Craft industry

Objects found at the site expand our vision of the society beyond the king who is named in the texts, and beyond the elites who are represented in the statuary. They breathe life to the agriculturalists, fishermen and metallurgists, and to the stone, wood, tissue and leather workers. Fabrication waste products show that the bronze and glass workers, in addition to the architects and sculptors, were highly specialized and competent. Some of their traditional techniques were utilized for several centuries and are known elsewhere in Europe to the north and south of the Alpine arch. Were there also specialized iron and lead workers? Here the evidence is less clear. The distribution of remains (tools, slag, lead stocks) shows that these metals, as well as wood and stone, were worked everywhere in the city. The artisans worked at forges within their habitations, and performed all other activities as the need arose. But they also worked collectively, and perhaps permanently, at their battery of ovens.

The vision long held by historians, of an opposition between two sectors of the city, one reserved for the dwellings of the elites, and the other for craft and food producing activities, is now becoming blurred.