Too Much and Never Enough: Timber Supply and Storage at the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delos (314-167 BCE)

This paper investigates the acquisition and management of timber in the sanctuary of Apollo at Delos during the island’s political independence (314-167 BCE). Delos is one of several sanctuaries (such as Delphi, Eleusis, and Epidaurus) that published detailed epigraphic records relating to construction expenses and sacrificial expenditures that include timber (Meiggs 1982); the investigation of these records, however, has been largely limited to the study of craftsmen and artists (Feyel 2006; Burford 1969), temple banking (Chankowski 2019), and price data to reconstruct regional economic networks (Reger 1994). In addition, the evidence for the purchase and management of timber at a sanctuary is typically limited in chronological scope or it focuses on a single structure or building project. This paper, in contrast, analyzes the annually published records from the sanctuary of Apollo at Delos over the course of the island’s independence—specifically its financial transactions and inventory records-–to argue that they can be read chronologically to reveal dynamic institutional responses to issues of timber supply and demand, and problems of timber storage in a sanctuary that was constantly under construction. IG XI.2.161, for instance, details over a dozen construction projects within the sanctuary during a single year (278 BCE). Records reveal the names of over sixty merchants from Delos and beyond who sold timber. The number of vendors who appear annually drastically varies according to the volume of construction in the sanctuary (ten at most in 273 BCE): the vast majority are listed only once, and most were not established in the larger Delian political and social community. Additionally, the sanctuary rented out purpose-built woodsheds for additional sacred revenue and instead elected to (re)use sacred structures and even interior temple space as timber storage locations. Finally, these sacred records clearly indicate the value of timber in the sanctuary of Apollo. Over the course of independence, information about timber grows in detail on sanctuary records, becomes consistently more organized according to timber size and species, and is even placed on a standard location on the inscribed stele.