Bari prima dei Normanni: la città nell’alto medioevo e la documentazione archeologica. Primi dati da una ricerca in corso.

In order to define the image and the economic role of the city of Bari before its conquest by the Normans (1971), the paper considers the available archaeological data related to the excavations of the years 1982, 1984, 1987 near the Basilica of Saint Nicholas. The pottery finds reveal the active role of Bari to the network of relationships between the Adriatic Sea and the Southern-Eastern Mediterranean already in Late Antiquity. The data about the Byzantine city indicate the increasing importance of the urban centre with its territory as an active element of the economic life of the region, both in production and in trade, also on the base of the new institutional position of Bari as official seat of the Katapan since 10th century. During the entire 11th century, the archaeological data allow to identify both local manufactures and goods imported through trade lines operating in the Adriatic, Aegean and Southern Mediterranean Sea.