Terra sigillata
Encyclopedia
Terra sigillata is a term with at least three distinct meanings: as a description of medieval medicinal earth; in archaeology, as a general term for some of the fine red Ancient Roman pottery
with glossy surface slips
made in specific areas of the Roman Empire; and more recently, as a description of a contemporary studio pottery
technique supposedly inspired by ancient pottery. Usually roughly translated as 'sealed earth', the meaning of 'terra sigillata' is 'clay bearing little images' (Latin sigilla), not 'clay with a sealed (impervious) surface'. The archaeological term is applied, however, to plain-surfaced pots as well as those decorated with figures in relief
.
Terra sigillata as an archaeological term refers chiefly to a specific type of plain and decorated tableware made in Italy and in Gaul (France and the Rhineland) during the Roman Empire. These vessels have glossy surface slips
ranging from a soft lustre to a brilliant glaze-like shine, in a characteristic colour range from pale orange to bright red; they were produced in standard shapes and sizes and were manufactured on an industrial scale and widely exported. The sigillata industries grew up in areas where there were existing traditions of pottery manufacture, and where the clay deposits proved suitable. The products of the Italian workshops are also known as Arretine ware, and have been collected and admired since the Renaissance. The wares made in the Gaul
ish factories are often referred to by English-speaking archaeologists as samian ware. Closely related pottery fabrics made in the North African and Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire are not usually referred to as terra sigillata, but by more specific names, e.g. African Red Slip
wares. All these types of pottery are significant for archaeologists: they can often be closely dated, and their distribution casts light on aspects of the ancient Roman economy.
Modern "Terra sig" should be clearly distinguished from the close reproductions of Roman wares made by some potters deliberately recreating and using the Roman methods. The finish called 'terra sigillata' by studio potters can be made from most clay
, mixed as a very thin liquid slip and settled to separate out only the finest particles to be used as terra sigillata. When applied to unfired clay surfaces, "terra sig" can be polished with a soft cloth or brush to achieve a shine ranging from a smooth silky lustre to a high gloss. The surface of ancient terra sigillata vessels did not require this burnish
ing or polishing. Burnishing was a technique used on some wares in the Roman period, but terra sigillata was not one of them. The polished surface can only be retained if fired within the low-fire range and will lose its shine if fired higher, but can still display an appealing silky quality.
from the island of Lemnos
. The latter was called "sealed" because cakes of it were pressed together and stamped with the head of Artemis
. Later, it bore the seal of the Ottoman sultan. This soil
's particular mineralic content was such that, in the Renaissance
, it was seen as a proof against poisoning, as well as a general cure for any bodily impurities, and it was highly prized as a medicine and medicinal component. In 1588 English ethnographer and translator Thomas Harriot
wrote in A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia that Algonquians of the mid–Atlantic region treated various sores and wounds with wapeih, a kind of terra sigillata that English surgeons and physicians found to be of the same kind "of vertue and more effectuall" than the contemporary European sort.
, and Gaulish samian ware manufactured first in South Gaul
, particularly at La Graufesenque
, near Millau
, and later at Lezoux
and adjacent sites near Clermont-Ferrand
, and at east Gaulish sites such as Trier
, Sinzig and Rheinzabern
. These high-quality tablewares were particularly popular and widespread in the Western Roman Empire from about 50 BC to the early 3rd century AD. Definitions of 'TS' have grown up from the earliest days of antiquarian studies, and are far from consistent; one survey of Classical art says:
- whereas Anthony King's definition, following the more usual practice amongst Roman pottery specialists, makes no mention of decoration, but states that terra sigillata is 'alternatively known as samian ware'. However, 'samian ware' is normally used only to refer to the sub-class of terra sigillata made in ancient Gaul. In European languages other than English, terra sigillata, or a translation (e.g. terre sigillée), is always used for both Italian and Gaulish products. Nomenclature has to be established at an early stage of research into a subject, and antiquarians of the 18th and 19th centuries often used terms that we would not choose today, but as long as their meaning is clear and well-established, this does not matter, and detailed study of the history of the terminology is really a side-issue that is of academic interest only. Scholars writing in English now often use "red gloss wares" or "red slip wares", both to avoid these issues of definition, and also because many other wares of the Roman period share aspects of technique with the traditional sigillata fabrics.
Italian and Gaulish TS vessels were made in standardised shapes constituting services of matching dishes, bowls and serving vessels. These changed and evolved over time, and have been very minutely classified; the first major scheme, by the German classical archaeologist Hans Dragendorff
(1895), is still in use (as e.g. "Dr.29"), and there have been many others, such as the classifications of Déchelette, Knorr, Hermet, Walters, Curle, Loeschcke, Ritterling, Hermet and Ludowici, and more recently, the Conspectus of Arretine forms and Hayes's type-series of African Red Slip and Eastern sigillatas. These reference sometimes make it possible to date the manufacture of a broken decorated sherd to within 20 years or less.
Most of the forms that were decorated with figures in low relief were thrown in pottery moulds, the inner surfaces of which had been decorated using fired-clay stamps or punches (usually referred to as poinçons) and some free-hand work using a stylus
. The mould was therefore decorated on its interior surface with a full decorative design of impressed, intaglio (hollowed) motifs that would appear in low relief on any bowl formed in it. As the bowl dried, the shrinkage was sufficient for it to be withdrawn from the mould, in order to carry out any finishing work, which might include the addition of foot-rings, the shaping and finishing of rims, and in all cases the application of the slip. Barbotine
and appliqué
('sprigged') techniques were sometimes used to decorate vessels of closed forms. Study of the characteristic decorative motifs, combined in some cases with name-stamps of workshops incorporated into the decoration, and also sometimes with the cursive
signatures of mouldmakers, makes it possible to build up a very detailed knowledge of the industry. Careful observation of form and fabric is therefore usually enough for an archaeologist experienced in the study of sigillata to date and identify a broken sherd
: a potter's stamp or moulded decoration provides even more precise evidence. The classic guide by Oswald and Pryce, published in 1920 set out many of the principles, but the literature on the subject goes back into the 19th century, and is now extremely voluminous, including many monographs on specific regions, as well as excavation reports on important sites that have produced significant assemblages of sigillata wares, and articles in learned journals, some of which are dedicated to Roman pottery studies.
The motifs and designs on the relief
-decorated wares echo the general traditions of Graeco-Roman decorative arts, with depictions of deities, references to myths and legends, and popular themes such as hunting and erotic scenes. Individual figure-types, like the vessel-shapes, have been classified, and in many cases they may be linked with specific potters or workshops. Some of the decoration relates to contemporary architectural ornament, with egg-and-tongue (ovolo) mouldings, acanthus
and vine scrolls
and the like. While the decoration of Arretine ware is often highly naturalistic in style, and is closely comparable with silver tableware of the same period, the designs on the Gaulish products, made by provincial artisans adopting Classical subjects, are intriguing for their expression of 'romanisation
', the fusion of Classical and native cultural and artistic traditions.
Many of the Gaulish manufacturing sites have been extensively excavated and studied. At La Graufesenque
in southern Gaul, documentary evidence in the form of lists or tallies apparently fired with single kiln-loads, giving potters' names and numbers of pots have long been known, and they suggest very large loads of 25,000–30,000 vessels. Though not all the kilns at this, or other, manufacturing sites were so large, the excavation of the grand four (big kiln) at La Graufesenque, which was in use in the late 1st and early 2nd century, confirms the scale of the industry. It is a rectangular stone-built structure measuring 11.3 m. by 6.8 m. externally, with an original height estimated at 7 metres. With up to nine 'storeys' within (dismantled after each firing), formed of tile floors and vertical columns in the form of clay pipes or tubes, which also served to conduct the heat, it has been estimated that it was capable of firing 30,000–40,000 vessels at a time, at a temperature of around 1000°C.
A 2005 work has shown that the slip is a matrix of mainly silicon and aluminium oxides, within which are suspended sub-microscopic crystals of haematite and corrundum. The matrix itself does not contain any metallic ions, the haematite is substituted in aluminium and titanium while the corrundum is substituted in iron. The two crystal populations are homogenously dispersed within the matrix. The colour of haematite depends on the crystal size. Large crystals of this mineral are black but as the size decreases to sub-micron the colour shifts to red. The fraction of aluminium has a similar effect. It was formerly thought that the difference between 'red' and 'black' samian was due to the presence (black) or absence (red) of reducing gases from the kiln and that the construction of the kiln was so arranged as to prevent the reducing gases from the fuel from coming into contact with the pottery. The presence of iron oxides in the clay/slip was thought to be reflected in the colour according to the oxidation state of the iron (Fe[III for the red and Fe[II] for the black, the latter produced by the reducing gases coming into contact with the pottery during firing). It now appears as a result of this recent work that this is not the case and that the colour of the glossy slip is in fact due to no more than the crystal size of the minerals dispersed within the matrix glass.
