The Etruscan World (Routledge Worlds)

• Jean Gran-Aymerich –

in both arenas, as Livy recalled. Based on the data furnished by Carthage and Marseille,
and the study of Etruscan relations with these two major colonial foundations, the one
Phoenician, the other Greek, which played a signifi cant role in the maritime history of
the western Mediterranean, I have formulated the hypothesis of the Etruscan “fonduk”
(Arabic funduq, a sort of inn or manor house, see below).

THE HYPOTHESIS OF THE ARCHAIC

ETRUSCAN FONDUK

The word fonduk (fondaco, fondouk, fonde), borrowed from the Arabic language, appeared
in the twelfth century ad to designate the warehouse or storage unit in a Mediterranean
commercial city open to foreign powers referred to as pandokeion in Greek.^92 Specifi cally,
it is where ships are authorized to drop off merchandise, as well as a place for lodgings,
meetings, and diplomatic accommodations. The traits that seem to defi ne an archaic
fonduk are:

1. The presence of a coherent and homogeneous ensemble of imported objects and
   merchandise in a structure.


2. This ensemble of imports is relatively small and remarkable in its fi nd context.


3. The imports come from maritime transport.


4. The discovery site has a quay.


5. This quay connects with a habitation and forms a continuous entity with either a city
   or a neighboring major habitation.


6. The imports are concentrated in a peripheral position of the habitation and in close
   proximity to the port region.


7. In best-case scenarios a construction is identifi ed as a warehouse, residence or meeting
   house.


8. The historic context may support the hypothesis of a fonduk: that is to say, an
   architectural complex with warehouse, place of lodging and meeting, used for
   transactions, accords or ceremonies tied to on-going commercial ventures.

Profi les of different possible Etruscan fonduks

An establishment of this type for Etruscan merchants and sailors could have been located
in an emporium or a colony of a powerful naval ally or even in a native port context.
According to our present documentation, the hypothesis of an Etruscan fonduk is likely
in three separate instances: in the Greek colonial context (Marseille, Ampurias), in the
indigenous context (Saint-Blaise, Lattes, Ullastret, Huelva) and in the Punic colonial
context (Carthage, Malaga).
The Greek colonial context: at Marseille, the fi rst building complex on Îlot rue
Cathédrale, located right next to the anchorage of the western habitation, has furnished
the most remarkable batch of Etruscan ceramics in ancient Massalia, all from an early
sixth-century stratigraphy. The most ancient building, dated to between 600 and 580,
was designated by Lucien François Gantès during the excavation as the “Etruscan House”
because of the number and variety of Etruscan vases in bucchero, Etruscan common wares
in impasto, Etrusco-Corinthian wares, and transport amphorae. At the building site of
Collège Vieux Port, also near the anchorage, the architectural complex interpreted as a