The Aldgate Potter: A Maker of Romano-British Samian WareAuthor(s): Grace SimpsonSource: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 42, Parts 1 and 2 (1952), pp. 68-71Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/297514 .

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THE ALDGATE POTTER: A MAKER OF ROMANO-BRITISH SAMIAN WARE

By GRACE SIMPSON

rThe potters who left the declining South Gaulish Samian factories in order to start their own workshops at Lezoux, in Central Gaul, experienced in their turn the loss of potters who, after learning the craft, went away to start the many small Samian factories which existed in East Gaul and Germany during the second and early third centuries. Many of these were so successful that their products were used in quantity in north-east Gaul and the Rhineland, and even reached many sites in Britain. To mention only a few, the wares from Lavoye and La Madeleine are notable at Corbridge and South Shields, and much Trier ware has been found at Corbridge.

Evidence for similar movements of potters to Britain is to be expected and can be found, but is so scanty as to suggest failure. This is hard to understand; for the Romano- British market for Samian was large, to judge by the quantity of sherds surviving in British museums. Suitable raw materials could be obtained here, and were used in the Colchester and Aldgate Samian wares noted below; and it was during the early years of the second century that this country became less dependent on continental imports for most classes of coarse pottery, and began instead the production of distinctive Romano-British wares.

Perhaps the Trajanic ' Anchor potter ' intended to start a factory in Britain, and sent a ' scout ' to look for a suitable locality for it; this seems to be a possible explanation why an excellent mould in his style, and probably made at Lezoux, should have been found in York.1- At present, no other place in Britain has yielded evidence of any sort for the manufacture, or intended manufacture, of Samian except Colchester,2 London, and Pulborough, in Sussex.3

The orange-coloured imitation Samian made in various parts of Britain is not discussed here because, though often exact in form, it lacked the hard rusty-red paste and glaze of genuine Samian ware. The products of the Samian kilns at Colchester were closest in style to East Gaulish wares, and seem to have been used only locally. The likeness between the designs on the three small fragments of moulds from Pulborough and the style of the Aldgate potter's work suggests that the same inexpert hand made them all.

An unusual fragment of figured Samian ware accepted in i882 into the collections of the British Museum 4 is described as ' a coarsely made bowl of Form 37 in the free style, found at Aldgate, London. It was crazed " in firing and was therefore almost certainly made in this country, as " wasters " would not be imported from the continent '. Its rim is crumpled and rolled downwards, and the lower part is buckled. If wasters were not imported, neither is it likely that they were carried very far from their place of manufacture; the maker has therefore been named after the place where the fragment was found, but in doing so it is not suggested that there was a potter making Samian ware in what is now Aldgate.

The description of the bowl as ' coarsely made ' is an understatement. Extreme roughness and carelessness are the distinguishing features of the Aldgate potter, not only on this but also on the other pieces which are here assigned to him; and his bowls compare unfavourably with the worst products of the Central Gaulish factories at Lezoux, although it was from Lezoux that his figure-types and general style of decoration were copied. The Lezoux potters as a whole reached a high standard of technical excellence, and the smoothness and uniformly good qualities of pastes and glazes, the neatness with which moulds were stamped with ovolos and figure-types, and the care with which the bowls were removed from the moulds and their rims and footstands added, will make a constant impression upon anyone who handles much Lezoux ware. These points, together with the individuality of each potter's work, and the liveliness of the figure-types, compensate for

1 The piece is now in the Yorkshire Museum, York ; I am indebted to Mr. Eric Birley for a discussion of its implications.

2 cf. M. R. Hull, 'Eine Terra-sigillata-Topferei in Colchester' (Germania i8, 1934, 27-36).

3Proc. Soc. Ant. XXIII, 127, fig. 5. 4Gutide to the Antiquities of Roman Britain I922,

109; M 1546, presented by the directors of the Metropolitan Railway, found at Aldgate extension works.

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THE ALDGATE POTTER: A MAKER OF ROMANO-BRITISH SAMIAN WARE 69

the inartistic and usually overcrowded arrangement of their designs. The work of the Aldgate potter possessed all the last-mentioned characteristics, and so individual was his style that it has been possible to assign to him, with confidence, fragments from five bowls as well as the three fragments from moulds 5

I. Dr. 37, found in Aldgate, London (Dept. of Archaeology, Durham). 2. Small Dr. 37, found in London, exact site unknown (British Museum). 3. Dr. 37, found at Silchester, Hants (Museum and Art Gallery, Reading). 4. Dr. 37, found at Chichester, Sussex. 5. Dr. 30, found at Chichester. 6, 7, and 8. Casts from moulds found unstratified in the Roman villa near Pulborough, Sussex.