, and later their regional variants made in Italy, involved the preparation of a very fine clay body covered with a slip that fired to a glossy surface without the need for any polishing or burnishing. Greek painted wares also involved the precise understanding and control of firing conditions to achieve the contrasts of black and red.
Glossy-slipped black pottery made in Etruria
and Campania
continued this technological tradition, though painted decoration gave way to simpler stamped motifs and in some cases, to applied motifs moulded in relief. The tradition of decorating entire vessels in low relief was also well established in Greece and Asia Minor by the time the Arretine industry began to expand in the middle of the 1st century BC, and examples were imported into Italy. Relief-decorated cups, some in lead-glazed wares, were produced at several eastern centres, and undoubtedly played a part in the technical and stylistic evolution of decorated Arretine, but Megarian bowls, made chiefly in Greece and Asia Minor, are usually seen as the most direct inspiration. These are small, hemispherical bowls without foot-rings, and their decoration is frequently very reminiscent of contemporary silver bowls, with formalised, radiating patterns of leaves and flowers. The crisp and precisely profiled forms of the plain dishes and cups were also part of a natural evolution of taste and fashion in the Mediterranean world of the 1st century BC.
(Tuscany) a little before the middle of the 1st century BC. The industry expanded rapidly in a period when Roman political and military influence was spreading far beyond Italy: for the inhabitants of the first provinces of the Roman Empire in the reign of the Emperor Augustus (reg. 27 BC – AD 14), this tableware, with its precise forms, shiny surface, and, on the decorated vessels, its visual introduction to Classical art and mythology, must have deeply impressed some inhabitants of the new northern provinces of the Empire. Certainly it epitomised certain aspects of Roman taste and technical expertise. Pottery industries in the areas we now call north-east France and Belgium
quickly began to copy the shapes of plain Arretine dishes and cups in the wares now known as Gallo-Belgic, and in South and Central Gaul, it was not long before local potters also began to emulate the mould-made decoration and the glossy red slip itself.
The most recognisable decorated Arretine form is Dragendorff 11, a large, deep goblet on a high pedestal base, closely resembling some silver table vessels of the same period, such as the Warren Cup
. The iconography
, too, tended to match the subjects and styles seen on silver plate, namely mythological and genre scenes, including erotic subjects, and small decorative details of swags, leafy wreaths and ovolo (egg-and-tongue) borders that may be compared with elements of Augustan architectural ornament. The deep form of the Dr.11 allowed the poinçons (stamps) used making the moulds of human and animal figures to be fairly large, often about 5–6 cm high, and the modelling is frequently very accomplished indeed, attracting the interest of modern art-historians as well as archaeologists. Major workshops, such as those of M.Perennius Tigranus, P. Cornelius and Cn. Ateius, stamped their products, and the names of the factory-owners and of the workers within the factories, which often appear on completed bowls and on plain wares, have been extensively studied, as have the forms of the vessels, and the details of their dating and distribution.
Italian sigillata was not made only at or near Arezzo itself: some of the important Arezzo businesses had branch factories in Pisa
, and by the beginning of the 1st century AD, the Ateius and Rasinius workshops had set up branch factories at La Muette, near Lyon
in Central Gaul. Nor were the classic Arretine wares of the Augustan period the only forms of terra sigillata made in Italy: later sigillata industries in the Po valley
and elsewhere continued the tradition. The history of sigillata manufacture in Italy is succinctly summarised in Hayes 1997, pages 41–52.
In the Middle Ages, examples of the ware that were serendipitously discovered in digging foundations in Arezzo drew admiring attention as early as the 13th century, when Restoro d'Arezzo
's massive encyclopedia included a chapter praising the refined Roman ware discovered in his native city, "what is perhaps the first account of an aspect of ancient art to be written since classical times". The chronicler Giovanni Villani
also mentioned the ware.
The first published study of Arretine ware was that of Fabroni in 1841, and by the late 19th and early 20th centuries, German scholars in particular had made great advances in systematically studying and understanding both Arretine ware and the Gaulish samian that occurred on Roman military sites being excavated in Germany. Dragendorff's classification was expanded by other scholars, including S.Loeschcke in his study of the Italian sigillata excavated at the early Roman site of Haltern
. Research on Arretine ware has continued very actively throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, for example with the publication and revision of Oxé-Comfort and the Conspectus of forms, bringing earlier work on stamps and shapes up to date. As with all ancient pottery studies, each generation asks new questions and applies new techniques (such as analysis of clays) in the attempt to find the answers.
, Montans
, La Graufesenque, Le Rozier
and Banassac
, from the late 1st century BC: of these, La Graufesenque, near Millau, was the principal producer and exporter. Although the establishment of sigillata potteries in Gaul may well have arisen initially to meet local demand and to undercut the prices of imported Italian goods, they became enormously successful in their own right, and by the later 1st century AD, South Gaulish samian was being exported not only to other provinces in the north-west of the Empire, but also to Italy and other regions of the Mediterranean, North Africa and even the eastern Empire. One of the finds in the ruins of Pompeii
, destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in August AD 79, was a consignment of South Gaulish sigillata, still in its packing crate; like all finds from the Vesuvian sites, this hoard of pottery is invaluable as dating evidence.
South Gaulish samian typically has a redder slip and deeper pink fabric than Italian sigillata. The best slips, vivid red and of an almost mirror-like brilliance, were achieved during the Claudian and early Nero
nian periods (Claudius, reg. AD 41–54; Nero, reg. AD 54–68). At the same period, some workshops experimented briefly with a marbled red-and-yellow slip, a variant that never became generally popular. Early production of plain forms in South Gaul initially followed the Italian models closely, and even the characteristic Arretine decorated form, Dragendorff 11, was made. But many new shapes quickly evolved, and by the second half of the 1st century AD, when Italian sigillata was no longer influential, South Gaulish samian had created its own characteristic repertoire of forms. The two principal decorated forms were Dragendorff 30, a deep, cylindrical bowl, and Dragendorff 29, a carinated ('keeled') shallow bowl with a marked angle, emphasised by a moulding, mid-way down the profile. The footring is low, and potters' stamps are usually bowl-maker's marks placed in the interior base, so that vessels made from the same, or parallel, moulds may bear different names. The rim of the 29, small and upright in early examples of the form, but much deeper and more everted by the 70s of the 1st century, is finished with rouletted decoration, and the relief-decorated surfaces necessarily fall into two narrow zones. These were usually decorated with floral and foliate designs of wreaths and scrolls at first: the Dr.29 resting on its rim illustrated in the lead section of this article is an early example, less angular than the developed form of the 60s and 70s, with decoration consisting of simple, very elegant leaf-scrolls. Small human and animal figures, and more complex designs set out in separate panels, became more popular by the 70s of the 1st century. Larger human and animal figures could be used on the Dr.30 vessels, but while many of these have great charm, South Gaulish craftsmen never achieved, and perhaps never aspired to, the Classical naturalism of some of their Italian counterparts.
In the last two decades of the 1st century, the Dragendorff 37, a deep, rounded vessel with a plain upright rim, overtook the 29 in popularity. This simple shape remained the standard Gaulish samian relief-decorated form, from all Gaulish manufacturing regions, for more than a century. Small relief-decorated beakers
such as forms Déchelette 67 and Knorr 78 were also made in South Gaul, as were occasional 'one-off' or very ambitious mould-made vessels, such as large thin-walled flagons and flasks. But the mass of South Gaulish samian found on Roman sites of the 1st century AD consists of plain dishes, bowls and cups, especially Dr.18 (a shallow dish) and Dr.27 (a little cup with a distinctive double curve to the profile), many of which bear potters' name-stamps, and the large decorated forms 29, 30 and 37.
A local industry inspired by Arretine and South Gaulish imports grew up in the Iberia
n provinces in the 1st century AD. Terra sigillata hispanica developed its own distinctive forms and designs, and continued in production into the late Roman period, the 4th and 5th centuries AD. It was not exported to other regions.
