Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T08:23:55.109Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Romano-British Face Pots and Head Pots*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Gillian Braithwaite
Gillian Braithwaite
Affiliation:
7100, Glenbrook Road, Bethesda, Maryland 20814, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Face pots and head pots which, while never common, were clearly much more widely used in Roman Britain than the number of surviving whole vessels might lead one to believe, are among the most attractive and least documented products of the Romano-British pottery industries. Face pots, with their crude, barbaric, rather comic-looking features stuck incongruously on a well-made Roman jar, are quite unlike any other type of Roman pottery, where free-hand figurative decoration is practically unknown. Head pots, with their contrived hair styles and naturalistic features, are more classical-looking and more acceptably ‘Roman’, and yet they seem to be a purely insular development, found only in the remote province of Britain and with no obvious close counterparts anywhere else in the Roman Empire except perhaps in North Africa. The purpose of this article is to outline the development of these two types of vessels in Britain and to make a preliminary attempt to define the regional groups that evolved, with a brief reference to the earlier and parallel developments on the Continent, and finally to discuss, in the light of the meagre evidence available, what might have been their function and possible significance.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 15 , November 1984 , pp. 99 - 131
Copyright
Copyright © Gillian Braithwaite 1984. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 I should be most grateful for details of any other face or head pots from sites not mentioned on the map.

2 Kalicz, N. and Makkay, J. in Jeno, F. and Jones, M. (eds.), Actuelle Fragen des Bandkeramik (1972), 104, fig. 7: Ia.Google Scholar

3 Broholm, H. C., Danske Oldsager IV, Yngre Bronzealder (1953), 377–95.Google Scholar

4 Montelius, O., La Civilization Primitive en Italie vol. II (1895), pl. 222–4.Google Scholar

5 Baume, W. La, Die Pommerellischen Gesichtsurnen (1963).Google Scholar

6 Glob, P. V., Acta Archaeologica viii (1937), 202 ff, figs. 37 and 38.Google Scholar

7 Laet, S. J. De, La Necropole Gallo-Romaine de Blicquy (1972), 37.Google Scholar

8 Oelman, F., Die Keramik des Kastells Niederbieber (1914), 73.Google Scholar

9 Wedlake, W. J., Excavations at Camerton (1958), 199, fig. 48: 600.Google Scholar

10 Swann, V. G. in A. C. and Anderson, A. S. (eds.), Pottery Research in Britain and North West Europe, B.A.R. 123 (1981), 129.Google Scholar

11 ibid., 149, note 8.

12 G. Webster and M. J. Darling, unpub. info. 1982.

13 Darling, M. J. in Dore, and Green, (eds.), Roman Pottery Studies in Britain and Beyond, B.A.R. 30 (1977), fig. 6, 4: 18.Google Scholar

14 Brassington, M., Antiq. Journ. li (1971), fig. 11: 254.Google Scholar

15 Round, A. A., Trans. South Staffs. Arch. Soc. (1980), 1–11.Google Scholar

16 Atkinson, D., J.R.S. xxii (1932), 33, fig. 6.Google Scholar

17 Swann, V. G., op. cit. (note 10), 123.Google Scholar

18 Jones, D. M., Excavations at Billingsgate, L. & M.A.S. Special Paper (1980), fig. 30: 206.Google Scholar

19 C. Evans, unpub. info. (1981).

20 V. Maxwell, unpub. info. (1983).

21 Hull, M. R., Roman Colchester (1958), 285.Google Scholar

22 Hull, M. R., The Roman Potters Kilns at Colchester (1963), 159, 169.Google Scholar

23 S. Greep, unpub. info. (1982).

24 Gentry, A. et al. , Trans. London & Middlesex Arch. Soc. xxviii (1977), 143, 148.Google Scholar

25 Green, M. J., Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies xxix (1980), 174.Google Scholar

26 This apparently unpublished, complete face pot is in the Cambridge University Museum.

27 V. Rigby, unpub. info. (1982).

28 The Museum of London has the largest collection of face pots and sherds in the country after Colchester, almost none of which have been published.