Nos. 4 and 5 attracted special notice in a collection of Samian found several years ago in Chichester and, on comparison of them with a rubbing made while examining the Samian from Silchester,6 a relationship became apparent. To these were added the two London pieces, and finally the moulds. Although so fragmentary, the moulds show four points of contact with the sherds : the ovolo, the wavy borders, the palm-leaf, and three of the figure-types ; and an error that appears to be unique may be added as a further link between them. Who but the Aldgate potter would have stamped the figure of Bacchus (Dechelette 304) into a mould and then have superimposed the tambourine dancer (D 2IO) without removing the traces of the lower stamp, so that the girl seems to have four arms on no. 8 (fig. 5) ? It would have been difficult to discern which figure had been stamped underneath, but for the fact that the Bacchus also appears on the Aldgate waster; and but for this double stamp the mould fragments might have been assigned tentatively to ACAVNISSA of Lezoux, because his ovolo and palm-leaf appear on them. Instead, it is suggested that these were borrowed from ACAVNISSA by the Aldgate potter.

An examination of the Aldgate potter's repertoire by indicating the source of his motifs may suggest a terminus post quem for his work.

(i) Ovolos: (a) An ovolo distinctive of, and used almost invariably by, ACAVNISSA of Lezoux,7 C. A.D. I30-I50. It is double-bordered, with a tongue consisting of small square dots ending in a rosette (fig. 5, nos. 2, 6, and 7).

(b) An ovolo probably made by the Aldgate potter himself. It was not cut in series on a roulette, but consisted simply of one ' egg and tongue ', so small and blurred that it is difficult to distinguish its details (fig. 5, nos. 3 and 4). It has been stamped at irregular intervals, and at slightly different angles, round the two bowls on which it occurs.

(c) A row of beaded circles takes the place of an ovolo on fig. 5, nos. I and 5. (ii) Borders: wavy lines only are used; they occur above the ovolo as well as below it. (iii) Designs: free-style and panel decoration are both used. (iv) Decorative details: it is the frequency with which small motifs, or combinations of

them, appear together on different bowls that, with the ovolo, constitute the easiest means of isolating the Aldgate potter's style.

(a) A small S motif. This was also used by one of the Antonine Lezoux potters; his name is not yet known, but it is convenient to refer to him as the ' Potter of the small S ', from his habit of sprinkling his designs with that motif.

(b) A beaded circle (D. II82), also used in place of an ovolo. (c) Double circles enclosing a beaded circle. (d) A six-beaded rosette. (e) A cordate leaf with central bud. (f) A palm-leaf (D. II75) as used by ACAVNISSA and PATERNVS. (g) The branched ornament, D. Ii I6. (h) The baluster entwined with ivy leaves, D. 1092, as used by DOCILIS and the ' Potter

of the small S '. (b) and (f)-(h) are reduced copies of the types illustrated by Dechelette.

5The numbers correspond to the drawings on fig. 5.

6 Thomas May published only part of the Samian ware from that site, and this sherd is not included in his The Pottery from Silchester i9i6.

7cf. Dr. Felix Oswald's two papers on this potter, YRS XIX, I929, 120 f., and XXI, 1931, 251 f.

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70 GRACE SIMPSON

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FIG. 5. SAMIAN WARE FRAGMENTS WITH DESIGNS ATTRIBUTED TO A BRITISH POTTER. C. -2.

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THE ALDGATE POTTER: A MAKER OF ROMANO-BRITISH SAMIAN WARE 7I

(v) Figure-types: nineteen different types occur on the eight fragments,8 of which thirteen are known to have been used by Lezoux potters. ATTIANVS used five of them,9 and a number of other potters used one or two each, among them ACAVNISSA, who made use of the small Cupid, D. 246. The figure-types, like the decorative details, are all reduced in size, when compared with the originals, and are therefore copies-and copies that lack both high relief and clear outlines.10

The working life of ATTIANVS was c. I40-I70, and that of the 'Potter of the small S may have been about the same or lasting a little later ; the third influence on the Aldgate potter seems to have been ACAVNISSA, the earliest of the three but overlapping with ATTIANYS. The middle of the second century seems the earliest period at which the Aldgate potter could have obtained ACAVNISSA's ovolo roulette, and copied the details and figure-types; and his use of the wavy line for his borders supports such a dating, for it was about then that wavy lines went out of fashion among Lezoux potters, who thereafter almost invariably used beaded borders.

A potter whose products have been found at two places on Stane Street, as well as in London and at Silchester, is worth further investigation. Lack of craftsmanship may have restricted his enterprise, but he must have had some appreciation of the needs of the Romano-British market. The problem remains why the Aldgate potter and the Colchester potters were alone in their ventures.

8 Sixteen of the types have D6chelette and Oswald numbers, as follows:- D. 0. D. 0. D. 0. D. 0. - 1= I58 246 = 404 420 = 7I8 828 = I642 158 = 249 290 = 532 736 = 1378 834 = I666 210 = 368 304 = 566 799 5= I18 868 = 1768 217 = 354 403 = 688 8i8 bis = i6i6 969 ter = 1564

9 D. I58, 8i8 bis, 834, 868, and 969 ter. 10 Miss Anne Newlyn, B.A., made the careful

drawings, and by shading has given an impression of

the finger-marks and smears that were the Aldgate potter's finishing touches.

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