Ancient Roman pottery

Monte Testaccio is a huge waste mound in Rome made almost entirely of broken amphorae used for transporting and storing liquids and other products – in this case probably mostly Spanish olive oil, which was landed nearby, and was the main fuel for lighting, as well as its use in the kitchen and washing in the baths.

The manufacture of fine wares such as terra sigillata took place in large workshop complexes that were organised along industrial lines and produced highly standardised products that lend themselves well to precise and systematic classification.

Pottery is a key material in the dating and interpretation of archaeological sites from the Neolithic period onwards, and has been minutely studied by archaeologists for generations.

Although there were many types of fine pottery, for example drinking vessels in very delicate and thin-walled wares, and pottery finished with vitreous lead glazes, the major class is the Roman red-gloss ware of Italy and Gaul make, and widely traded, from the 1st century BC to the late 2nd century AD, and traditionally known as terra sigillata.

These vessels have fine, fairly hard and well-fired buff to pink fabrics, with a naturally glossy surface slip ranging in colour from light orange to quite a bright red.

The variations in the colour and texture of both body fabric and slip, as well as the vessel-shapes and the designs on the decorated forms can enable a trained student to identify source, date and often individual workshop quite accurately.

African Red Slip (ARS) ware belonged to the same tradition, and continued to be made much later than Italian and Gaulish sigillata, right through to the Islamic conquest.

[4] ARS in turn influenced the production of Phocaean red slip, which is common in the Eastern Mediterranean and also appeared occasionally as far west as Southern France and Britain.

Most of these wares were widely distributed and produced on an industrial scale (the largest kilns could fire up to 40,000 pieces at a time[5] ), and undoubtedly using a high degree of specialisation within the workshops.

Other numbering systems used with Italian and Gaulish sigillata include those of Déchelette, Knorr, Curle, Walters, Loeschcke, Ritterling and Ludowici, to name but a few.

Plain sigillata table vessels, which included large platters, shallow dishes in several sizes, slightly deeper bowls, and small cups, were made on the wheel using a range of templates to create very precise profiles.

[13] It was manufactured in the province of Africa Proconsularis (approximately modern Tunisia), and similar forms and fabrics were made for more local distribution in Egypt, which had its own very active and diverse ceramic traditions in the Roman period.

A wide range of bowls, dishes and flagons were made in ARS, but the technique of making entire relief-decorated vessels in moulds was discontinued.

Several of the pots to the right of the group photograph in the lead section of this article are Nene Valley wares, including the large black beaker decorated with a lively hunting scene of hounds and hares in the barbotine technique.

Egyptian faience, frit or 'glazed composition', as it is often termed by Egyptologists, has rather more in common technically with glass manufacture than with earthenware, since it is a non-clay ceramic material.

[18] The dividing line between pottery vessels and terracotta figurines is another that is not always sharp, since certain types of small container, such as oil-pourers, were sometimes moulded in representational forms.

Although metal utensils made of bronze or iron were widely available in the Roman period, simple, functional earthenware bowls, pans, casseroles and jars were an inexpensive and standard part of the equipment of every kitchen.

From Britain to Egypt, from Spain to Syria, over the length and breadth of a vast Empire, local pre-Roman pottery traditions in simple cooking wares often continued without major changes for centuries.

[19] As well as the ordinary bowls and pans used for cooking, ceramic utensils were made for many specialised uses, such as the small cheese-press illustrated to the left of the group photograph of Roman pottery from Britain above.

This was a robust shallow bowl with a thick, out-curved rim that made it easy to handle, often a pouring lip, and an internal surface deliberately roughened with a coating of grit or coarse sand during manufacture.

As a container, an amphora was supposed to be strong, not too heavy, shaped in a way suitable for easy storage in the ship, and, at the same time, convenient for handling once arrived to its final destination.

[42] In the Aegean area the types from the island of Rhodes were quite popular starting from the 3rd century BC thanks to the local wine production which flourished for long time.

Other types from the eastern Mediterranean (Gaza), such as the so-called Late Roman 4, became very popular between the 4th and the 7th century AD, while Italic productions ceased to exist.

The range of decoration included pagan deities, myths and legends, genre scenes from everyday life, animals, hunting, public entertainments such as gladiatorial combat and chariot-racing, erotic encounters, and in late-Roman times, some Christian symbolism: in short, the full range of subjects that occur in the Roman decorative arts (Jewish lamps with symbols such as the menorah are also found).

In addition to the many basic lamp-shapes, which consisted of a rounded or ovoid body, with one or more projecting nozzles, and sometimes a handle, terracotta lamps were also made in a variety of much more fanciful forms, moulded to represent animals, grotesque heads, feet and many other shapes.

The close dating and distribution information that can be obtained from the detailed study of forms, makers' marks and decoration makes Roman lamps important and useful finds on archaeological sites.

In some northern provinces, such as Gaul and Germany, there was no native Iron Age tradition of making terracotta figurines, but new industries developed under Roman influence manufacturing mould-made figures in fine white pipeclay.

Like bronze statuettes, which would have been more expensive items, small terracotta figures were generally made for ritual or religious purposes, such as dedication at temples, display in household shrines, or as grave-goods to be deposited with the dead.

Like other mass-produced Roman ceramic objects, bricks and tiles were often marked with inscriptions that indicate their manufacturer, or the organisation or authority, military or civilian, for which they had been made.

The edge of a roof might be embellished with plaques called antefixes, as mentioned above, and some pottery relief "revetment" panels with figurative scenes for setting into walls emulate the marble friezes of grand temples.