29 Toynbee, J. M. C., Art in Britain Under the Romans (1964), 405.Google Scholar

30 J. Shepherd, unpub. info. (1981).

31 Lemmon, C. H. and Hill, J. Darrell, Sussex Arch. Coll. civ (1966) pl. iv: A.Google Scholar

32 Briscoe, G., Proc. Suff. Inst. Arch. Soc., xxvii (1958), 176.Google Scholar

33 Swann, V. G., op. cit. (note 10), fig. 8: 14.Google Scholar

34 Green, C., East Anglian Arch. v (1971), 31.Google Scholar

35 Darling, M. J., Lincoln Arch. Trust Annual Report (1980-1981), 28; B. Gilmour, unpub. info. (1982).Google Scholar

36 White, A. J., Britannia xii (1981), pl. xxiv: B.Google Scholar

37 May, T., The Roman Pottery in the York Museum (1909), pl. xiiiGoogle Scholar; Addyman, P. V.. Antiq. Journ. liv (1975), fig. 9 : 12.Google Scholar

38 Petch, J. R., Journ. of Chester Arch. Soc., xxx pt ii, (1933), 38, pl xiv: 43.Google Scholar

39 Green, M. J., Small Cult Objects from the Military Areas of Roman Britain, B.A.R., 52 (1978), pls. 107 and 108.Google Scholar

40 A. Bell, unpub. info. (1982).

41 Watkin, W. T., Roman Lancashire (1893), 186.Google Scholar

42 G. D. Marsh, unpub. info. (1983).

43 Ross, A., Pagan Celtic Britain (1967), pl. 38: a, b and c.Google Scholar

44 Smith, G. H., Britannia ix (1978), 31, fig. 19: 40.Google Scholar

45 Jeff Taylor, unpub. info. (1982).

46 P. Austen, unpub. info. (1982).

47 Bievelet, Le Chanoine, Latomus xxviii (1957), 327, pl. C : 6.Google Scholar

48 Green, M. J., op. cit. (note 39), pl. 102.Google Scholar

49 ibid., pls. 104, 106, and 109.

50 Robertson, T., P.S.A.S. cv (1972/1974), 285.Google Scholar

51 Miller, S. N., The Roman Fort at Balmuidy (1922), pl. 1: 28 and 29.Google Scholar

52 Goodburn, R., Britannia x (1979), 285, pl. xv: 6.; P. Turnbull and J. Evans unpub. info. (1982).Google Scholar

53 Mellaart, J., The Neolithic of the Near East (1975), 118, fig. 69.Google Scholar

54 One of the best collections of these Attic and Etruscan polychrome vases is in the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York. The Ashmolean also has several examples.

55 Köln, I, I, Führer zu Vor und Frühgeschichtlichen Denkmälern, Bd. 37/1 (1980), 82–3, fig. 1.Google Scholar

56 This vase is in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier, No 27, 31. The face vase illustrated in Déchelette, J., Vases Ornées de la Gaul Romaine, vol. ii (1904), pl. x: 3, with no scale given, is in all likelihood another of these rare perfume bottles.Google Scholar

57 Harrison, E., Athenian Agora, vol. i, (1953), 66, pl. 47: d. There is a good example of these head vases in the British Museum. Professor Henry S. Robinson believes they are ‘to be connected in some way with the Athenian practices of the “ephebeia”’ (unpub. info. 1983).Google Scholar

58 A large number of these vessels are in the Loeffler Collection in the Römisch-Germanisches Museum in Köln, and several are also in the Louvre. Two or three are featured in Musées et Collections Archéologiques de l'Algérie et de la Tunisie (1890-1928), but these seem to be less common and are possibly earlier types.

59 R.C.H.M., Eburacum (1962), 92.Google Scholar

60 Wenham, L. P., The Roman Cemetery at Trentholme Drive (1968), 84, fig. 33: 9.Google Scholar

61 R.C.H.M., op. cit. (note 59), figs. 54 and 71 and pl. 29.Google Scholar

62 P. Scott, unpub. info.; Current Archaeology v, no. 8, 24.

63 Bruce, I. Collingwood, Descriptive Catalogue of Antiquities at Alnwick Castle (1880), 150.Google Scholar

64 M. J. Darling, unpub. slide.

65 Arch. Ael. (3rd Series) iii, ii (1906), frontispiece.Google Scholar

66 Dickinson, J. and Wenham, L. P., York Arch. Journ. xxxix (1956-1958), 313, fig. 9: 29.Google Scholar

67 Oswald, F., Trans. Thoroton Soc. xxxi (1956), 55.Google Scholar

68 M. J. Darling, unpub. info. (1982).

69 S. M. Elsdon, unpub. info. (1982).

70 Woolley, T. C. S., Trans. Thoroton Soc. x (1906), pl. 4 : II.Google Scholar

71 Roberts, W. I. IV, Romano-Saxon Pottery, B.A.R. 106 (1982), 122–6.Google Scholar

72 Corder, P., Antiq. Journ. xvii (1937), 405.Google Scholar

73 Green, M. J., op. cit. (note 25), pl. iiiGoogle Scholar; V.C.H., Hunts, (1926) pl. iii: 3. This head pot is now in the Cambridge Museum of Ethnology and Anthropology.Google Scholar

