A century of scientific research on the ancient harbours of the mediterranean: origins, developments and prospects

Abstract

Harbours are constantly changing: their appearance is changing (due to the different processes that affect the shoreline) and there is a continuous turnover of people within them (merchants, travellers, harbour workers, etc). This dynamism can partially justify why scholars became interested in the historical and archaeological study of harbour areas only in recent times. Actually, it is thanks to the methodological and theoretical advances made in the last century that this field of study has known a significant development. This contribution aims at reconstructing the historiography of ancient harbours, identifying its key-moments; it will seek to understand how epistemological and practical breakthroughs made possible for harbour studies to achieve their own intellectual maturity.