Part 12

_Native Pottery._—In the British Museum are some valuable MS. notes made in the years 1674-79, “by Mr. John Conyers, apothecary, at the ‘White Lion,’ in Fleet Street” (Sloane, 958, 816, 937). In mentioning St. Faith’s Chapel, at St. Paul’s, he says that his father and mother were there married forty-five years since (from 1677). Incidentally, he speaks of two brothers, and of being “at Epping Forest hunting ye hare, but ye frost prevented the scent.” This is a late example of the sporting customs of ancient London. His observations refer to excavations on the site of St. Paul’s and along the Fleet. In regard to the former it appears certain that there were a number of Roman rubbish pits on the site, similar to those recently excavated on the Post Office site. Here also were found pottery-kilns and glass furnaces with pottery, bone and other objects. This seems to have been a manufacturing quarter of the city unoccupied by dwellings. Some sketches show that the pottery kilns were circles of small diameter, having a raised floor supported on a central post, like a table, all of clay and broken stuff roughly formed; the lower stage or fire chamber was thus a ring around the central prop, and in the raised “floor” were several small holes. There must have been an external pit with a stoke-hole, and also a flue from the fire chamber. Four such kilns were found close together, forming a quatrefoil group. The dome of the kiln seems to have been roughly new formed over the pottery to be fired (Fig. 134). Conyers, in the account of finds on the site of St. Paul’s, gives sketches of the kilns found at St. Paul’s with several kinds of pots: “Figures of two kinds of kilns or furnaces of various pots, jugs, etc., of different kinds of earth and pottery. One kiln in loamy ground about 26 ft. deep, near the place where the Mercat-house stood in Oliver’s time. The discovery made in 1677 on digging the foundation of the north-east cross part of St. Paul’s amongst gravel-pits and loam-pits.... Coffins lay over this loamy kiln, the lowest coffins made of chalk, and this supposed to be about Domitian’s time. This kiln was full of ye worst sort of pots, lamps, urns, and not many were saved whole. Four of these [kilns] had been made in the sandy-loam in the fashion of a cross on the ground; the foundations of these left standing 5 ft. from top to bottom, and better, and as many feet in breadth, and had no other matter for its form or building but the outward loam crusted hardish by the heat burning the loam red like brick. The flooring in the middle, supported by and cut out of loam and helped with old-fashioned Roman tiles, sherds, but very few, and such as I have seen used for repositories for urns in ye fashion of little ovens, and they plastered within with a reddish mortar; but here was no mortar, but only ye sandy loam for cement.... A censer or lamp, whitish earth; one great earthen dish; earthen lamp gilded with electrum,” etc. etc.

Again, Conyers says the labourers under part of the place where St. Paul’s Cross stood, 25 ft. or 30 ft. deep, as the earth ceased to be black and came to the yellow sand, found earthen potsherds as red and fine as sealing-wax, and upon some inscriptions, “_De Ovimini_,” “_De Parici_,” “_De Quintimani_,” “_Victor_,” “_Janus Ricino_.” [These were Samian, but he goes on to describe very accurately native pottery.] “And pots like broken urns, which were curiously laid on the outside with like thornpricks of rose trees, in the manner of raised work. Other were of cinnamon colour, urn fashion, and as if gilded with gold but faded. Some of strange fashion, jugs bent in so as to be six-square, raised work upon them pricked as curious raisers of paste may imitate; some like black earth for pudding pans, on ye outside indented and crossed quincunx fashion. They had some odd colours (not blue) in these times and a way of glazing different to what now; the red earth bare away the bell.”

“Now, besides red pots,” says Conyers, “such as have inscriptions in the bottoms [_i.e._ Samian], there were black pots with inscriptions and part of white earth and the glazing black, and both these might be made in ye places, as well as a gilded sort of earthenware. There was a brownish sort inclining to yellow, and the gilding easily coming off. Now, whether this was a thin wash of gold colour or foliated, I know not, yet I think foliated [really mica]. Other pots and urns of a whitish yellow and a soft kind of earth and shells strewed at the bottom inside. Now, other pots as thin as glass with raised work, and these as of a silvered or bell-metal coloured glazing. The imagery, hounds, hares, stags, thorns, trees and branching, flourishings—all raised work. Then I have lamps of gilded British-work [local] and coarse whitish-yellow colours, and bottles and pots for dropping, of the same colours.” In one of his repetitions, Conyers mentions “great potsherds and ears of six-gallon pots.” He also gives sketches of many of the vessels. Doubtless those drawn were in most cases whole vessels and they are of the coarser wares, other than Samian. It is probable, therefore, that they were pottery made on the spot. Dr. Harwood, describing the excavations in the site of St. Mary Woolnoth in 1724, says that “Roman foundations were found made of offal of brick kilns and furnaces” (_Soc. Antiq. Minutes_).