, not far from Clermont-Ferrand
in the Auvergne
. Production had already begun at Lezoux in the Augustan period (Augustus, reg. 27 BC–AD 14), but it was not until the reign of Trajan
(AD 98–117), and the beginning of a decline in the South Gaulish export trade, that Central Gaulish samian ware became important outside its own region. Though it never achieved the extensive geographical distribution of the South Gaulish factories, in the provinces of Gaul and Britain
, it was by far the most common type of fine tableware, plain and decorated, in use during the 2nd century AD. The quality of the ware and the slip is usually excellent, and some of the products of Les Martres-de-Veyre, in particular, are outstanding, with a lustrous slip and a very hard, dense body. The surface colour tends towards a more orange-red hue than the typical South Gaulish slips.
Vessel-forms that had been made in South Gaul continued to be produced, though as the decades passed, they evolved and changed with the normal shifts of fashion, and some new shapes were created, such as the plain bowl with a horizontal flange below the rim, Dr.38. Mortaria, food-preparation bowls with a gritted interior surface, were also made in Central Gaulish samian fabric in the second half of the 2nd century (Dr.45). There is a small sub-class of Central Gaulish samian ware with a glossy black slip, though the dividing line between black terra sigillata and other fine black-gloss wares, which were also manufactured in the area, is sometimes hazy. When a vessel is a classic samian form and decorated in relief in the style of a known samian potter, but finished with black slip rather than a red one, it may be classed as black samian.
Though the Central Gaulish forms continued and built upon the South Gaulish traditions, the decoration of the principal decorated forms, Dr.30 and Dr.37, was distinctive. New human and animal figure-types appeared, generally modelled with greater realism and sophistication than those of La Graufesenque and other South Gaulish centres. Figure-types and decorative details have been classified, and can often be linked to specific workshops Lezoux wares also included vases decorated with barbotine
relief, with appliqué motifs, and a class usually referred to as 'cut-glass' decoration, with geometric patterns cut into the surface of the vessel before slipping and firing. Two standard 'plain' types made in considerable numbers in Central Gaul also included barbotine decoration, Dr.35 and 36, a matching cup and dish with a curved horizontal rim embellished with a stylised scroll of leaves in relief.
During the second half of the 2nd century, some Lezoux workshops making relief-decorated bowls, above all that of Cinnamus, dominated the market with their large production. The wares of Cinnamus, Paternus, Divixtus, Doeccus, Advocisus, Albucius and some others often included large, easily legible name-stamps incorporated into the decoration, clearly acting as brand-names or advertisements. Though these vessels were very competently made, they are heavy and somewhat coarse in form and finish compared with earlier Gaulish samian ware.
From the end of the 2nd century, the export of sigillata from Central Gaul rapidly, perhaps even abruptly, ceased. Pottery production continued, but in the 3rd century, it reverted to being a local industry.
, the Saarland
, and the Rhine and Mosel regions, but while the samian pottery from Luxeuil, La Madeleine
, Chémery-Faulquemont, Lavoye
, Remagen
, Sinzig
, Blickweiler and other sites is of interest and importance mainly to specialists, two sources stand out because their wares are often found outside their own immediate areas, namely Rheinzabern
, near Speyer
, and Trier
.
The Trier potteries evidently began to make samian vessels around the beginning of the 2nd century AD, and were still active until the middle of the 3rd century. The styles and the potters have been divided by scholars into two main phases, Werkstatten I and II. Some of the later mould-made Dr.37 bowls are of very poor quality, with crude decoration and careless finishing.
The Rheinzabern kilns and their products have been studied since Wilhelm Ludowici (1855–1929) began to excavate there in 1901, and to publish his results in a series of detailed reports. Rheinzabern produced both decorated and plain forms for around a century from the middle of the 2nd century. Some of the Dr.37 bowls, for example those with the workshop stamp of Ianus, bear comparison with Central Gaulish products of the same date: others are less successful. But the real strength of the Rheinzabern industry lay in its extensive production of good-quality samian cups, beakers, flagons and vases, many imaginatively decorated with barbotine designs or in the 'cut-glass' incised technique. Ludowici created his own type-series, which sometimes overlaps with those of other sigillata specialists. Ludowici's types use combinations of upper- and lower-case letters rather than simple numbers, the first letter referring to the general shape, such as 'T' for Teller (dish).
In general, the products of the East Gaulish industries moved away from the early imperial Mediterranean tradition of intricately profiled dishes and cups, and ornamented bowls made in moulds, and converged with the later Roman local traditions of pottery-making in the northern provinces, using free-thrown, rounded forms and creating relief designs with freehand slip-trailing. Fashions in fine tablewares were changing. Some East Gaulish producers made bowls and cups decorated only with rouletted or stamped decoration, and in the 3rd and 4th centuries, Argonne
ware, decorated with all-over patterns of small stamps, was made in the area east of Rheims and quite widely traded. Argonne ware was essentially still a type of sigillata, and the most characteristic form is a small, sturdy Dr.37 bowl. Small, localised attempts to make conventional relief-decorated samian ware included a brief and unsuccessful venture at Colchester
in Britain, apparently initiated by potters from the East Gaulish factories at Sinzig, a centre that was itself an offshoot of the Trier workshops.
; in western Turkey, exported through Ephesos; Pergamon
; Çandarlı
, near Pergamon; and on Cyprus
, but archaeologists often refer to eastern sigillata A
from Northern Syria
, eastern sigillata B
from Tralles in Asia Minor, eastern sigillata C
from ancient Pitane
, and eastern sigillata D
(or Cypriot sigillata) from Cyprus, as there is still much to be learnt about this material. While eastern sigillata C is known to come from Çandarli (ancient Pitane
), there were likely other workshops in the wider region of Pergamon
. By the early 2nd century AD, when Gaulish samian was completely dominating the markets in the Northern provinces, the eastern sigillatas were themselves beginning to be displaced by the rising importance of African Red Slip wares in the Mediterranean and the Eastern Empire.
ware (ARS) was the final development of terra sigillata. While the products of the Italian and Gaulish red-gloss industries flourished and were exported from their places of manufacture for at most a century or two each, ARS production continued for more than 500 years. The centres of production were in the Roman provinces of Africa, Byzacena
and Numidia
; that is, modern Tunisia
and part of eastern Algeria
. From about the 4th century AD, competent copies of the fabric and forms were also made in several other regions, including Asia Minor
, the eastern Mediterranean and Egypt. Over the long period of production, there was obviously much change and evolution in both forms and fabrics. Both Italian and Gaulish plain forms influenced ARS in the 1st and 2nd centuries (for example, Hayes Form 2, the cup or dish with an outcurved rim decorated with barbotine leaves, is a direct copy of the samian forms Dr.35 and 36, made in South and Central Gaul), but over time a distinctive ARS repertoire developed.
There was a wide range of dishes and bowls, many with rouletted or stamped decoration, and closed forms such as tall ovoid flagons with appliqué ornament (Hayes Form 171). The ambitious large rectangular dishes with relief decoration in the centre and on the wide rims (Hayes Form 56), were clearly inspired by decorated silver platters of the 4th century, which were made in rectangular and polygonal shapes as well as in the traditional circular form. Decorative motifs reflected not only the Graeco-Roman traditions of the Mediterranean, but eventually the rise of Christianity as well: there is a great variety of monogram crosses and plain crosses amongst the stamps.
, 'terra sigillata' describes only a watery refined slip used to facilitate the burnish
ing of raw clay surfaces and used to promote carbon smoke effects, in both primitive
low temperature firing techniques and unglazed alternative western-style Raku firing techniques. Terra sigillata is also used as a brushable decorative colourant medium in higher temperature glazed
ceramic techniques.
In 1906 the German potter Karl Fischer re-invented the method of making terra sigillata of Roman quality and obtained patent protection for this procedure at the Kaiserliche Patentamt
in Berlin .
to a watery clay/water slip mixture and then allowing the clay
particles to separate into layers by weight. For undisturbed deflocculated slip settling in a transparent container, these layers are usually visible within 24 hours. Siphoning off the topmost layers of slip, which contain the smallest and lightest clay particles, produces terra sigillata. The remaining heavier settled layers of deflocculated clay slip are discarded.
Terra sigillata is usually brushed or sprayed in thin layers onto dry or almost dry unfired ware. The ware is then quickly burnished with a soft cloth before the water in the terra sigillata soaks into the porous body. The burnished ware is allowed to dry again to remove the added moisture and biscuit
fired, often fired to a lower than normal biscuit temperature of approximately 900 °C. Higher firing temperatures tend to remove the burnished effect in the clay surface.
