Post-doc Research Project

STORAGE IN TIME OF CRISIS. Pithoi at Pyla-Kokkinokremos (Cyprus) and in Eastern Mediterranean in the period of the Sea Peoples (end of the 13th century - early 12th century BC).

Postdoctoral Fellowship: F.R.S.-Incoming UCLouvain (01/10/2021-30/09/2023).

The main purpose of my project is to explain the nature and organisation of storage practices in the light of the events that flustered the Eastern Mediterranean at the time of action of the Sea Peoples, the crisis years of the end of the 13^th century and the early 12^thcentury. BC. I will look at the evidence from Pyla-Kokkinokremos (Cyprus), a short-lived settlement founded and deserted in few decades within this troubled period.

The research uses a bottom-up approach and explores storage vessels from a typological, technological and economic points of view. This detailed study is thus needed in order to test the hypothesis that storing practices in Pyla (and more in general in the eastern Mediterranean) could have been influenced by the insecurity feelings; people could have been pushed to store huge quantities of goods by the insecurity about the future and in view of a possible political and economic crisis (which indeed happened) at the close of the 13^th century.

Finally, my work puts special emphasis on the investigation of the production system(s) of this specialised class of vessels and of their circulation patterns in Cyprus and abroad.

Supervisor: Dr. Prof. Charlotte Langohr (F.R.S.-FNRS - UCLouvain, AegIS).

Education

• 2019: PhD thesis in Archaeology (Evaluation: excellent), Joint PhD at University La Sapienza (Rome, Italy) and Ghent University (Belgium). Title of the PhD dissertation: Value and Territories: Pithoi, storerooms, redistribution across the Eastern Mediterranean, Aegean and Italy during the Bronze Age (supervisors: Prof. Alessandro Vanzetti and Prof. Joachim Bretschneider).

• 2014: Master of Arts (cum laude), Archaeology, at University La Sapienza (Rome, Italy)

• 2010: Bachelor of Arts (cum laude), Cultural Heritage Science at University of Milan (Italy)

Choice of publications/conferences (5 max.)

• Porta F. (2021). "The use of the wheel in pithos production: preliminarily results and lessons learnt from experimental sessions", Interdisciplinaria Archaeologica.

• Lucejko J., La Nasa J., Porta F., Vanzetti A., Tanda G., Mangiaracina C.F., Corretti A., Colombini M.P., Ribechini E. (2018). "Long-lasting ergot lipids as new biomarkers for assessing the presence of cereals and cereal products in archaeological vessels", Scientific Reports, vol. 8.

• Porta, F. (2017). "A note on the pithoi", in Bretschneider J., Kanta, A. and Driessen J., Pyla-Kokkinokremos (Cyprus). Preliminary Report on the 2015-2016 Campaigns, Ugarit-Forschungen, vol. 48.

• Porta F., Cannavò V., "Pyla-Kokkinokremos in the LBA Mediterranean networks: a view from pithoi", International Conference on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East – 12th Annual Meeting, 6-10 April 2021, University di Bologna, Bologna.

• Porta F., "Pithos Production in the Late Bronze Age Southern Italy", Archaeological Approaches to the study of the Potter’s wheel, 24-28 November 2020, Online Conference, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam.

See also ResearchGate.