English: A large base and body shard of decorated Roman Samian Ware/Terre Sigillata pottery. The fabric is very hard (it rings when knocked), is light orange in colour and has an orange/red 'satin' gloss slip on both the inner and outer surface. The fabric is tempered with fairly sparse fine mica, poorly sorted quartz and medium sized grains of iron ore. This suggests that it is of Central Gaulish manufacture (Tyres 1996, p.113), but it is difficult to narrow it down further than this because of the poor condition of the shard. According to Tyres (ibid. p.107) fineware of this type was being produced in this region throughout the second century AD.

The shard is decorated with a circumferential raised line around the base. Above this is a highly decorative inhabited scroll design, with various images within the sections created by this. On the left hand side is the apparently seated figure of a man, in the central section is perhaps an animal of some kind, but this is difficult to make out, and at the right-hand side we can see a leaf. There is no visible makers mark, but the design would seem typical of those produced by the Lezoux potters during the second century, and Cinnamus in particular (Webster 1996, pp.84-86).

The shard appears to be from the base of a large, decorated, fairly straight sided bowl, probably with a small base as there is a reasonably straight break at the bottom of the shard where this was probably attached. On this basis Dragendorff type 37 seems to provide the most likely parallel (Webster 1996, p.47). These Tyres (1996, p.107) suggests were being produced from AD c.70 into the third century.

Length: 136.18mm, Width: 63.18mm, Thickness: 11.50mm

Weight: 80.22g