Analyses on four African amphorae of Ostia LIX type found in the Rhône river indicated the disparate presence of Ben oil, wine and milk. According to ancient texts, Ben oil is part of ointments and flavours structural composition, which flavouring compounds are fixed on vegetable oils. Presence on four samples of a dominant biomarker suite from this oil gives reason to consider it as a primary content. However, the natural range of Moringa sp. oil tree in Africa does not cover the area where amphora production is supposed to be located (Africa Proconsularis and more specifically the north western region of current Tunisia) and the hypothesis of extensive cultivation of the species at the time in the area would be far stretched. This paradoxical analysis, linked to the interpretation of Pompeii painted inscriptions (see Bonifay M. et al., in this volume), leads us to consider that the primary contents of Ostia LIX could be olives preserved in brine. The impossibility to identify the biomarkers of olives wholly preserved yields the hypothesis of Ben oil as secondary contents. In order to understand the zone where the amphorae were reused, the research was focused on areas within the natural range of Moringa sp. and, among those, particularly Egypt where the presence of Ostia LIX amphorae is significant and where the use of Ben oil is documented in the period. We have, thus, contemplated that, leaving from Thabraca, these amphorae which were in all probability redistributed from Rome, could be recycled in Egypt with Ben oil. Further chemical analyses from different contexts are needed to allow us to strengthen these temporary conclusions.
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Djaoui et al. (2015) studied this question.