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Camulodunum type 262, le type Besançon and Central Gaulish granite-tempered ware

Summary of distribution in département 37-Indre-et-Loire (France)
Click on the site name for more details

Site name Description
Amboise Amboise lies on the Loire, some 80 km east of Orléans (Collis 1975, 193 gives a brief summary of the archaeology of the site). Occupation levels dating to the first century BC have been investigated at the Les Chatelliers site. The material from fosse 4 at this site includes a large number of vessels in TF1 -- jars of class 1 and 2 (samples B115-6, B119, B124-5, B129), but none of the smaller Cam.262 variety. There are no other moulded-rim jars in the group, but simple necked jars in a hand-formed coarse ware inclusions of quartz, plagioclase feldspar and white mica) and other finer grey and black wheel-thrown vessels. The group apparently also includes a Dressel 1b amphora (of which there are a large numbers from some contexts at the site), but no samian or other early-Roman fine wares -- a date in the second half of the first century BC may be suggested. Jars of class 2 in TF1 have also been recovered from the bed of the Loire at Amboise, in one instance several were apparently `stacked together' (Information from M. Peyrard, who suggests that the vessels are from a wreck).
Tours There is a little material from Tours which indicates occupation in the pre-Augustan period, in particular a number of Dressel 1 amphoras including an example of variant 1a, The few contemporary coarse wares are plain necked-jars and bowls.

The early Roman levels on site `1' includes numbers of jars of form C262 in TF1 Fig.13,10-14) and a finer jar of form C102 (Fig.13,15) which are associated with samian wares (particularly the early micaceous products of Lezoux) of Tiberian and Claudian date and other early Roman fine wares. Other large storage jars with micaceous fabrics from the same contexts show, in thin-section ( B222), inclusions of quartz, muscovite and biotite mica and feldspars. Although this need not be a local ware, the larger proportion of muscovite marks it out from TF1.

Vernou-sur-Brenne The assemblage from Vernou-sur-Brenne described and illustrated by Maugard (1977) is perhaps particularly notable for the large number of amphoras - some 290kg in total and including 40+ examples of the Dressel 1a variety. These are accompanied by a range of coarse ware jars and bowls with plain rims and rather simple profiles, but one group of a dozen or so jars with horizontally moulded rims is picked out and described separately on page 18 of the report in the following terms: Lot d'une douzaine (planche XX). Ce sont des vases globulaires tournés dont la pâte est grumeleuse, micassée et brute de tournage sur la paroi extérieuse de la panse, lisée sur le col et à l'intérieur. Les cols forment une gorge nettement prononcée: dès le départ de la panse, en ressaut, un décor incisé en accents graves ou aigues. Les lèvres sont franchement éversées, souvent horizontales, avec 2 ou 3 cannelures. Sur le tesson fig.9 les incisions sont en chevrons. This description clearly indicates that these vessels fall within the typological range of TF1 class 1 but unfortunatly this cannot be confirmed by examining the drawn examples as in all copies of the volume of the Revue Archéologique du Centre containing Maugard's paper seen by the writer the relevant illustration (Planche XX) is missing. The published fabric description may suggest that the jars are in TF1, but this awaits confirmation. It is unfortunate that more details are not available about what is clearly an interesting site.
Location map : 37-Indre-et-Loire (France)
 • Url: http://www.potsherd.org.uk/papers/cgmw/db/dept/37 • Author: • Last updated: 29 July, 2004 •