can include traces of such residues, but also provide direct evidence of
how food was consciously stored up and preserved. The space allocated
for food storage offers indirect evidence of private and collective strat-
egies to ensure the availability of essential and desirable resources.
The investigation of a range of country houses in Macedonia and
Thrace is beginning to reveal how these establishments operated as centres
of storage and consumption. Thefirst and perhaps the most important
impression that is gained from preliminary analyses of the organic remains
at country houses is their lack of uniformity. Each establishment operated
in a unique way. At Komboloi, south-east of Mount Olympus (Fig. 4.4), in
the original estate house dating from the end of the fourth and early third
centurybc, there were many standardized pyriform storageamphorae,
stacked in the living quarters and in the porticoes, and plentiful archaeo-
botanical evidence of grapes, raisins, olives, andfigs. The large quantities
of grape pips, together with a range ofpithoiin a dedicated store room, are
indicative of wine production on a scale that comfortably exceeded the
domestic needs of the householders. The combined range of activities,
tools, and facilities seems to point not just to storage, but to specialized
production of wine.^18 Whether the wine produced on this estate was
intended for the consumption of estate inhabitants and their guests only,
or, as seems more likely to the excavators, for sale, cannot be determined
from the incomplete state of the investigation, which did not explore the
whole estate, but only one section of the built-up area. The provision of a
separate complex, designated for storage, is in itself significant. The cer-
amic remains include a wide range of storage and tableware, pointing to a
level of dining of some distinction, with equipment to provide for a
household with high expectations and, it can be assumed, a varied diet
to match these.^19
(^18) Poulaki in Adam-Veleni et al., 2003, 63–70; detailed analysis and discussion in
Margaritis (2006, 34–5, 92–3, 111); the wine-processing plant was a lockable facility. Two
of the largepithoiat Komboloi had capacity equal to 170– 204 amphorae(Margaritis 2006,
113); one of these contained 8,000 grape pips. The AtticStelairefer to vessels with much
lower capacity:phidakne, a storage vessel with the capacity of 12amphorae; andpithoi, with
the capacity of 20amphorae. Whatever the size ofamphorain question, the vessels at
Komboloi were an order of magnitude larger (Amyx 1958, 170–3; Cahill 2002, 227, gives
the capacity of a storageamphoraat Olynthos as typically 15–25 litres, the largest some 70
litres (ibid. 229). Salviat estimated that thefirst vineyard belonging to the Athenian
Adeimantos on Thasos might have produced between 220 hl and 400 hl (= 2,200 litres)
per annum; the secondc.930 hl (= 9,300 litres), from a dozen hectares andc.30ha,
respectively (1986, 151; cf. Brun 2004, 94). The order of magnitude seems to be correct
(see further below and n.22). 19
The ceramic data has yet to be published. There are short reports by Poulaki 2003, 63–70,
and Margaritis 2006, 113.
278 Dining cultures