Ancient Roman pottery
Pottery was produced in enormous quantities in ancient Rome, mostly for utilitarian purposes. It is found all over the former Roman Empire and beyond...
with glossy surface slips
Slip (ceramics)
A slip is a suspension in water of clay and/or other materials used in the production of ceramic ware. Deflocculant, such as sodium silicate, can be added to the slip to disperse the raw material particles...
made in specific areas of the Roman Empire; and more recently, as a description of a contemporary studio pottery
Studio pottery
Studio pottery is made by modern artists working alone or in small groups, producing unique items of pottery in small quantities, typically with all stages of manufacture carried out by one individual. Much studio pottery is tableware or cookware but an increasing number of studio potters produce...
technique supposedly inspired by ancient pottery. Usually roughly translated as 'sealed earth', the meaning of 'terra sigillata' is 'clay bearing little images' (Latin sigilla), not 'clay with a sealed (impervious) surface'. The archaeological term is applied, however, to plain-surfaced pots as well as those decorated with figures in relief
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
.
Terra sigillata as an archaeological term refers chiefly to a specific type of plain and decorated tableware made in Italy and in Gaul (France and the Rhineland) during the Roman Empire. These vessels have glossy surface slips
Slip (ceramics)
A slip is a suspension in water of clay and/or other materials used in the production of ceramic ware. Deflocculant, such as sodium silicate, can be added to the slip to disperse the raw material particles...
ranging from a soft lustre to a brilliant glaze-like shine, in a characteristic colour range from pale orange to bright red; they were produced in standard shapes and sizes and were manufactured on an industrial scale and widely exported. The sigillata industries grew up in areas where there were existing traditions of pottery manufacture, and where the clay deposits proved suitable. The products of the Italian workshops are also known as Arretine ware, and have been collected and admired since the Renaissance. The wares made in the Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
ish factories are often referred to by English-speaking archaeologists as samian ware. Closely related pottery fabrics made in the North African and Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire are not usually referred to as terra sigillata, but by more specific names, e.g. African Red Slip
African red slip
African red slip is a category of terra sigillata, or "fine" Ancient Roman pottery produced in the province of Africa Proconsularis, specifically that part roughly coinciding with the modern country of Tunisia and the Diocletianic provinces of Byzacena and Zeugitana. It is distinguished by a...
wares. All these types of pottery are significant for archaeologists: they can often be closely dated, and their distribution casts light on aspects of the ancient Roman economy.
Modern "Terra sig" should be clearly distinguished from the close reproductions of Roman wares made by some potters deliberately recreating and using the Roman methods. The finish called 'terra sigillata' by studio potters can be made from most clay
Clay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
, mixed as a very thin liquid slip and settled to separate out only the finest particles to be used as terra sigillata. When applied to unfired clay surfaces, "terra sig" can be polished with a soft cloth or brush to achieve a shine ranging from a smooth silky lustre to a high gloss. The surface of ancient terra sigillata vessels did not require this burnish
Burnish
Burnishing is a form of pottery treatment in which the surface of the pot is polished, using a hard smooth surface such as a wooden or bone spatula, smooth stones, plastic, or even glass bulbs, while it still is in a leathery 'green' state, i.e., before firing. After firing, the surface is...
ing or polishing. Burnishing was a technique used on some wares in the Roman period, but terra sigillata was not one of them. The polished surface can only be retained if fired within the low-fire range and will lose its shine if fired higher, but can still display an appealing silky quality.
Medicinal earth
The oldest use for the term terra sigillata was for a medicinal clayMedicinal clay
The use of medicinal clay in folk medicine goes back to prehistoric times. The indigenous peoples around the world still use clay widely, which is related to geophagy. The first recorded use of medicinal clay goes back to ancient Mesopotamia...
from the island of Lemnos
Lemnos
Lemnos is an island of Greece in the northern part of the Aegean Sea. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Lemnos peripheral unit, which is part of the North Aegean Periphery. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Myrina...
. The latter was called "sealed" because cakes of it were pressed together and stamped with the head of Artemis
Artemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
. Later, it bore the seal of the Ottoman sultan. This soil
Soil
Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...
's particular mineralic content was such that, in the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, it was seen as a proof against poisoning, as well as a general cure for any bodily impurities, and it was highly prized as a medicine and medicinal component. In 1588 English ethnographer and translator Thomas Harriot
Thomas Harriot
Thomas Harriot was an English astronomer, mathematician, ethnographer, and translator. Some sources give his surname as Harriott or Hariot or Heriot. He is sometimes credited with the introduction of the potato to Great Britain and Ireland...
wrote in A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia that Algonquians of the mid–Atlantic region treated various sores and wounds with wapeih, a kind of terra sigillata that English surgeons and physicians found to be of the same kind "of vertue and more effectuall" than the contemporary European sort.
Roman red gloss pottery
In archaeological usage, the term terra sigillata without further qualification normally denotes the Arretine ware of Italy, made at ArezzoArezzo
Arezzo is a city and comune in Central Italy, capital of the province of the same name, located in Tuscany. Arezzo is about 80 km southeast of Florence, at an elevation of 296 m above sea level. In 2011 the population was about 100,000....
, and Gaulish samian ware manufactured first in South Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
, particularly at La Graufesenque
La Graufesenque
La Graufesenque is an archaeological site 2km from Millau, Aveyron, France, at the confluence of the Tarn and Dourbie rivers. As Condatomagus , it was famous in the Gallo-Roman period for the production of high quality dark red terra sigillata Roman pottery, which was made in vast quantities and...
, near Millau
Millau
Millau is a commune in the Aveyron department in southern France. It is located at the confluence of the Tarn and Dourbie rivers.-History:...
, and later at Lezoux
Lezoux
Lezoux is a commune in the Puy-de-Dôme department in Auvergne in central France.-References:*...
and adjacent sites near Clermont-Ferrand
Clermont-Ferrand
Clermont-Ferrand is a city and commune of France, in the Auvergne region, with a population of 140,700 . Its metropolitan area had 409,558 inhabitants at the 1999 census. It is the prefecture of the Puy-de-Dôme department...
, and at east Gaulish sites such as Trier
Trier
Trier, historically called in English Treves is a city in Germany on the banks of the Moselle. It is the oldest city in Germany, founded in or before 16 BC....
, Sinzig and Rheinzabern
Rheinzabern
Rheinzabern is a small town in the south-east of Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany near the Rhine river.Currently, Rheinzabern, that belongs to the "Landkreis Germersheim" has approx...
. These high-quality tablewares were particularly popular and widespread in the Western Roman Empire from about 50 BC to the early 3rd century AD. Definitions of 'TS' have grown up from the earliest days of antiquarian studies, and are far from consistent; one survey of Classical art says:
Terra sigillata ... is a Latin term used by modern scholars to designate a class of decorated red-gloss pottery .... not all red-gloss ware was decorated, and hence the more inclusive term 'Samian ware' is sometimes used to characterize all varieties of it.
- whereas Anthony King's definition, following the more usual practice amongst Roman pottery specialists, makes no mention of decoration, but states that terra sigillata is 'alternatively known as samian ware'. However, 'samian ware' is normally used only to refer to the sub-class of terra sigillata made in ancient Gaul. In European languages other than English, terra sigillata, or a translation (e.g. terre sigillée), is always used for both Italian and Gaulish products. Nomenclature has to be established at an early stage of research into a subject, and antiquarians of the 18th and 19th centuries often used terms that we would not choose today, but as long as their meaning is clear and well-established, this does not matter, and detailed study of the history of the terminology is really a side-issue that is of academic interest only. Scholars writing in English now often use "red gloss wares" or "red slip wares", both to avoid these issues of definition, and also because many other wares of the Roman period share aspects of technique with the traditional sigillata fabrics.
Italian and Gaulish TS vessels were made in standardised shapes constituting services of matching dishes, bowls and serving vessels. These changed and evolved over time, and have been very minutely classified; the first major scheme, by the German classical archaeologist Hans Dragendorff
Hans Dragendorff
Hans Dragendorff was a German scholar who introduced the first classification system for the type of Ancient Roman pottery known as Samian ware or Terra Sigillata, in 1896, using type numbers...
(1895), is still in use (as e.g. "Dr.29"), and there have been many others, such as the classifications of Déchelette, Knorr, Hermet, Walters, Curle, Loeschcke, Ritterling, Hermet and Ludowici, and more recently, the Conspectus of Arretine forms and Hayes's type-series of African Red Slip and Eastern sigillatas. These reference sometimes make it possible to date the manufacture of a broken decorated sherd to within 20 years or less.
Most of the forms that were decorated with figures in low relief were thrown in pottery moulds, the inner surfaces of which had been decorated using fired-clay stamps or punches (usually referred to as poinçons) and some free-hand work using a stylus
Stylus
A stylus is a writing utensil, or a small tool for some other form of marking or shaping, for example in pottery. The word is also used for a computer accessory . It usually refers to a narrow elongated staff, similar to a modern ballpoint pen. Many styli are heavily curved to be held more easily...
