Timing Devices, Fermentation Vessels, 'Ritual' Piercings? A Consideration of Deliberately 'Holed' Pots from Silchester and Elsewhere

Abstract

in the context of effecting a repair is well attested in Roman Britain. Frequently in the case of samian, but also mortaria and, occasionally, coarse ware, sherds are recovered with evidence of a drilled hole close to the edge of the fracture. These were designed to take half of a staple, usually of lead, occasionally of copper alloy, 119 or organic ties 120 to reunite the joining sherds. Other instances of the creation of holes made after firing with a clear functional purpose can also be noted. The piercing of the base of a vessel, often with multiple holes, to allow liquid to drain from it is not uncommon. Beyond intervention to pottery which either attempts to restore or modestly adapt its original functional capacity, we wish to draw attention to a widespread pattern of radical interference that appears to destroy the original functional capacity of a vessel. In the course of the re-cataloguing of the coarse pottery in the Silchester Collection in Reading Museum and Art Gallery in the 1990s, it was observed that a large number were pierced after firing with one or more holes through the belly of the vessel. A smaller number comprised vessels with holes pierced through the base. The collection is very largely made up of complete, or near-complete vessels recovered from the Society of Antiquaries' excavations undertaken between 1890 and 1909. About half of the sample is marked and can be attributed either to an individual insula, or to a particular pit or well within a numbered insula. No written archive survives to complement the published accounts in Archaeologia, which only provides limited information on some contexts from which marked material is known to have been derived. Only in the case of two insulae is it possible to begin to investigate the relationship between certain, marked artefacts, especially pottery, and the pits and wells where such material was found and which are numbered on the published plans. In these examples-it is possible to evaluate the material as assemblages from the same context. (See pp. 201-7.) The new catalogue (by JT) questions the antiquity of some of the holes, particularly those in the relatively thin wall of a vessel in question, where a qualification might be recorded such as: 'accidental', ^deliberate', or '?made in antiquity'. However, the total number of observations suggests that by no means all, if, indeed, any, can be explained as a result of damage at the time of their modern excavation, or as a result of subsequent handling. That we are dealing with an ancient practice can be illustrated by examples from recent and current excavations at Silchester. From a basal fill of a late Iron Age well beneath the basilica a grog-tempered jar was recovered in association with two other intact jars. It had been pierced by a small hole on the shoulder. 121 Second, in the context of the currrent excavations in Insula IX, re-examination of the pewter flagon from the bottom of the well which contained the dwarf column with an inscription in ogham revealed that the belly of the v...

Victorian Excavation Methodology: The Society of Antiquaries at Silchester in 1893

“…2? It seems plausible to identify some at least of the pits dug at intervals along the length of the basilica with those of the second Victorian excavation. 28 Although the absence of evidence for a second colonnade as derived from the 1980s excavation served to refute categorically the earlier findings of 1892, the failure both to mark the location of exploratory trenches and to describe findings more fully meant that re-excavation was the only course available to verify earlier conclusions. 29 Similar pre-occupations with the nature of the architecture can be inferred from the excavations on the defences at the North and South Gates, as well as at the minor, South-East Gate.…”

Hadrian and Britain: The Civil Zone

“…The terminus post quem for the rebuilding of the forum basilica in masonry is provided by a cast counterfeit as of Domitian which Boon dated to c. A.D. 122, but with completion perhaps not until as late as c. A.D. 150. 67 Finally, London, where Milne has proposed that 'construction work on the new Basilica began at the turn of the 1st century, and that the first phase was completed within a decade of AD 120.' 68 The forum basilica was almost certainly the location of the 1.25 times life-size bronze statue of Hadrian whose head was found in the Thames in 1834.…”

Pinning Down Identities: The Negotiation of Personhood and the Materialisation of Identity in the Late Iron Age and Early Roman Severn Estuary

“…If this was a deliberate deposition of the items rather than a general rubbish dump during the demolition of the fortress, then the inclusion of the brooches would be of significance. Specific practices related to the abandonment of a place, including the explicit and structured deposition of objects, have been previously considered (Clarke 1997;Armit 1999;Fulford 2001;Fulford and Timby 2001). Clarke has argued that the finds from a series of pits at Newstead fort form part of structured deposits of objects relating to '…the continued development of a widespread prehistoric ritual activity' (Clarke 1997: 80-81), and goes on to compare the pits with special deposits within disused grain stores at Danebury.…”