Today’s VM_365 image for Day 180 shows a worn Middle Iron Age clay loomweight from Northdown, Margate excavated in the 1970’s.
This loom weight shows evidence of heavy use wear from where it was suspended from a warp weighted loom which has created a groove in its surface. Other different types of Iron Age loomweights have been found at Broadstairs and North Foreland.
The image for VM_365 Day 179 shows sherds of a second samian ware beaker found at the Roman villa, Minster (see previous VM 365 Day 175).
As with Day 175’s vessel this is a type known as Déch. 64, after the French archaeologist Joseph Déchelette who complied a study of decorated samian ware made in Roman Gaul which remains an important publication to this day.
This autumn has seen the 100th anniversary of his death: Déchelette was killed in October 1914 during the early campaigning of the First World War as the French Army fought the Germans in the Aisne Valley, in southern Picardy. Although over 50 he was a captain and combatant. His contribution to archaeology is being marked in several ways including a special exhibition at Mainz RGZM Museum.
Several samian ware forms are named and numbered still following his catalogue. Form 64 is rare and so to have found two such drinking beakers at one site on Thanet is an indicator of the status of the villa and its occupants. The precise detail of the shape of this beaker type can vary as the drawings of complete examples (from Oundle and Colchester) shown here demonstrate.
The beaker from VM Day 175 has a more obvious bead to its rim and its appearance is more orange whereas this second beaker is more cherry red. These sorts of details can help us with dating these vessels. Day 175’s beaker probably dates to the Trajanic – early Hadrianic period, whereas this one is slightly later (Hadrianic). Perhaps this later example was a replacement for the earlier one, or the villa owner wished to create a pair. The decoration shows a chase scene, evidently hunting dogs pursuing a hare. The images on these beakers take us directly to the Classical world and remain as fascinating to us today as they did to Déchelette in his time.
Dr Steve Willis, University of Kent
References
Oswald, F. & Pryce, T.D. 1920. An Introduction to the Study of Terra Sigillata. London.
This is day one of a series of images from the Roman painted plaster collection from the villa at Minster.
Like many Roman villas excavated in Britain there was evidence that the buildings walls and ceilings had once been decorated with finely painted plaster which served a number of purposes. It allowed the rooms to be decorated with figurative representations of familiar scenes and allusions to literature and the natural world. It also allowed the more basic materials these buildings were constructed of, to be given the appearance of more expensive and exotic materials such as marble.
The majority of the fragments from the villa site are simply painted with solid colours forming backgrounds for decorative scenes and motifs. The fragments from the site demonstrate that many of the scenes were of very high quality.
Today’s image shows an example of one of the fragments of the very high quality decorative wall paintings depicting the hind quarters of a leaping deer which can be compared with an example from Stabiae, near Pompei.
Our image for Day 177 of the VM_365 project shows four close up pictures of the decoration on the body of the Beaker vessel from North Foreland shown yesterday for Day 176.
The first impression is that this vessel looks like a very finely and carefully decorated pot but if you look closely you can see that this is not the case because there are some errors in the execution of the decoration.
The decoration was applied using a comb with square-sectioned teeth and is arranged in four zones. The neck (top left) is decorated with opposed filled triangles bordered above and below by a ladder pattern defined by encircling combed lines. The triangles are separated from each other by three vertical ladder motifs.
The waist decoration (top right and bottom left) is separated from the neck decoration by a plain band approximatley 1 cm deep. The waist is made up of a band of herringbone motif bordered above by three, and below, by two encircling lines. There is overlapping in the decoration.
The belly (bottom right) is decorated with a ladder motif and is separated from the waist by another plain band and is encircled above and below by two lines.
The base decoration (Bottom right) is separated from the belly by an undecorated band and comprises a zone of ladder pattern similar to the belly but more untidy where there seems to have been an attempt at forming three encircling lines above and two below but the execution is careless and there is overlap between the horizontal and vertical elements. The lower part of the vessel is undecorated.
How did the potters decide how to divide up the vessel into decorative areas and what patterns to apply? Did they use mathematical principles to divide up the circular space or were there rules of thumb that made the job easier? Perhaps we will never know.
References
Gibson, A. 2005. The Beaker and other Pottery from Beaufort, North Foreland, Broadstairs, Kent. Unpublished Pottery Report.
The image for Day 176 of the VM_365 project shows a Beaker vessel dating between 1900-1700BC excavated from a grave at North Foreland, Broadstairs in 2004.
The vessel accompanied the crouched inhumation of a female aged over 40 years old who had been buried in a large pit cut into the chalk, around which a ring ditch had been excavated. The Beaker had been placed at her feet and a small flint scraper may have been placed near her head.
The Beaker is of the S2 type series, similar to the example found at Manston and has been decorated in four zones using a comb. It is made of very hard, well fired fabric that has been rapidly open fired. An old break at the base shows possible traces of coil or ring construction.
The image for VM_365 Day 175 shows sherds of a samian ware beaker found at the Roman villa, Minister.
