Changed my mind about Roman pottery after visiting Vindolanda

I always thought Roman pottery was boring, just piles of broken red clay stuff. But last summer I went to Vindolanda up near Hadrian's Wall in England and saw the actual storage jars they pulled from the anaerobic mud. One jar still had a Roman soldier's name scratched into the side, like a name tag on a lunchbox. Seeing those personal marks made me realize the pottery tells real stories about the people who used it. Has anyone else had a site visit totally shift how you see a certain artifact type?

3 comments

3 Comments

blair_chen8111d ago

My friend swore samian ware was junk until she held a sherd with a thumbprint from 1800 years ago.

tessaperry11d ago

Get a magnifying glass and look at the rim next time. You can usually tell if it's samian by the metallic sheen and the little tool marks from the wheel.

taylor95711d ago

Oh man, @blair_chen81, that's wild! Makes you wonder what that person was gripping so tight.

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