Introduction. The POMEDOR project “People, pottery and food in the medieval Eastern Mediterranean”
Résumé
Within the rapidly expanding area of research on food and foodways, the intention of the POMEDOR project was to explore and develop this field in the medieval Eastern Mediterranean, using a multidisciplinary archaeological, archaeometric and historical approach. It was mainly based on studies of different categories of pottery involved in the production, storage and transportation, preparation and cooking, and consumption of food – from transport amphorae to table wares, through cooking wares and sugar molds. Case studies from Greece, Turkey, Cyprus and the Levantine coast focused especially on developments in transitional periods related to new rules and to the arrival of new populations (Crusades, Turkish conquests), and to the cohabitation of populations having different cultural identities and food traditions (Byzantine, Latin, Muslim, Turkish and others). Examined in a broader context were changes in pottery repertoire in archaeological contexts with known dating and nature of occupation, adaptation of pottery production to new uses and fashions as shown by analyses of raw materials and techniques of manufacture, and food products revealed by analyses of organic residues. From preliminary approaches to medieval amphorae contents to regional syntheses on Crusader Cyprus and the Levant, from insights into the introduction of new wares and techniques in early Turkish western Anatolia to highlighting the prominent role of the harbor of Chalcis throughout the Byzantine and Frankish periods, the POMEDOR project provided new and steadier grounds on which further studies may be built. It also created research and educational tools and assembled a network of researchers contributing different specialties to the study of food and foodways, for a period and in a region in which such studies had been little developed thus far.