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5 6 G r een e : P ot t er y ev i d en c e f or t ra d e to A D 2 50

1 Indented beaker. Gillam 1957. fig 6, type 44. from Corbridge.

2 Indented beaker. Gillam 1957. fig 6, type 45, from Carrawburgh.

3 Indented beaker. Gillam 1957. fig 7. type 46, from Corbridge.

4 Indented ‘motto-beaker with whi te slip inscription (DA MERVM) and decoration. Verulamium; Frere 1972, 347, fig 133, no 1114.

Mo Sel vessels have a distinctive fine hard red and grey layered fabric (the layers can vary enormously in relation to each other), with a few small yellow-white inclusioThis is easily distinguished from the more varied Central Gaulish fabrics, which are rarely layered with grey and often contain mica.

F ig 4 7 M o s el k e ra m i k (‘R h e n i s h w a r e ’) (s ca l e 1 :3 )

production by potters who had come from the Sinzig/ Trier complex (Hull 1963, 85-9). In the Nene Valley, agood case has been made for the exotic connections of Indixivixus, a minor and idiosyncratic potter whosevessels can be related to East Gaulish sigillata forms(Dannell 1973). In the light of this potter and thoseworking at Colchester, it m ay be assum ed tha t t his wholeAntonine industrial assemblage was introduced fromeastern Gaul or the Rhineland. The implication wouldseem to be that it was easier to establish foreign work-shops than to tra de directly.

‘R henish ware’However, one distinctive ware was imported into Britainin t he Antonine period-‘rh enish ware’. I ts r an ge of 

finely thrown vessels, often wi th e labora te s l ip orbarbotine decoration, and superb high-fired fabric andglossy or ‘meta llic’ lust rous black coat ing was super ior toany of the products of the British kiln sites (Fig 47). Adistribution from Aquileia to north ern England emphas-izes its commercial success. Its apparent indication of trade with the Rhine provinces is due entirely to its falsename in British usage. The ware comes not from theRhineland, but from sites from Trier through to centralGaul. In Germany it is called  Moselkeramik- accurate-ly, since most (if not all) of it was made in Trier, and itscentral Gaulish equivalent (Fig 46, nos 4-8) is not foundthere .

5

Fortunately, the products of central Gaul can be cleadistinguished from those of Trier by both their fabrand forms. The remaining percentage not c leaassignable to either source presumably reflects the abilof lesser centres between Trier and Lezoux to masimilar wares on a smaller scale. What is importantth at none of the ‘rh enish ware’, irrespective of precsource, need necessarily reflect trade with the Rhinland: from Trier a route west to the Marne or a tr ibutaof the Seine would be as feasible as direct shipment dothe Mosel to the Rhine. The date at which imports Mosel/Centr al Gau lish ‘rh enish ware’ ceased is un ctain, but is unlikely to have been a fter th e middle of t3 rd cen tu ry .6 There i s a f t e r t h i s no ev idence importation of fine colour-coated wares into Britain

any scale.

T r a d e in s a m i a n w a r eThe conclusions reached in the study of colour-coatwares will next be compared with the more secuhistories of the changing trade patterns of samian warePr e-conqu est ‘Arr etine’ from sites in Brita in pr obabcame from both Lyon and Arrezzo. Only analyses cquantify this, as their products are virtually indtinguishable. The Lyon production disappeared by tend of the reign of Augustus, and then South Gaulikiln sites such as La Graufesenque became prolif

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Greene: Pottery evidence for trade to AD 250 5 7 

exporters in the reign of Tiberius, and gradually droveItalian samian out of its transalpine markets along theDanu be, and th en It aly itself. The vivid testimony of thepacking case of South Gaulish bowls found at Pompeiishows that this process was complete before AD 79Atkin son 1914). The whole of Gaul, th e Rhinelan d, an d

Britain were supplied from factories in southern Gaulwith vast quan tities of th eir well made an d very service-able vessels.8 Whatever economic or political circum-

tances brought the wide trade in elaborate colour-coateddrink ing vessels to an abr upt end in c AD 70 also seemso have affected the samian manufacturers. The rapidimplification of forms and decoration towards the end

of the century seems to indicate an urgent need to speedproduct ion.

9The las t South Gaul ish samian which

eached Britain between c AD 90 and 110 is thick andpoorly made; decorated bowls were pulled out of theirmoulds still damp, so that what poor scenes existed were

ften largely obliterated.

