MARKETS, AMPHORA TRADE AND WINE INDUSTRY 235
stamps. By approaching the problem quantitatively, one can interpret the
low annual figures as an indication of scanty supply, and therefore analyze
these numbers as an indication of small-scale opportunistic trade. For exam-
ple, based on the information published for Histria, Brunet ( 2004 : 85) has
concluded that Thasian amphora exports to the Black Sea ‘represent the
cargoes of only a few ships a year’ (‘ne correspondent qu’à la cargaison de
quelques bateaux par an.’)
However, the archaeological record is rarely complete and provides onlyproxy data, which represent merely an unquantifiable part of the original
total. A single stamp from a given year found at one site certainly does not
indicate that one ship entered the city’s harbor that year to sell just one
amphora. It means only that one stamp from this year has been discovered
at this site. Hundreds or thousands of jars may have been sold in that year,
but still remain unexcavated or completely lost to the archaeological rec-
ord. The real numbers are beyond recovery, but the available ones are still
valuable because they reveal an important fact: the regularity of the sup-
plies. In some of the cities mentioned, particularly in those in which levels
dated to the fourth and third centuries have been excavated, the collections
of Thasian stamps cover significant time periods, in which all, or almost all,
annual officials are attested on the preserved stamps. At Histria for exam-
ple, from the beginning of chronological group F1 to the end of group
VIII, a period of roughly 75 years, there are only two years without Thasian
stamps.^5 A similar situation occurs at Callatis: for an eighty year period
(between groups I and XI), only five annual officials are missing.^6 In Athens,
with small gaps here and there, the Thasian stamps cover a period of more
than two centuries.^7 Because we are dealing with small annual amounts,
there is a strong possibility that future discoveries of stamped amphoras will
provide the names of missing officials. One should also consider the pos-
sibility that some amphoras were sold not in the year during which they
were manufactured, but at a later date. Yet this would not change the overall
impression of remarkably steady commercial relations.
The regularity with which Thasian amphoras were supplied over long peri-ods to distant places confirms that there were communities that recognized
and requested the commodities contained in them. This reveals another way
one can speak of a market for Thasian wine, namely, in the sense of a demand
for a particular commodity. With the present state of knowledge any attempt
to quantify this demand, or the absolute volumes of the supplies, would be
widely off the mark. But quantification is not really necessary to reach a sig-
nificant conclusion: the existence of a continuous and regular supply by itself
implies that demand was high and constant enough to justify the costs and
risks of long-distance shipments.