It would be an easy thing to identify in our collections vessels which conform to the types sketched by Conyers and then to form a group of actual pots which presumably were made in London. This coarse and ordinary ware is usually classed as “Roman,” but it was in a large degree a Celtic inheritance. The black wares of “carinated” profile (Figs. 135 and 136) and more or less “cordonned” decorations are very like Marne pottery of the Celtic period. It seems quite likely that the potteries of Londinium may have existed before the Roman Conquest.

Many of the decorated pots in our museums are so clearly described by Conyers that they, too, can be identified. It is evident, for instance, that Castor-ware vessels with hunting scenes in slip were as well represented in the finds as they are in our museums to-day. Hunting itself must have been much in the people’s minds, with chariot races and the gladiator “matches.”

Sporting subjects, such as are mentioned by Conyers, are plentifully represented in our museums. In Fairholt’s sketch-book I find a drawing of a pot found in Cateaton Street (Fig. 137). There is also a sketch of a fragment of a similar urn found at Chesterford (Fig. 138). Compare the sculpture, Fig. 62. The piece engraved in Wright’s book as an example of a British hunting dog was also from a sketch by Fairholt of a London fragment. He also drew a piece found in Bishopsgate Street, which shows the heads of four horses, one over the other. This is explained by a complete pot at the British Museum, from Colchester, which has reliefs of racing chariots as mentioned before (p. 51). On another Colchester vase are Gladiators with their names scratched above. The eagle (Fig. 139) is from a fragment at Silchester.

After having identified the pottery actually made in London, and the other native sources from which other wares were brought, we might go on to determine how far this native pottery is Celtic and how far Roman. Fig. 140, restored from a large fragment of very coarse make in the London Museum, and said to have been found at Mortlake, must have been made long before the Roman invasion. Figs. 135 and 136 are urns of Upchurch ware, carefully made and of lustrous black surface. The forms of these are not Roman. The “spirit” of all is of Bronze Age and Mycenæan character. The black pottery with “carinated” profiles found in London, and now in our museums, may be Upchurch ware, but from Conyers’ account and sketches it seems probable that black and grey pottery was made locally. In the museums, there are a few examples which seem to be clearly Celtic, as, for example, a large fragment at the British Museum with white stripes over a grey fabric. There seems, however, to have been a curious disinclination to recognise Celtic art, and a desire to call all Roman.

_Samian._—The early prosperity of London is well shown by the great quantity of Samian ware which has been found of the period about 60-85, and by the examples of the work of the best makers, such as Vitalis, Rubricius, Saturnus and Rufinus. Of the first-named there are some excellent vases in the collection at South Kensington; he distributed his pottery from Carthage to Carlisle, and from Pompeii to London. Saturnus has half a chapter to himself in a big book on the Roman pottery found in Trier. The Samian question is too vast for me to attempt to deal with it here, and I can merely note one or two details. In Fairholt’s sketch-books at the Victoria and Albert Museum there are several drawings of Samian fragments. One of these, which I have not seen elsewhere, is an excellent example of animals running under trees—a scheme taken over into our Castor-ware, which Dr. Haverfield thought might be a Celtic tradition (_Romanization_). (Fig. 141, and compare Fig. 138.) At the Guildhall are nearly a dozen fragments of a rare kind of Samian vase, in which the ornament of figures and foliage was applied in separate units, the leaves, etc., being linked up by stalks skilfully done by the “barbotine” method. Three larger and some smaller fragments come from a vase of rather globular shape which was very similar to a vase found at Cornhill, one of the chief treasures of the Roman Room at the British Museum. The latter is well described in Mr. Walter’s _Catalogue of Roman Pottery_, which is the best account available of pottery found in London. It is not observed that the Guildhall fragments contain a figure which is half lost in the restored vase at the British Museum. On the other hand, comparison with the latter would make it easy to restore the Guildhall example. The details of both were formed by the same stamps. I give in Figs. 142 and 143 the scheme of the decoration: B was the general shape of the pot.

Two or three other sherds at the Guildhall belonged to a somewhat similar but smaller urn which had Bacchic subjects—a satyr with goat legs, and a faun before whom is a wine jar into which he seems to be dropping grape juice. These figures were evidently also set between scrolls of vegetation, and this also can be restored. Again there is a sherd of a vine pattern similar to Fig. 142, but, I think, from a third pot. There is also a figure from a dark-grey pot, which must have been yet another of the same kind. (For the last word on Samian pottery, see Oswald and Price’s _Terra Sigillata_.)

A volume on the pottery found in London by a specialist, like that on Silchester, would be certain to bring out valuable historical results on the existence and persistence of Celtic wares, on importations before the Claudian Conquest, and on the large quantity of imports in early Roman days.