Samian ware was the high quality table ware of the Roman world, made in Gaul, and it came in both plain and decorated types. At a villa site we might expect to see quite a bit of samian ware but whilst it is often present we have to wonder if the villa owners and guests also had something better to call on too to drink and eat from such as glass or silver vessels.
Typically samian drinking vessels are undecorated cups, but this vessel will have been more striking, more costly and more prestigious with its decorated design. It is an example of the type we call Déch. 64, after the pioneer French samian scholar Joseph Déchelette who described many samian vessels and their decoration (there will be more on him in a later post).
This is a rare form even amongst imported samian ware and so may have been especially prized at the villa. In this case we can fortunately see the name of the maker of the vessel as his workshop stamp is present. Decorated samian was made using a mould; here the potter making the mould impressed the die stamp bearing his workshop name in the mould, only it was impressed upside-down. Hence on the vessels made from this mould the name appears ’round the wrong way’ or ‘retrograde’ and upside-down.
Thoughtful potters took care over how the design appeared, but often we see mistakes in the impressed names. The stamp here reads ‘OFFILIBERTI’ (the ‘o’ is missing’) representing officina Libertus (‘the workshop of Libertus’). The lower photo shows the stamp here turned 180 degrees to read correctly. Libertus ii, as he is known, was active in Lezoux in Central Gaul in the early second century (c. AD 105-130) and his workshop has been found by archaeologists and examined. This stamp is his stamp die 2a as catalogued by Hartley and Dickinson in their monumental corpus of the stamps of samian potters.
A mould for this type of beaker was found at his workshop, but very few examples of the actual beaker with this stamp have been found in the Roman provinces. The decoration here includes a figure with arms raised which may be a rather bulky depiction of Venus, or it is a type where the figure holds a large theatrical mask above its head, only in this case there is no mask. There is a rather plump bird and also on the right side of the figure is the front part of a small deer with its head turned backwards on a tilt and its antlers therefore are pointing to the ground. These small figure types are appropriate for the size of the beaker and typical of the Roman classical world where animals are often shown.
We might imagine the Roman owner exclaimed their unhappiness when this vessel broke, especially if it contained a nice beverage at the time.
Dr Steve Willis, University of Kent
References
Hartley, B. & Dickinson, B. 2010. Names on Terra Sigillata. An index of makers’ stamps and signatures on Gallo-Roman Terra Sigillata (samian ware), Volume 5, London.
Stanfield, J. & Simpson, G. 1958. Central Gaulish Potters, Oxford University Press, London.
The image for Day 174 of the VM_365 project shows fragments of a nearly complete vessel carved from a chalk block found at the Roman building at Fort Hill, Broadstairs in 2009.
The vessel was found in a deposit of building tumble within the remains of a cellar. The edges of the separate fragments are worn and the breaks are abraded. The vessel is roughly diamond shaped and its outer dimensions measure 0.25 metres by 0.25 metres and 0.22 metres high.
The base and edges of the vessel are rounded and the outer surface has been dressed with small tool marks visible on the surface. One edge may be incomplete although its edge appears worn rather than broken. The inner dimensions of the vessel measure 0.12 by 0.12 metres and 0.13 metres deep with near vertical sides and a slightly rounded base with a smooth, lightly pitted inner surface.
The function of the vessel is unclear. Its size and shape raises some interesting possibilities in its interpretation. The bowl could have been supported upright by a free standing frame or set into a structure. Although there is no evidence of mortar adhering to it, it could have been set into a wall possibly to form a niche. It may be that it was not originally intended to rest on its base at all, but one of its flat sides. It is also feasible that one edge was originally shallower in depth than the others.
What could the vessel have held? There is no residue remaining in its interior to aid with interpretation. As a vessel it could have been used in a domestic kitchen or perhaps it was used in a more religious or ritual context perhaps for washing hands or for water purification possibly with a subsidiary vessel inside it. As a niche the vessel could have been used to hold a candle or perhaps form part of a shrine holding a household deity.
The image for Day 173 of the VM_365 project shows a beautiful example of a single-piece flint sickle from the Neolithic causewayed enclosure at Courtstairs, near Ramsgate which was excavated in 2007.
Today’s VM_365 image for Day 172 shows one of the sherds of pottery found in 2007 in the ditch fills of an Early Neolithic causewayed enclosure at Court Stairs, Ramsgate.
Today’s image for VM_365 Day 171 is of a selection of blade flakes from the flintwork that was found in an excavation on a site at Courtstairs, near Pegwell Bay in 2007.
Although only one stretch of conjoined pits forming a curving line were exposed in the excavation, the finds from the site showed that a sample of the second Neolithic Causewayed enclosure to be found in Ramsgate area had been revealed.
Most of the finely worked flint dated to the Earlier Neolithic period, however a significant proportion was residual, with only a few contexts containing only fresh-looking single period lithics. Other contexts had a mix of fresh and earlier residual material.
Many blade flakes were recovered from the pit fills, some contexts producing significant quantities. Finely worked blades and bladelets which had been soft hammer-struck from blade cores were particularly common, with serrated blades frequently represented.
The flintwork form this site is a rich source of information on the craft and technology in use in this period and there will be more to come from this site in future VM_365 posts.