. The mould was therefore decorated on its interior surface with a full decorative design of impressed, intaglio (hollowed) motifs that would appear in low relief on any bowl formed in it. As the bowl dried, the shrinkage was sufficient for it to be withdrawn from the mould, in order to carry out any finishing work, which might include the addition of foot-rings, the shaping and finishing of rims, and in all cases the application of the slip. Barbotine
Barbotine
Barbotine is the French for ceramic slip, or a mixture of clay and water used for moulding or decorating pottery. In English the term is used for two different techniques. In the first, common from the Ancient World onwards, the barbotine is piped onto the object rather as cakes are decorated...
and appliqué
Applique
In its broadest sense, an appliqué is a smaller ornament or device applied to another surface. In the context of ceramics, for example, an appliqué is a separate piece of clay added to the primary work, generally for the purpose of decoration...
('sprigged') techniques were sometimes used to decorate vessels of closed forms. Study of the characteristic decorative motifs, combined in some cases with name-stamps of workshops incorporated into the decoration, and also sometimes with the cursive
Cursive
Cursive, also known as joined-up writing, joint writing, or running writing, is any style of handwriting in which the symbols of the language are written in a simplified and/or flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing easier or faster...
signatures of mouldmakers, makes it possible to build up a very detailed knowledge of the industry. Careful observation of form and fabric is therefore usually enough for an archaeologist experienced in the study of sigillata to date and identify a broken sherd
Sherd
In archaeology, a sherd is commonly a historic or prehistoric fragment of pottery, although the term is occasionally used to refer to fragments of stone and glass vessels as well....
: a potter's stamp or moulded decoration provides even more precise evidence. The classic guide by Oswald and Pryce, published in 1920 set out many of the principles, but the literature on the subject goes back into the 19th century, and is now extremely voluminous, including many monographs on specific regions, as well as excavation reports on important sites that have produced significant assemblages of sigillata wares, and articles in learned journals, some of which are dedicated to Roman pottery studies.
The motifs and designs on the relief
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
-decorated wares echo the general traditions of Graeco-Roman decorative arts, with depictions of deities, references to myths and legends, and popular themes such as hunting and erotic scenes. Individual figure-types, like the vessel-shapes, have been classified, and in many cases they may be linked with specific potters or workshops. Some of the decoration relates to contemporary architectural ornament, with egg-and-tongue (ovolo) mouldings, acanthus
Acanthus (ornament)
The acanthus is one of the most common plant forms to make foliage ornament and decoration.-Architecture:In architecture, an ornament is carved into stone or wood to resemble leaves from the Mediterranean species of the Acanthus genus of plants, which have deeply cut leaves with some similarity to...
and vine scrolls
Scrollwork
Scrollwork is an element of ornamentation and graphic design using a spiral. The name comes from by the supposed resemblance to the edge-on view of a rolled parchment scroll. "Scrollwork" is today mostly used in popular language for two-dimensional decorative flourishes and arabesques of all...
and the like. While the decoration of Arretine ware is often highly naturalistic in style, and is closely comparable with silver tableware of the same period, the designs on the Gaulish products, made by provincial artisans adopting Classical subjects, are intriguing for their expression of 'romanisation
Romanization (cultural)
Romanization or latinization indicate different historical processes, such as acculturation, integration and assimilation of newly incorporated and peripheral populations by the Roman Republic and the later Roman Empire...
', the fusion of Classical and native cultural and artistic traditions.
Many of the Gaulish manufacturing sites have been extensively excavated and studied. At La Graufesenque
La Graufesenque
La Graufesenque is an archaeological site 2km from Millau, Aveyron, France, at the confluence of the Tarn and Dourbie rivers. As Condatomagus , it was famous in the Gallo-Roman period for the production of high quality dark red terra sigillata Roman pottery, which was made in vast quantities and...
in southern Gaul, documentary evidence in the form of lists or tallies apparently fired with single kiln-loads, giving potters' names and numbers of pots have long been known, and they suggest very large loads of 25,000–30,000 vessels. Though not all the kilns at this, or other, manufacturing sites were so large, the excavation of the grand four (big kiln) at La Graufesenque, which was in use in the late 1st and early 2nd century, confirms the scale of the industry. It is a rectangular stone-built structure measuring 11.3 m. by 6.8 m. externally, with an original height estimated at 7 metres. With up to nine 'storeys' within (dismantled after each firing), formed of tile floors and vertical columns in the form of clay pipes or tubes, which also served to conduct the heat, it has been estimated that it was capable of firing 30,000–40,000 vessels at a time, at a temperature of around 1000°C.
A 2005 work has shown that the slip is a matrix of mainly silicon and aluminium oxides, within which are suspended sub-microscopic crystals of haematite and corrundum. The matrix itself does not contain any metallic ions, the haematite is substituted in aluminium and titanium while the corrundum is substituted in iron. The two crystal populations are homogenously dispersed within the matrix. The colour of haematite depends on the crystal size. Large crystals of this mineral are black but as the size decreases to sub-micron the colour shifts to red. The fraction of aluminium has a similar effect. It was formerly thought that the difference between 'red' and 'black' samian was due to the presence (black) or absence (red) of reducing gases from the kiln and that the construction of the kiln was so arranged as to prevent the reducing gases from the fuel from coming into contact with the pottery. The presence of iron oxides in the clay/slip was thought to be reflected in the colour according to the oxidation state of the iron (Fe[III for the red and Fe[II] for the black, the latter produced by the reducing gases coming into contact with the pottery during firing). It now appears as a result of this recent work that this is not the case and that the colour of the glossy slip is in fact due to no more than the crystal size of the minerals dispersed within the matrix glass.
Forerunners
Arretine ware, in spite of its very distinctive appearance, was an integral part of the wider picture of fine ceramic tablewares in the Graeco-Roman world of the Hellenistic and early Roman period. That picture must itself be seen in relation to the luxury tablewares made of silver. Centuries before Italian terra sigillata was made, Attic painted vasesBlack-figure pottery
Black-figure pottery painting, also known as the black-figure style or black-figure ceramic is one of the most modern styles for adorning antique Greek vases. It was especially common between the 7th and 5th centuries BC, although there are specimens dating as late as the 2nd century BC...
, and later their regional variants made in Italy, involved the preparation of a very fine clay body covered with a slip that fired to a glossy surface without the need for any polishing or burnishing. Greek painted wares also involved the precise understanding and control of firing conditions to achieve the contrasts of black and red.
Glossy-slipped black pottery made in Etruria
Etruria
Etruria—usually referred to in Greek and Latin source texts as Tyrrhenia—was a region of Central Italy, an area that covered part of what now are Tuscany, Latium, Emilia-Romagna, and Umbria. A particularly noteworthy work dealing with Etruscan locations is D. H...
and Campania
Campania
Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
continued this technological tradition, though painted decoration gave way to simpler stamped motifs and in some cases, to applied motifs moulded in relief. The tradition of decorating entire vessels in low relief was also well established in Greece and Asia Minor by the time the Arretine industry began to expand in the middle of the 1st century BC, and examples were imported into Italy. Relief-decorated cups, some in lead-glazed wares, were produced at several eastern centres, and undoubtedly played a part in the technical and stylistic evolution of decorated Arretine, but Megarian bowls, made chiefly in Greece and Asia Minor, are usually seen as the most direct inspiration. These are small, hemispherical bowls without foot-rings, and their decoration is frequently very reminiscent of contemporary silver bowls, with formalised, radiating patterns of leaves and flowers. The crisp and precisely profiled forms of the plain dishes and cups were also part of a natural evolution of taste and fashion in the Mediterranean world of the 1st century BC.
Arretine ware
Arretine ware began to be manufactured at and near ArezzoArezzo
Arezzo is a city and comune in Central Italy, capital of the province of the same name, located in Tuscany. Arezzo is about 80 km southeast of Florence, at an elevation of 296 m above sea level. In 2011 the population was about 100,000....
(Tuscany) a little before the middle of the 1st century BC. The industry expanded rapidly in a period when Roman political and military influence was spreading far beyond Italy: for the inhabitants of the first provinces of the Roman Empire in the reign of the Emperor Augustus (reg. 27 BC – AD 14), this tableware, with its precise forms, shiny surface, and, on the decorated vessels, its visual introduction to Classical art and mythology, must have deeply impressed some inhabitants of the new northern provinces of the Empire. Certainly it epitomised certain aspects of Roman taste and technical expertise. Pottery industries in the areas we now call north-east France and Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
quickly began to copy the shapes of plain Arretine dishes and cups in the wares now known as Gallo-Belgic, and in South and Central Gaul, it was not long before local potters also began to emulate the mould-made decoration and the glossy red slip itself.
