Potsherd: Atlas of Roman Pottery

Introduction

Terra sigillata or samian wares are the classic fine wares of the early Roman period, familiar to any visitor to a museum or excavation with finds of this period. Their study has a long and brilliant history, and has traditionally overshadowed that of more humble wares.

The roots of the industry go back to the mid-first cent. BC in Italy. Building on the foundations of a pre-existing black-slipped ware industry, glossy red-slipped wares were produced at Arezzo, in northern Tuscany, by c. 40 BC. The industry expanded, and factories producing Italian-type sigillata were founded at other centres in Italy, such as Pisa, and also in southern France and northern Spain.

• The earliest sigillata wares in northern Europe, including the pre-conquest imports to Britain, are from the Italian workshops or their offshoots, but the most important sources of samian for the area during the first-third cent. AD are, successively, the factories of South, Central and Eastern Gaul.
• Small workshops operated in Britain during the second century AD, firstly at Pulborough (Sussex) and later at Colchester (Essex).

Links

• A survey of samian ware in Britain by S.Willis is available in the online journal Internet Archaeology through this link. (Access details for the article can be found on the SGRP website).
  The original data can be downloaded from the ADS website.

Forms

A database of the principal terra sigillata forms, with illustrations, is available here.