Esparto crafting under empire: Local technology and imperial industry in Roman Iberia

Abstract

Drawing on scholarship in postcolonial archaeology that emphasizes the place of indigenous technology in colonial and imperial contexts, this article explores the role of local communities in esparto grass weaving and basketry in the southeast Iberian Peninsula in antiquity. Esparto crafting became essential to Phoenician and Carthaginian colonial economies of the 1st millennium BCE and, later, to the production equipment for mining and other industries under Roman imperial rule. This paper uses ethnographic studies alongside archaeological evidence of esparto objects, particularly esparto mining equipment, to reconstruct the chaîne opératoire of ancient esparto crafting. It argues that local communities developed landscape learning and tactile technical knowledge surrounding esparto crafting over many generations. In supplying equipment essential to Roman mining, these communities used their technical knowledge to maintain agency and construct their identities under imperial rule. Ultimately, understanding esparto crafting helps elucidate the relationship between resources, technology, and imperial or colonial encounters.