The most recognisable decorated Arretine form is Dragendorff 11, a large, deep goblet on a high pedestal base, closely resembling some silver table vessels of the same period, such as the Warren Cup
Warren Cup
The Warren Cup is an ancient Roman silver drinking cup decorated in relief with two images of homosexual acts. The cup is named after its first modern owner, the collector and writer Edward Perry Warren, and was acquired by the British Museum in 1999...
. The iconography
Iconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...
, too, tended to match the subjects and styles seen on silver plate, namely mythological and genre scenes, including erotic subjects, and small decorative details of swags, leafy wreaths and ovolo (egg-and-tongue) borders that may be compared with elements of Augustan architectural ornament. The deep form of the Dr.11 allowed the poinçons (stamps) used making the moulds of human and animal figures to be fairly large, often about 5–6 cm high, and the modelling is frequently very accomplished indeed, attracting the interest of modern art-historians as well as archaeologists. Major workshops, such as those of M.Perennius Tigranus, P. Cornelius and Cn. Ateius, stamped their products, and the names of the factory-owners and of the workers within the factories, which often appear on completed bowls and on plain wares, have been extensively studied, as have the forms of the vessels, and the details of their dating and distribution.
Italian sigillata was not made only at or near Arezzo itself: some of the important Arezzo businesses had branch factories in Pisa
Pisa
Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...
, and by the beginning of the 1st century AD, the Ateius and Rasinius workshops had set up branch factories at La Muette, near Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
in Central Gaul. Nor were the classic Arretine wares of the Augustan period the only forms of terra sigillata made in Italy: later sigillata industries in the Po valley
Po Valley
The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain is a major geographical feature of Italy. It extends approximately in an east-west direction, with an area of 46,000 km² including its Venetic extension not actually related to the Po River basin; it runs from the Western Alps to the...
and elsewhere continued the tradition. The history of sigillata manufacture in Italy is succinctly summarised in Hayes 1997, pages 41–52.
In the Middle Ages, examples of the ware that were serendipitously discovered in digging foundations in Arezzo drew admiring attention as early as the 13th century, when Restoro d'Arezzo
Restoro d'Arezzo
Ristoro or Restoro d'Arezzo was an Italian monk of the thirteenth century, author of the Composizione del Mondo of c. 1282.This is the first astronomical work to be written in Italian...
's massive encyclopedia included a chapter praising the refined Roman ware discovered in his native city, "what is perhaps the first account of an aspect of ancient art to be written since classical times". The chronicler Giovanni Villani
Giovanni Villani
Giovanni Villani was an Italian banker, official, diplomat and chronicler from Florence who wrote the Nuova Cronica on the history of Florence. He was a leading statesman of Florence but later gained an unsavory reputation and served time in prison as a result of the bankruptcy of a trading and...
also mentioned the ware.
The first published study of Arretine ware was that of Fabroni in 1841, and by the late 19th and early 20th centuries, German scholars in particular had made great advances in systematically studying and understanding both Arretine ware and the Gaulish samian that occurred on Roman military sites being excavated in Germany. Dragendorff's classification was expanded by other scholars, including S.Loeschcke in his study of the Italian sigillata excavated at the early Roman site of Haltern
Haltern
Haltern is a town and a municipality in the district of Recklinghausen, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated on the Lippe and the Wesel–Datteln Canal, approx...
. Research on Arretine ware has continued very actively throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, for example with the publication and revision of Oxé-Comfort and the Conspectus of forms, bringing earlier work on stamps and shapes up to date. As with all ancient pottery studies, each generation asks new questions and applies new techniques (such as analysis of clays) in the attempt to find the answers.
South Gaulish samian ware
Sigillata vessels, both plain and decorated, were manufactured at several centres in southern France, including BramBram, Aude
Bram is a commune in the Aude department in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in southern France. Bram is part of the old province of Lauragais, and is 790 km from Paris.-History:...
, Montans
Montans
Montans is a commune in the Tarn department in southern France.-Geography:Situated between Lisle-sur-Tarn and Gaillac, near the A68 autoroute. The village is built at the end of a terrace overlooking the Tarn. It produces wine whose appellation is Gaillac AOC.-History:The site of Montans was...
, La Graufesenque, Le Rozier
Le Rozier
Le Rozier is a commune in the Lozère department in southern France.-See also:*Communes of the Lozère department...
and Banassac
Banassac
Banassac is a commune in the Lozère department in southern France.-References:*...
, from the late 1st century BC: of these, La Graufesenque, near Millau, was the principal producer and exporter. Although the establishment of sigillata potteries in Gaul may well have arisen initially to meet local demand and to undercut the prices of imported Italian goods, they became enormously successful in their own right, and by the later 1st century AD, South Gaulish samian was being exported not only to other provinces in the north-west of the Empire, but also to Italy and other regions of the Mediterranean, North Africa and even the eastern Empire. One of the finds in the ruins of Pompeii
Pompeii
The city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...
, destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in August AD 79, was a consignment of South Gaulish sigillata, still in its packing crate; like all finds from the Vesuvian sites, this hoard of pottery is invaluable as dating evidence.
South Gaulish samian typically has a redder slip and deeper pink fabric than Italian sigillata. The best slips, vivid red and of an almost mirror-like brilliance, were achieved during the Claudian and early Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
nian periods (Claudius, reg. AD 41–54; Nero, reg. AD 54–68). At the same period, some workshops experimented briefly with a marbled red-and-yellow slip, a variant that never became generally popular. Early production of plain forms in South Gaul initially followed the Italian models closely, and even the characteristic Arretine decorated form, Dragendorff 11, was made. But many new shapes quickly evolved, and by the second half of the 1st century AD, when Italian sigillata was no longer influential, South Gaulish samian had created its own characteristic repertoire of forms. The two principal decorated forms were Dragendorff 30, a deep, cylindrical bowl, and Dragendorff 29, a carinated ('keeled') shallow bowl with a marked angle, emphasised by a moulding, mid-way down the profile. The footring is low, and potters' stamps are usually bowl-maker's marks placed in the interior base, so that vessels made from the same, or parallel, moulds may bear different names. The rim of the 29, small and upright in early examples of the form, but much deeper and more everted by the 70s of the 1st century, is finished with rouletted decoration, and the relief-decorated surfaces necessarily fall into two narrow zones. These were usually decorated with floral and foliate designs of wreaths and scrolls at first: the Dr.29 resting on its rim illustrated in the lead section of this article is an early example, less angular than the developed form of the 60s and 70s, with decoration consisting of simple, very elegant leaf-scrolls. Small human and animal figures, and more complex designs set out in separate panels, became more popular by the 70s of the 1st century. Larger human and animal figures could be used on the Dr.30 vessels, but while many of these have great charm, South Gaulish craftsmen never achieved, and perhaps never aspired to, the Classical naturalism of some of their Italian counterparts.
In the last two decades of the 1st century, the Dragendorff 37, a deep, rounded vessel with a plain upright rim, overtook the 29 in popularity. This simple shape remained the standard Gaulish samian relief-decorated form, from all Gaulish manufacturing regions, for more than a century. Small relief-decorated beakers
Beaker (archaeology)
A beaker is a small ceramic or metal drinking vessel shaped to be held in the hands. Archaeologists identify several different types including the butt beaker, the claw beaker and the rough-cast beaker, however when used alone the term usually refers to the pottery cups associated with the European...
such as forms Déchelette 67 and Knorr 78 were also made in South Gaul, as were occasional 'one-off' or very ambitious mould-made vessels, such as large thin-walled flagons and flasks. But the mass of South Gaulish samian found on Roman sites of the 1st century AD consists of plain dishes, bowls and cups, especially Dr.18 (a shallow dish) and Dr.27 (a little cup with a distinctive double curve to the profile), many of which bear potters' name-stamps, and the large decorated forms 29, 30 and 37.
A local industry inspired by Arretine and South Gaulish imports grew up in the Iberia
Iberia
The name Iberia refers to three historical regions of the old world:* Iberian Peninsula, in Southwest Europe, location of modern-day Portugal and Spain** Prehistoric Iberia...
n provinces in the 1st century AD. Terra sigillata hispanica developed its own distinctive forms and designs, and continued in production into the late Roman period, the 4th and 5th centuries AD. It was not exported to other regions.