74 Potter, T. W., B.M. Occ. Papers (1982), no. 297Google Scholar; Roberts, W. I., op. cit. (note 71), D. 39. 7; the sherd from Brettenham is in the Norwich Museum, Acc. no. 145. 966.Google Scholar

75 Hull, M. R., op. cit. (note 21), fig. 59.Google Scholar

76 Warren, J., Proc. Suff. Inst. Arch, i (1853), 78.Google Scholar

77 Woolley, T. C. S., op. cit. (note 70), pl. 4: 10.Google Scholar

78 Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. iii, 250.

79 Watkin, W. T., op. cit. (note 41), 186.Google Scholar

80 Frere, S. S., Verulamium Excavations, vol. I (1972), fig. 125 and 132.Google Scholar

81 S. Greep, unpub. info. 1982.

82 Williams, V. E. Nash, Archaeologia lxxx (1930), 229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

83 Smith, G. H., op. cit. (note 44), 31.Google Scholar

84 Briscoe, G., Proc. Suff. Inst. Arch. xxvi (1957), 80 and op. cit. (note 32), 176.Google Scholar

85 Rigold, S. E., Arch. Journ. cxxvi (1961), 99, fig. 6 : II.Google Scholar

86 Ross, A. in Coles, J. M. and Simpson, D. D. A. (eds.) Studies in Ancient Europe (1969), 278.Google Scholar

87 Richardson, K. M., Archaeologia xc (1944), 117, fig. 16: 12.Google Scholar

88 The Museum of London face pot (Acc. no. 18302) was found in a pit behind the Guildhall, (FIG. 6: 4).

89 P. Turnbull and J. Evans unpub. info. 1982.

90 M. J. Darling, unpub. info. (1982) and op. cit. (note 35), 27.

91 Hull, M. R., op. cit. (note 21), 137.Google Scholar

92 B. Walters, unpub. info. (1981).

93 Green, M. J., op. cit. (note 25), 175.Google Scholar

94 R. Pollard, unpub. info. (1982).

95 Green, M. J., op. cit. (note 25), 181.Google Scholar

96 Penn, N. S., Arch. Cant. lxxvii (1962), 121, fig. 4: 3 and 4.Google Scholar

97 Oswald, F., op. cit. (note 67), 55.Google Scholar

98 P. Scott, unpub. info. (1982).

99 Warren, J., op. cit. (note 76), 78.Google Scholar

100 M. R. Hull, unpub. notes.

101 Ross, A., op. cit. (note 43), 339.Google Scholar

102 Schumacher, K. in Altertümer Unseren Heidnischen Vorzeit V (1911), 347.Google Scholar

103 P. Turnbull, unpub. info. (1982).

104 Richmond, I. A., Arch. Ael. (4th Series) xxi (1943), 127.Google Scholar

105 Leach, J., Arch. Ael. (4th Series) xl (1962), 35; Southwark Excavations 1972-4 (1978), 369, fig. 166, no. 1273.Google Scholar

106 Ludowici, W., Stempel-Namen, und Römischer, BilderTöpfer in Rheinzabern, Kat. V (1927), 275, K 25.Google Scholar

107 Amand, M. in Actes du Colloque International d'Archéologie, Rouen, (1978), 165.Google Scholar

108 ibid, 168.

109 This vessel is in the Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Bruxelles.

110 Elsdon, S. M., Stamped Iron Age Pottery, B.A.R. 10 (1975), figs. I and 2.Google Scholar

111 Rodwell, W. in Arthur, P. and Marsh, G. (eds.), Early Fine Wares in Roman Britain, B.A.R. 57 (1978), fig. 7: 1.Google Scholar

112 Roberts, W. IV, op. cit. (note 71), pls. 51–4.Google Scholar

113 R.C.H.M., , op. cit. (note 59), 92.Google Scholar