Harbour Facilities at the Fish-salting Production Centre of Tróia (Portugal)

Abstract

The site of Tróia is a well-known archaeological site for its outstanding fish-salting production activity. Located in the Sado River estuary and part of Lusitania province, presents, on the shoreline, in the area of the so-called “Porto Romano”, two very thick walls with rounded corners that face the estuary. Is it possible to interpret them as harbour structures? The majority of the fish-salting factories and workshops identified in Tróia extend along the north shore of the archaeological site along c. 1km. Next to this long line of fish-salting infrastructures and other buildings is the so-called “Fundão de Tróia”, a sub aquatic area 25 to 28m deep in the south channel of the Sado River estuary, where many vessels and objects were collected, most of them amphorae, suggesting an anchorage area. The shoreline was extensively eroded, but docks or harbour constructions were needed to disembark raw materials and empty containers and embark products for sale. As traditionally viewed, the large walls parallel to the coastline with a building on the rear could be a harbour, but they may also act as a bulwark, shielding against high tides several times a year. This paper presents these masonry structures in the shoreline of Tróia and discuss for the first time the type of harbour infrastructure and port operation of this fluvial-maritime interface.