Central Gaulish samian ware
The principal Central Gaulish samian potteries were situated at Lezoux and Les Martres-de-VeyreLes Martres-de-Veyre
Les Martres-de-Veyre is a commune in the Puy-de-Dôme department in Auvergne in central France.-References:*...
, not far from Clermont-Ferrand
Clermont-Ferrand
Clermont-Ferrand is a city and commune of France, in the Auvergne region, with a population of 140,700 . Its metropolitan area had 409,558 inhabitants at the 1999 census. It is the prefecture of the Puy-de-Dôme department...
in the Auvergne
Auvergne (province)
Auvergne was a historic province in south central France. It was originally the feudal domain of the Counts of Auvergne. It is now the geographical and cultural area that corresponds to the former province....
. Production had already begun at Lezoux in the Augustan period (Augustus, reg. 27 BC–AD 14), but it was not until the reign of Trajan
Trajan
Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
(AD 98–117), and the beginning of a decline in the South Gaulish export trade, that Central Gaulish samian ware became important outside its own region. Though it never achieved the extensive geographical distribution of the South Gaulish factories, in the provinces of Gaul and Britain
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
, it was by far the most common type of fine tableware, plain and decorated, in use during the 2nd century AD. The quality of the ware and the slip is usually excellent, and some of the products of Les Martres-de-Veyre, in particular, are outstanding, with a lustrous slip and a very hard, dense body. The surface colour tends towards a more orange-red hue than the typical South Gaulish slips.
Vessel-forms that had been made in South Gaul continued to be produced, though as the decades passed, they evolved and changed with the normal shifts of fashion, and some new shapes were created, such as the plain bowl with a horizontal flange below the rim, Dr.38. Mortaria, food-preparation bowls with a gritted interior surface, were also made in Central Gaulish samian fabric in the second half of the 2nd century (Dr.45). There is a small sub-class of Central Gaulish samian ware with a glossy black slip, though the dividing line between black terra sigillata and other fine black-gloss wares, which were also manufactured in the area, is sometimes hazy. When a vessel is a classic samian form and decorated in relief in the style of a known samian potter, but finished with black slip rather than a red one, it may be classed as black samian.
Though the Central Gaulish forms continued and built upon the South Gaulish traditions, the decoration of the principal decorated forms, Dr.30 and Dr.37, was distinctive. New human and animal figure-types appeared, generally modelled with greater realism and sophistication than those of La Graufesenque and other South Gaulish centres. Figure-types and decorative details have been classified, and can often be linked to specific workshops Lezoux wares also included vases decorated with barbotine
Barbotine
Barbotine is the French for ceramic slip, or a mixture of clay and water used for moulding or decorating pottery. In English the term is used for two different techniques. In the first, common from the Ancient World onwards, the barbotine is piped onto the object rather as cakes are decorated...
relief, with appliqué motifs, and a class usually referred to as 'cut-glass' decoration, with geometric patterns cut into the surface of the vessel before slipping and firing. Two standard 'plain' types made in considerable numbers in Central Gaul also included barbotine decoration, Dr.35 and 36, a matching cup and dish with a curved horizontal rim embellished with a stylised scroll of leaves in relief.
During the second half of the 2nd century, some Lezoux workshops making relief-decorated bowls, above all that of Cinnamus, dominated the market with their large production. The wares of Cinnamus, Paternus, Divixtus, Doeccus, Advocisus, Albucius and some others often included large, easily legible name-stamps incorporated into the decoration, clearly acting as brand-names or advertisements. Though these vessels were very competently made, they are heavy and somewhat coarse in form and finish compared with earlier Gaulish samian ware.
From the end of the 2nd century, the export of sigillata from Central Gaul rapidly, perhaps even abruptly, ceased. Pottery production continued, but in the 3rd century, it reverted to being a local industry.
East Gaulish samian ware
There were numerous potteries manufacturing terra sigillata in East Gaul, which included AlsaceAlsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
, the Saarland
Saarland
Saarland is one of the sixteen states of Germany. The capital is Saarbrücken. It has an area of 2570 km² and 1,045,000 inhabitants. In both area and population, it is the smallest state in Germany other than the city-states...
, and the Rhine and Mosel regions, but while the samian pottery from Luxeuil, La Madeleine
Laneuveville-devant-Nancy
Laneuveville-devant-Nancy is a commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in north-eastern France, which includes the former commune of La Madeleine, notable for manufacturing terra sigillata Ancient Roman pottery.-See also:...
, Chémery-Faulquemont, Lavoye
Lavoye
Lavoye is a commune in the Meuse department in Lorraine in north-eastern France....
, Remagen
Remagen
Remagen is a town in Germany in Rhineland-Palatinate, in the district of Ahrweiler. It is about a one hour drive from Cologne , just south of Bonn, the former West German capital. It is situated on the River Rhine. There is a ferry across the Rhine from Remagen every 10–15 minutes in the summer...
, Sinzig
Sinzig
Sinzig is a town in the district of Ahrweiler, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the river Rhine, approx. 5 km south-east of Remagen and 25 km south-east of Bonn, and it has approximately 20,000 inhabitants .-History:...
, Blickweiler and other sites is of interest and importance mainly to specialists, two sources stand out because their wares are often found outside their own immediate areas, namely Rheinzabern
Rheinzabern
Rheinzabern is a small town in the south-east of Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany near the Rhine river.Currently, Rheinzabern, that belongs to the "Landkreis Germersheim" has approx...
, near Speyer
Speyer
Speyer is a city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located beside the river Rhine, Speyer is 25 km south of Ludwigshafen and Mannheim. Founded by the Romans, it is one of Germany's oldest cities...
, and Trier
Trier
Trier, historically called in English Treves is a city in Germany on the banks of the Moselle. It is the oldest city in Germany, founded in or before 16 BC....
.
The Trier potteries evidently began to make samian vessels around the beginning of the 2nd century AD, and were still active until the middle of the 3rd century. The styles and the potters have been divided by scholars into two main phases, Werkstatten I and II. Some of the later mould-made Dr.37 bowls are of very poor quality, with crude decoration and careless finishing.
The Rheinzabern kilns and their products have been studied since Wilhelm Ludowici (1855–1929) began to excavate there in 1901, and to publish his results in a series of detailed reports. Rheinzabern produced both decorated and plain forms for around a century from the middle of the 2nd century. Some of the Dr.37 bowls, for example those with the workshop stamp of Ianus, bear comparison with Central Gaulish products of the same date: others are less successful. But the real strength of the Rheinzabern industry lay in its extensive production of good-quality samian cups, beakers, flagons and vases, many imaginatively decorated with barbotine designs or in the 'cut-glass' incised technique. Ludowici created his own type-series, which sometimes overlaps with those of other sigillata specialists. Ludowici's types use combinations of upper- and lower-case letters rather than simple numbers, the first letter referring to the general shape, such as 'T' for Teller (dish).
In general, the products of the East Gaulish industries moved away from the early imperial Mediterranean tradition of intricately profiled dishes and cups, and ornamented bowls made in moulds, and converged with the later Roman local traditions of pottery-making in the northern provinces, using free-thrown, rounded forms and creating relief designs with freehand slip-trailing. Fashions in fine tablewares were changing. Some East Gaulish producers made bowls and cups decorated only with rouletted or stamped decoration, and in the 3rd and 4th centuries, Argonne
Forest of Argonne
The Forest of Argonne is a long strip of rocky mountain and wild woodland in north-eastern France.In 1792 Charles François Dumouriez outmaneuvered the invading forces of the Duke of Brunswick in the forest before the Battle of Valmy....
ware, decorated with all-over patterns of small stamps, was made in the area east of Rheims and quite widely traded. Argonne ware was essentially still a type of sigillata, and the most characteristic form is a small, sturdy Dr.37 bowl. Small, localised attempts to make conventional relief-decorated samian ware included a brief and unsuccessful venture at Colchester
Colchester
Colchester is an historic town and the largest settlement within the borough of Colchester in Essex, England.At the time of the census in 2001, it had a population of 104,390. However, the population is rapidly increasing, and has been named as one of Britain's fastest growing towns. As the...
in Britain, apparently initiated by potters from the East Gaulish factories at Sinzig, a centre that was itself an offshoot of the Trier workshops.
Eastern sigillatas
In the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, there had been several industries making fine red tablewares with smooth, glossy-slipped surfaces since about the middle of the 2nd century BC, well before the rise of the Italian sigillata workshops. By the 1st century BC, their forms often paralleled Arretine plain-ware shapes quite closely. There were evidently centres of production in SyriaSyria (Roman province)
Syria was a Roman province, annexed in 64 BC by Pompey, as a consequence of his military presence after pursuing victory in the Third Mithridatic War. It remained under Roman, and subsequently Byzantine, rule for seven centuries, until 637 when it fell to the Islamic conquests.- Principate :The...
