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of them (MOB 3 and MOB 4) can be identified as of Aegean origin (Kapitän 2/Augst 54/
Keay 12/Peacock & Williams 47/Niederbieber 77/Berenice MRA 7/ Robinson
M237/Ostia 6). The third one (MOB 5), even if its bulging neck is reminiscent of eastern
Mediterranean shapes, belongs to a less well-documented type.
Amphoras MOB 3 and MOB 4 represent an easily recognizable type, widespread
throughout almost all the provinces of the Roman empire, manufactured from the second
to the fifth centuries A.D. The first discovery of this type occurred in 1914, at the frontier
of the empire: Niederbieber on the Rhine, Germany. 197 Excavations at the Athenian
Agora and at the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore in Corinth have revealed several more
examples, in stratigraphic contexts ranging from the early third to the early fifth century
A.D. 198 The texture of the fabric is reminiscent of amphoras produced at Kos, and
according to S. J. Keay it is likely that these containers were manufactured there. 199
Traces of pitch may suggest that this type was used for the transportation of wine. 200
Gerhard Kapitän was the first to document the type aboard Roman Imperial
merchantmen. In 1971 he published two necks from the Marzamemi 1 marble carrier
(broadly dated to the third century A.D.), and in 1972 a few more identical containers
were recorded from the third-century A.D. Ognina wreck. 201 The discovery, in the same
wreck, of a group of four Severan coins withdrawn from circulation in the years 210-215
A.D. provided a useful terminus post quem to date this cargo. 202
197 Keay 1984, 136.
198 Athens: see Robinson 1959, 69, plate 15, K 113; 77, plate 16, L 33; 106, plate 28, M 237; 110, plate 29,
M 274; 112, plate 31, M 303; Corinth: see Warner Slane 1990, 108-17, fig. 254, plate 15, n. 254.
199 Keay 1984, 137.
200 Panella 1973, 599; Freschi 1987, 5.
201 Kapitän 1971, 303, figs. 6-10; Kapitän 1972, 246, fig. 4.
202 Price 1974, 151-3.
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