The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon : a history of the early inhabitants of Britain, down to the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, illustrated by the ancient remains brought to light by recent research / by Thomas Wright ; with numerous engravings on wood.

  • Wright, Thomas, 1810-1877.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon : a history of the early inhabitants of Britain, down to the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, illustrated by the ancient remains brought to light by recent research / by Thomas Wright ; with numerous engravings on wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    565/588 (page 541)
    APPENDIX II. ROMAN POTTERS’ MARKS. It will be useful to local antiquaries to furnish them with a list of the names of potters stamped on the red Samian ware, as mentioned at p. 275. This list is naturally incomplete, for new names are turning up daily, but it will enable those who are occupied in researches on Roman sites to judge if the names they meet with are new, or of com- mon occurrence, and it will assist the general reader in forming a notion of the extent of the Roman power. It will be observed in this numerous list of names, that many are not Roman, and some are apparently Teutonic. The explanation of the different formulae of the potters will be found in our text at the page just referred to. It will be seen in the list that most of the potters used the different formulae indiscriminately. Before these potters’ marks were collected and explained, writers who had met with single instances, fell into the most ridiculous mis- takes in attempting to interpret them. Dr Leigh, who published in 1099 a ‘Natural History of Lancashire, Cheshire, and the Peak, with an account of the Antiquities in those parts,’ obtained at Ribchester, where the Samian ware is found in great abundance, a fragment with the stamp fab. pro (fabrica Probi), which he conjectured must have been made when one of the Fabii was proconsul or procurator! A still more curious blunder was made in the county of Essex. By the road side, at Cogereshall, in that county, a sepulchral interment was found, in which, among other objects, was a vessel of Samian ware with the stamp coccilli. m, which will also be found in the following- list. It was immediately interpreted as an abbreviation of Coccilli manibus, to the manes of Coccillus, and it was resolved that, from this personage, who was supposed to have been the lord of the spot, and to have been buried there, the place derived its name of Coggeshall! Such errors show us how necessary it is for the antiquary to begin by studying his science elementarily. At the end of the list of potters’ marks, I have given very imperfect lists of names stamped on mortaria and amphorae found in this island, which have hitherto been less carefully noted than those on the Samian ware. It will be observed that the formulae and the names are different. The frequent use of the n, for E, will be observed in these potters’ marks. See the observations on this subject at p. 233.