_Glass._—Much broken glass is usually found on Roman sites, vessels, window-panes, etc., and it was probably wrought, in many centres, from imported material. Evidence of this has been found at Silchester and elsewhere (see Mr. T. May’s _Warrington_). Some window glass was described by Price as “plate polished on one side and ground on the other”; this probably means that it was cast and that the rough side came next the mould.

Conyers, describing the finds on the side of St. Paul’s in 1675, says: “The labourers told me of some remains that were found up and down near the place of the other pot-kilns, and these had a funnel to convey the smoke, which might serve for glass furnaces. For though not any pots with glass in them whole in the furnaces were there found, yet broken crucibles, or tests for molting of glasses, together with boltered glasses such as are to be seen remaining at glass-houses amongst the broken glass, which were glasses spoilt in the making, were there found, but not plenty, and especially coloured and prepared for jewel-like ornament, but mostly such as for cruets or glasses with a lip to drop withal of a greenish light blue colour. Of any sort of glass there was but little; so that the glasswork might be scarce, for I think a hundred times more of pots was found to one of glass....

“Now doth appear the Romans had excellent mechanics, pot makers, stampers of coins, and excellent workers in glass, for amongst those Roman pots were found glass beads as big as could be put on your little finger, and these hollow within and of blue glass wrought or enamelled with yellow glass, and blue beads of the colour of a Turkoise stone. Divided were these beads with threads as big as pack thread. Amongst the rest, great pins made of bone or ivory, etc., heads of many like the great brass-pins, and others vermicular or screw-head, others like the Pope’s triple crown; of these fell to my share as many as a pint-pot would hold.... Taken up a _speculum_ of metal to show the face, of fine bell-metal. There were also found brass embossments with glass set instead of better jewels, which I keep, and glass drops that were loose, and the bottom of an old-fashioned crucible which had glass melted in it, and there were also pieces of necks of glass cruets to pour out by.”

Much of the large number of plainer glass vessels in our museums was doubtless made in the London glass works from imported metal, and probably some ornamental pieces were also manufactured. Thomas Wright thought that glass itself was made in Roman days on the coast near Brighton where “pebbles of glass” have been found; but from comparatively late records of glass making about Rye, etc., the Roman origin of the “pebbles” seems unlikely.

In the British Museum are some fragments of glass vessels having moulded reliefs of chariot races and combats, with the names of the competitors above them. T. Wright illustrates “a fragment of a very remarkable cup in green glass found in the Roman Villa at Hartlip in Kent.... Roach Smith possessed two similar fragments found in London, one of which is identical with the Hartlip fragment in its design and appears to be from the same mould; the other is from a vessel of a different shape and has a quadriga in bas-relief. We have before had occasion to observe how popular gladiatorial contests and the games of the circus were among the Roman inhabitants of this island, and how often we find them represented on the pottery as on the glass.” If a glass vessel found in Kent is exactly like another found in London, it is probable that the former was itself obtained in London, where both may have been made. One of the fragments in the British Museum is from Colchester. We have seen before how that some of the Castor-ware pots were decorated with similar racing chariots, and one of these was found in London and the other in Colchester. Racing chariots also decorate a leaden box found in London and described below.

Glass vessels having reliefs of racing chariots have been found on the Continent, and in the British Museum _Guide_ it is said that our examples “probably came from a Belgian workshop, as a glass of the same kind has been found at Couvin, in the province of Namur, bearing two of the same competitors’ names in a four-horse chariot race. Race cups of this kind date about A.D. 100, and have been found in France, Belgium and Germany. The six cups or fragments found in Britain were no doubt imported across the Channel.” There is, I think, room for some doubt. In any case there seems to be ample evidence that glassware was made in Britain and in Londinium.

Much glass of finer quality was imported. There is in the Guildhall Museum a fragment signed by a maker of Sidon, and fragments of several small plaques in the British Museum having patterns wrought in the substance are of a kind found in Egypt. At the Egyptian exhibition of the Burlington Club, 1921, similar plaques were shown, some having sprigs of flowers, and one a _single_ rose petal pattern in yellow, white and red on the dark ground (cf. Fig. 145). The three pieces at the British Museum are all different and all can be restored. Fig. 144 is from Roach Smith. Fig. 145 is a rough indication of the pattern of another, and the third is a variant of Fig. 144. These interesting and beautiful little fragments are obscure from age; they might with great advantage be partially repolished, laid out on restored drawings, and be made much of. The recent rearrangement of the contents of the Roman Room at the British Museum, and the admirable new _Guide_, have so greatly increased the interest of the objects that I want still more. I also wish that the London things in the collection could be shown together. Roach Smith never intended his objects to be separated.

_Enamels_.—Conyers’ phrases about coloured glass “prepared for jewel-like ornament,” and “the brass embossments with glass set instead of jewels,” apparently refer to enamels and seem to imply that enamelled objects were made at the London glass works.