; in western Turkey, exported through Ephesos; Pergamon
Pergamon
Pergamon , or Pergamum, was an ancient Greek city in modern-day Turkey, in Mysia, today located from the Aegean Sea on a promontory on the north side of the river Caicus , that became the capital of the Kingdom of Pergamon during the Hellenistic period, under the Attalid dynasty, 281–133 BC...
; Çandarlı
Çandarli
Çandarlı is a coastal township with own municipality within the district of Dikili in western Turkey's İzmir Province. It is a well-developed town and an important tourist resort...
, near Pergamon; and on Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
, but archaeologists often refer to eastern sigillata A
Eastern sigillata a
In archeology, eastern sigillata A is a category of late Hellenistic and early Roman terra sigillata. In 1957, Kathleen Kenyon introduced categories A, B, C, to classify eastern sigillata without determining the exact place of manufacture. For ESA, still no production centers have been identified...
from Northern Syria
Syria (Roman province)
Syria was a Roman province, annexed in 64 BC by Pompey, as a consequence of his military presence after pursuing victory in the Third Mithridatic War. It remained under Roman, and subsequently Byzantine, rule for seven centuries, until 637 when it fell to the Islamic conquests.- Principate :The...
, eastern sigillata B
Eastern sigillata b
Eastern sigillata B is a category of Early Roman terra sigillata. Workshops have been identified in Tralles in western Asia Minor....
from Tralles in Asia Minor, eastern sigillata C
Eastern sigillata c
Eastern sigillata C, also known as Çandarli ware, is a category of Late Hellenistic and Early Roman terra sigillata. The best known production center is at Çandarli, ancient Pitane....
from ancient Pitane
Pitane
Pitane may refer to:* Pitane , an ancient coastal city of Aeolis, currently the site of Çandarlı, İzmir Province, Turkey* Pitane , a nymph* Pitane , mythological eponym of Pitane * Pitane , a moth genus...
, and eastern sigillata D
Eastern sigillata d
Eastern sigillata D is a Roman-period tableware, or terra sigillata, produced in Cyprus.-Further reading:...
(or Cypriot sigillata) from Cyprus, as there is still much to be learnt about this material. While eastern sigillata C is known to come from Çandarli (ancient Pitane
Pitane
Pitane may refer to:* Pitane , an ancient coastal city of Aeolis, currently the site of Çandarlı, İzmir Province, Turkey* Pitane , a nymph* Pitane , mythological eponym of Pitane * Pitane , a moth genus...
), there were likely other workshops in the wider region of Pergamon
Pergamon
Pergamon , or Pergamum, was an ancient Greek city in modern-day Turkey, in Mysia, today located from the Aegean Sea on a promontory on the north side of the river Caicus , that became the capital of the Kingdom of Pergamon during the Hellenistic period, under the Attalid dynasty, 281–133 BC...
. By the early 2nd century AD, when Gaulish samian was completely dominating the markets in the Northern provinces, the eastern sigillatas were themselves beginning to be displaced by the rising importance of African Red Slip wares in the Mediterranean and the Eastern Empire.
African red slip ware
African red slipAfrican red slip
African red slip is a category of terra sigillata, or "fine" Ancient Roman pottery produced in the province of Africa Proconsularis, specifically that part roughly coinciding with the modern country of Tunisia and the Diocletianic provinces of Byzacena and Zeugitana. It is distinguished by a...
ware (ARS) was the final development of terra sigillata. While the products of the Italian and Gaulish red-gloss industries flourished and were exported from their places of manufacture for at most a century or two each, ARS production continued for more than 500 years. The centres of production were in the Roman provinces of Africa, Byzacena
Byzacena
Byzacena was a Roman province in what is now Tunisia.At the end of the third century AD, the Emperor Diocletian divided the great Roman province of Africa Proconsularis into three smaller provinces: Zeugitana in the north, still governed by a proconsul and referred to as Proconsularis, Byzacena,...
and Numidia
Numidia
Numidia was an ancient Berber kingdom in part of present-day Eastern Algeria and Western Tunisia in North Africa. It is known today as the Chawi-land, the land of the Chawi people , the direct descendants of the historical Numidians or the Massyles The kingdom began as a sovereign state and later...
; that is, modern Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
and part of eastern Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
. From about the 4th century AD, competent copies of the fabric and forms were also made in several other regions, including Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
, the eastern Mediterranean and Egypt. Over the long period of production, there was obviously much change and evolution in both forms and fabrics. Both Italian and Gaulish plain forms influenced ARS in the 1st and 2nd centuries (for example, Hayes Form 2, the cup or dish with an outcurved rim decorated with barbotine leaves, is a direct copy of the samian forms Dr.35 and 36, made in South and Central Gaul), but over time a distinctive ARS repertoire developed.
There was a wide range of dishes and bowls, many with rouletted or stamped decoration, and closed forms such as tall ovoid flagons with appliqué ornament (Hayes Form 171). The ambitious large rectangular dishes with relief decoration in the centre and on the wide rims (Hayes Form 56), were clearly inspired by decorated silver platters of the 4th century, which were made in rectangular and polygonal shapes as well as in the traditional circular form. Decorative motifs reflected not only the Graeco-Roman traditions of the Mediterranean, but eventually the rise of Christianity as well: there is a great variety of monogram crosses and plain crosses amongst the stamps.
Modern pottery
In sharp contrast to the archaeological usage, in which the term terra sigillata refers to a whole class of pottery, in contemporary ceramic artCeramic art
In art history, ceramics and ceramic art mean art objects such as figures, tiles, and tableware made from clay and other raw materials by the process of pottery. Some ceramic products are regarded as fine art, while others are regarded as decorative, industrial or applied art objects, or as...
, 'terra sigillata' describes only a watery refined slip used to facilitate the burnish
Burnish
Burnishing is a form of pottery treatment in which the surface of the pot is polished, using a hard smooth surface such as a wooden or bone spatula, smooth stones, plastic, or even glass bulbs, while it still is in a leathery 'green' state, i.e., before firing. After firing, the surface is...
ing of raw clay surfaces and used to promote carbon smoke effects, in both primitive
Pit fired pottery
Pit firing is the oldest known method for the firing of pottery. Examples have been dated as early as 29,000–25,000 BCE. Kilns have since replaced pit firing as the most widespread method of firing pottery, although the technique still finds limited use amongst certain studio potters.Unfired...
low temperature firing techniques and unglazed alternative western-style Raku firing techniques. Terra sigillata is also used as a brushable decorative colourant medium in higher temperature glazed
Ceramic glaze
Glaze is a layer or coating of a vitreous substance which has been fired to fuse to a ceramic object to color, decorate, strengthen or waterproof it.-Use:...
ceramic techniques.
In 1906 the German potter Karl Fischer re-invented the method of making terra sigillata of Roman quality and obtained patent protection for this procedure at the Kaiserliche Patentamt
Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt
The Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt or German Patent and Trade Mark Office is the German national patent office, with headquarters in Munich, and offices in Berlin and Jena...
in Berlin .
Making modern terra sigillata
Modern terra sigillata is made by adding a deflocculant such as sodium silicateSodium silicate
Sodium silicate is the common name for a compound sodium metasilicate, Na2SiO3, also known as water glass or liquid glass. It is available in aqueous solution and in solid form and is used in cements, passive fire protection, refractories, textile and lumber processing, and automobiles...
to a watery clay/water slip mixture and then allowing the clay
Clay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
particles to separate into layers by weight. For undisturbed deflocculated slip settling in a transparent container, these layers are usually visible within 24 hours. Siphoning off the topmost layers of slip, which contain the smallest and lightest clay particles, produces terra sigillata. The remaining heavier settled layers of deflocculated clay slip are discarded.
Terra sigillata is usually brushed or sprayed in thin layers onto dry or almost dry unfired ware. The ware is then quickly burnished with a soft cloth before the water in the terra sigillata soaks into the porous body. The burnished ware is allowed to dry again to remove the added moisture and biscuit
Bisque (pottery)
Bisque porcelain is unglazed, white ceramic ware Examples include bisque dolls.Bisque also refers to "pottery that has been fired but not yet glazed...
fired, often fired to a lower than normal biscuit temperature of approximately 900 °C. Higher firing temperatures tend to remove the burnished effect in the clay surface.
External links
- Potsherd "Atlas of Roman pottery" - specialist site with much information