Department of Archaeology, BioArCh, University of York, York, United Kingdom.
Dipartimento di Storia, Patrimonio Culturale, Formazione e Società, Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy.
PLoS One. 2021 Jun 9;16(6):e0252225. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0252225. eCollection 2021.
Sicily, during the 9th-12th century AD, thrived politically, economically, and culturally under Islamic political rule and the capital of Palermo stood as a cultural and political centre in the Mediterranean Islamic world. However, to what extent the lifeways of the people that experienced these regimes were impacted during this time is not well understood, particularly those from lesser studied rural contexts. This paper presents the first organic residue analysis of 134 cooking pots and other domestic containers dating to the 9th -12th century in order to gain new insights into the culinary practices during this significant period. Ceramics from three sites in the urban capital of Palermo and from the rural town of Casale San Pietro were analysed and compared. The multi-faceted organic residue analysis identified a range of commodities including animal products, vegetables, beeswax, pine and fruit products in the ceramics, with a complex mixing of resources observed in many cases, across all four sites and ceramic forms. Alongside the identification of commodities and how they were combined, new light has been shed on the patterning of resource use between these sites. The identification of dairy products in calcite wares from the rural site of Casale San Pietro and the absence of dairy in ceramics from the urban centre of Palermo presents interesting questions regarding the role of rural sites in food consumption and production in Islamic Sicily. This is the first time organic residue analysis of ceramics has been used to explore foodways in a medieval multi-faith society and offers new pathways to the understanding of pottery use and resources that were prepared, consumed and combined, reflecting cuisine in different socio-economic environments within the pluralistic population of medieval Sicily.
公元 9 世纪至 12 世纪的西西里岛，在伊斯兰政治统治下，政治、经济和文化蓬勃发展，其首府巴勒莫成为地中海伊斯兰世界的文化和政治中心。然而，在这段时间里，经历这些政权的人们的生活方式在多大程度上受到了影响，特别是在那些研究较少的农村背景下，这一点还不是很清楚。本文首次对 9 至 12 世纪 134 个烹饪锅和其他家用容器的有机残留物进行了分析，以期深入了解这一重要时期的烹饪习俗。对巴勒莫市首府和农村城镇卡萨尔圣彼得罗的三个遗址的陶器进行了分析和比较。多方面的有机残留物分析确定了一系列商品，包括动物产品、蔬菜、蜂蜡、松树和水果产品，在许多情况下，在所有四个遗址和陶器形式中都观察到了资源的复杂混合。除了确定商品及其组合方式外，还对这些遗址之间资源使用模式的多样性有了新的认识。在卡萨尔圣彼得罗农村遗址的方解石陶器中发现了奶制品，而在巴勒莫市的城市中心的陶器中却没有奶制品，这就提出了一个有趣的问题，即农村遗址在伊斯兰西西里岛的食物消费和生产中扮演了什么角色。这是首次利用陶瓷的有机残留物分析来探索中世纪多种信仰社会的饮食方式，并为理解陶器用途和资源提供了新的途径，这些资源反映了中世纪西西里多元人口中不同社会经济环境下的烹饪方式。
