Roman stamped pottery

El presente volumen está dedicado al estudio de la epigrafía anfórica en particular, sellos y tituli picti de Mutina (Módena), colonia romana creada en el año 183 a.C., y de su ager. Un primer capítulo introductorio ofrece una visión histórica del papel socioeconómico y político de la colonia en el período cronológico al que se refiere la documentación anfórica, es decir, entre el período tardorrepublicano y el período altoimperial, y un breve análisis de los problemas topográficos relacionados con el territorio que le corresponde. Le siguen dos capítulos dedicados, respectivamente, al estudio de los sellos anfóricos, los opercula y las inscripciones pintadas; el material analizado en estos dos capítulos se recoge, siguiendo la misma subdivisión, en dos corpora. Sería imposible (y metodológicamente incorrecto) pretender reconstruir exhaustivamente la historia económica de un lugar a través de una investigación centrada únicamente en el instrumentum inscriptum y, en particular, en una sola clase de material, las ánforas, aunque se distingan por su doble naturaleza de producto manufacturado y contenedor de alimentos. Sin embargo, la considerable riqueza del corpus epigráfico recogido, en gran parte inédito hasta ahora, que comprende unos 300 sellos y, en un caso único en Cisalpina, 45 tituli picti, unida a un breve análisis de los datos obtenidos de otras clases de instrumentum inscriptum (ladrillos, lucernas, cerámica de mesa), ha permitido reconstruir una imagen que se corresponde con la obtenida a partir de fuentes literarias, epigráficas y arqueológicas: entre la Baja República y el Alto Imperio, Mutina fue un centro floreciente, que se adapta muy bien a la definición ciceroniana de «firmissima et splendidissima populi Romani colonia» (Cic. Phil. 5.24).

Terra sigillata is one of the most important and well-known ceramic types of the Roman Empire. These tableware productions began to become generalized from the 1st century AD, characterized by the habitual presence of what is known as sigillum, a kind of stamped mark that identified the pottery officina ) where they were produced. Currently, the information given by the stamps on vessels becomes one of the main sources for the reconstruction of the social and economic structure of terra sigillata manufacture.
In the case of the terra sigillata produced in the Iberian Peninsula, both the smooth-walled and the decorated vessels are distinguished by habitually incorporating this rubric/signature, which was made using a stamp-punch. While in smoothwalled vessels this rubric is usually located on the inner bottom of the container, in the case of decorated one, which used to be produced using negative ceramic moulds; the dynamics can be somewhat more complex. At any rate, and unlike the ceramic itself, which becomes a very common object in the archaeological context, the instruments with which these productions used to be marked are very difficult to find. Indeed, they are very rare elements in archaeological excavations or museum collections. An example of this dynamic is the pottery district of Isturgi (Los Villares de Andújar, Jaén, Spain), which became an important producer of terra sigillata around the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. In this large potter complex, despite numerous systematic excavation campaigns since the early 1970s, no original stamp-punch has been recovered yet.
In this regard, the strong development of tools for digitization, analysis, virtual reconstruction and new printing devices has brought important benefits for the study of archaeological heritage in general and ceramic studies in particular. Technologies that, although most of them are already well established in our discipline, continue to generate novel results of great scientific interest. However, to take full advantage of their potential, these technologies should not be used in isolation, but must be combined in synergistic methodological flows that we can carry out from the joint use of various computer software. Only in this way, we can effectively recreate elements and objects that, due to their intrinsic value or the fragility of their nature, do not usually appear in the archaeological record.
In the present work, a new methodological workflow is proposed through which to obtain data that would allow the coherent reconstruction of the appearance and operation of these fragile instruments. With this objective in mind, we made a selection of nine smooth-walled vessels of terra sigillata isturgitana in which the potters had recorded their work by means of epigraphic and anepigraphic marks. For this reason, various computerized procedures were applied in a systematic way to each of these selected case studies. First, Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry for digitizing these sigilla. Second, computational photography methods such as Virtual Reflectance Transformation Imaging (V-RTI) or raster images such as Digital Elevation Maps (DEM) to improve the visualization of the most deteriorated rubrics.
Third, digital modelling and sculpting to generate reliable reconstructive hypotheses of a digital nature. Finally, we use Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM), the most common 3D printing method, to materialize these results into highresolution and low-cost polylactic acid (PLA) replicas.

The catalogue of the National Exhibition we present to the specialist in the field but also to the general public was occasioned by the organisation of the 31st Congress of the Rei Cretariae Romanae Fautores International Association, which took place at Cluj-Napoca, between September 23rd and 30th, 2018. The theme of the exhibition – ‘The supply of ceramic goods in Dacia and Lower Moesia: imports and local developments’ was intended to be close to the theme of the mentioned Congress, which revolves around the supply of pottery products across the Roman Empire. The purpose of the exhibition was to offer an image as complete/ comprehensive as possible over the diversity of the imports and espe- cially over the local production of pottery centres from the two provinces that once existed on the territory of Romania during the Roman period. If the ‘Atlas of the Pottery Workshops from the Roman Provinces of Dacia and Lower Moesia/Scythia Minor (1st-7th Centuries AD)’(I), a volume which precedes and completes the current exhibition, focused on documenting in detail the local production, the exhibition aimed to also include a part of the most cogent pottery products that arrived by means of trade in the two provinces from various areas of the Roman Empire. In this way, by comparing and visualising a number of over 1000 artifacts originating from representative centres in Dacia and Moesia Inferior/ Scythia Minor, one can more easily observe the common aspects, the relative uniformity of the ceramic forms produced here, but also the differences/ characteristics/ peculiarities of some production centres from certain areas, as well as the complementarity of their products.

Following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Roman
presence brought with it new ceramic building materials, including bricks,
roof tiles, pipes, and tubuli, usually in relation to public buildings, particularly
bathhouses. Among the most well-known are the tiles bearing stamps of the
Tenth Roman Legion. In the Byzantine Period, such materials were stamped
with private Greek names. A group of tiles uncovered in the Wilson’s Arch
excavations fill the chronological gap between the legionary production and the
Byzantine period and display the name of Colonia Aelia Capitolina. These were
made from a different ceramic ‘recipe’ than the legionary tiles, indicating they
were produced in a separate workshop and implying a shift in the third century
CE from military production (and ownership) of public buildings to municipalinitiated
construction projects. These tiles support the theory that the original
civic centre of Aelia Capitolina was located directly west of the Temple Mount.

Since there has not been one single analysis of the Dr. 20 stamps at the Tyne-Solway isthmus and Hadrian’s Wall, we will describe the development of Baetican exports to the Tyne-Solway isthmus from a geographical and administrative dimension, as well as the internal distribution of olive oil once it was unloaded at the north of Britannia. Apart from dating economical transfers, our aim is to describe productive fluctuations and the role played by wall forts and supply forts within the Beatican oil distribution process.