A large number of small enamelled objects, from little bowls to brooches, have been found in Britain. The art of enamelling was known here before the Roman age, but objects having several colours seem to be “Roman,” although there are Celtic characteristics in the patterns, and it is agreed that there was a native manufacture (_British Museum Guide_, p. 95) of such enamels. The finest piece is a “casket” in the form of a little vase with a handle. This handle has turned-up ends of a kind frequently found in Alexandrian silverwork. One of the bands of enamel is a meandering stem and vine leaves. This beautiful object was found in Essex, and there is in the British Museum another little enamelled bowl also found not far from London, at Braughing, Hertfordshire. The details in these two pieces are very similar, so are those of a little enamelled cock found near the Royal Exchange. Notice the use of long triangular forms and narrow saw-edged fillets. It seems probable that all were made in London, and further evidence is found in a remarkable enamelled plate taken out of the Thames (Fig. 146). This “being an unfinished piece, was probably made in this country”—and city, I would add. In colouring and technique this plate (probably part of a memorial) is very like the objects already mentioned. A leaf form on it which ends in a tendril is found also on the Braughing bowl; both these pieces might have come from one shop. The type of ornament is remarkably Celtic. In the _Guide_ it is said that “debased Amazon shields can be recognised, and Riegel has pointed out that the panel is not a unit, but belongs to a larger all-over pattern which could be repeated indefinitely, and reveals an artistic tendency of the later Roman Empire.” I do not agree with either of these statements. The pattern seems to me to have been designed as a reversed scroll pattern, subdivided by setting down oval forms in the spaces to counterchange the colour in a typically Celtic manner. In the diagram (Fig. 147), A is the pattern type; B is the application to the space; C is the subdivision of the spaces completing the design. In D and E, I have made an original design on the same principle. Other details in the filling of the space at the top are Celtic. Notice again a heart-shaped form at X. This form is frequent in small seal-boxes, several of which have been found in London, of which F is from one lately added to the Guildhall collection. It is probable, I think, that such enamels were made in London by Celtic artists. An enamelled harness plate found in London and illustrated by Roach Smith is like others found in Somersetshire (see G). A small brooch in the form of a fish at the London Museum may be early Christian.

_Leadwork._—Britain was the chief source for lead in the later Roman era. Of about a hundred and twenty Roman pigs of lead in the museums of Europe, about half were of British origin, as appears from the inscriptions. Cast sheet lead was used for coverings. Some actually in position was found lining the bottom of the hot bath at Bath in 1864. It was afterwards sold for £70! Mr. Irvine, in an article on the Corinthian temple at Bath, assumes that the roof was covered with lead. He says that the sheet lead found in Bath was about three-eighths of an inch thick and showed that it was cast on a sand-bed. Melted lead was found at St. Albans under conditions which suggested that it had come from the roof of the Basilica. We may be satisfied that lead was used for important roofs. Lead pipes are also found.

Many lead coffins have been found in and about London—about a dozen in all—and they were doubtless made in the city. The fashion of using lead coffins seems to have originated in the Romanised East about the time of the recognition of Christianity, and those found in London follow the general type very closely. I give in Fig. 148 a rough sketch made in Constantinople twenty-five years ago of a lead coffin found at Sidon. Another coffin from Sidon has recently been acquired by the British Museum. Figs. 149, 150 and 151 are from coffins found in London.

One discovered many years ago in South London, illustrated in _Archæologia_, vol. xvii., had on it two little figures like Minerva—probably Britannia. Another found at Sittingbourne, recently set out for exhibition at the British Museum, has little Medusa heads and pairs of lions watching a vase (Fig. 152).

A round lead box, for the reception of burnt bones, found in London and now in the British Museum, has repeated on it a relief of a four-horse chariot. This is described in the _Guide_ as the chariot of the Sun; but comparison with other chariot-racing groups on the pottery and glass vessels shows that these reliefs must also represent a chariot race (Fig. 153). This fact adds to the probability that the glass vessels with reliefs of racing chariots were also made in Londinium. Fig. 154 is from a simpler lead box found in London; compare the rings with the painted pattern described at the bottom of p. 169.

_Pewter._—A large quantity of pewter ware, vessels and dishes, has been discovered in Britain. Many ingots of the metal were found in the last century at Battersea in the river. Lysons figured a fragment of “lead” found at Lydney stamped with a name, and this may have been pewter. The ingots of pewter were doubtless of British origin, and it is very probable that the finished objects of this metal were manufactured here. Many of the dishes have engraved centres of a type of design which can hardly be earlier than the fourth century. This engraving was filled with black composition imitating _niello_. The ingots bear marks which show that they belong to a time when Christianity was recognised.