allows us to approach the ancient physiognomy of the port and its associated land infrastructures: from the important lighthouse (or lighthouses) of Cadiz, known by graffiti from the late Roman period (5th century A.D.) and recurrently cited by medieval Christian and Islamic sources (8th-14th century A.D.); through some rescue excavations that have allowed us to verify the existence of monumentalised shores between the islands (the result of the so-called cura riparum); to the recent discovery of the so-called Halieutic Testaccio of Gades, a periurban rubbish dump managed by the municipium, closely linked to port activities. Particularly relevant are the geoarchaeological investigations carried out in recent years under the Valcárcel Building, opposite the beach of La Caleta, which have renewed our knowledge of the palaeotopography of the archipelago. The insular nature of the city throughout antiquity has been maintained, with the port structures on both sides of the inter-island strait that separated the larger island (Cotinusa) from the smaller one.