Around t he very end of th e 1st centur y, an improvementn clay mixtures in central Gaul led to the production of aabric as practical as any South Gaulish ware (Picon973, 96-102). Samian had been made in the Lezouxrea as early as in southern Gaul, but was scarcelyxport ed un til th is improved ware was developed (Boon967). With a very few rar e exceptions, Centr al Gau lish

ware had completely replaced South Gaulish samian inBritain by AD 120. The Rhineland was supplied rather

ifferently. Potters migrated eastwards as suitable clayources allowed and a number of East Gaulish factoriesoon dominated their large local markets. Their productsiverged permanently away from their early artistic linksith parent factories in southern and centra l Gaul.

owever, Central Gaulish ware sold well in southermany and along the Upper Danube. East Gaulishgillata first appears in quantity in Britain in the seconda lf of th e 2nd centur y, principally in its ea ster n r egionsnd in the northern military area. It seems from theecline in the number of Central Gaulish potters activen the late Antonine period tha t Ea st Gaulish ware may

nly ha ve been mak ing up for a falling supp ly from th atource, rather than competing successfully against arong rival. Certainly, it did not increase significantly ine 3rd century after the cessation of imports from

entral Gaul. When barbarian raids damaged Eastaulish factories in the mid 3rd century, an industryp p e a r e d a r o u n d O x f o r d m a k i n g w h a t i s b y a n yefinition sa mian in both form an d fabric (Young 1973).

Much of Britain existed thenceforth without this ware,ut its popularity in much of central and southernngland may explain why later East Gaulish ware wasarcely imported at all.

10

ow much of the samian made at Rheinzabern on thehine near Speyer travelled to Britain by way of thehine it self may be quest ioned: as with ‘rh enish’ ware

om Trier, land and river routes to the Meuse, Somme,Seine may have been just as convenient for cross-han nel tr ade. But concentr at ions of finds on Brit ain’sst coast would seem to support some direct shippingom the Rhine.”

onclusionsamian warehe well documented history of the shifting patterns of is industry seems to show that sigillata from Eastaulish kiln sites entered Britain in small quantitiesrtly by the default of the Central Gaulish factories,d that trade did not increase after this competition had

disappeared. The attempt by East Gaulish potters toestablish a samian workshop at Colchester (Hull 1963,43ff) is a possible indication of difficulties in directtrade.12 East Gaulish samian was equally unsuccessful intrade into Gaul or south to the Upper Danube area;there, local kiln sites and Central Gaulish ware supplieda lar ge proportion of samian requirement. Even with themodest quantities of East Gaulish ware which reachedBritain, there is no certainty that a direct trade along the

Rhine was always used.

Colour-coated ware

The pattern of the Claudian-Neronian period is verysimilar to that of 2nd centu ry samian; a centre in Gaulpossessed an enormous ma rket embracing Britain, Gaul,and the Upper Danube provinces, whilst in the LowerRhineland very competent local versions of the samevessels were made, but were hardly exported outsidetheir production area, either south by river, inland toGaul, or across the Channel. In both cases, one may ask whether the local demand of the concentration of majorcivilian and military centres was such that there was littlesurplus for export. The industries of Gaul, beginningwith those of Lyon under Augustus, had always reached

a wide area of dispersed markets.The Antonine colour-coated ware upsurge in Britainseems to ha ve been ba sed on indust ries which cam e fromthe Rhineland, possibly in recognition of the difficultiesof (or lack of existing framework for) direct trade. Onlysome of the highest quality colour-coated ware camefrom anywhere near the Rhine -Mose lkeramik   f romTrier-and tha t m ay not always have tr avelled by way of the Rhine. A proper un derstanding t hat much of this so-ca l led ‘rhen i sh w are ’ cam e from cen t r a l G au l i simportant in emphasizing the overwhelming significanceof th at a rea ’s indust ries.

Trade with the Rhine provinces may thus be stated tohave been negligible as far as pottery was concerned, andthe pattern could be extended to other wares such asmort ar ia a nd t he ‘Gallo-Belgic’ ra nge. Nor sh ould we besurprised, for in Gaul, according to Strabo (IV, 1, 2)13:

‘ . . . the courses of the rivers are so excellently disposedin relation to one another that goods can be conveyedthrough from either sea to the other; for the cargoesmust be conveyed over the plains for only a shortdistance and that without difficulty while for most of the journey they travel by the rivers . . . One maythink that the workings of Providence are confirmed,the land being arr anged in no random fashion, but a sthough in consonan ce with a reasoned plan.’

Notes

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5 8 Greene: Pot tery ev idence for t rade to AD 250

References

Pos t sc r ip tThis paper was completed in March 1977. Since thenwriter has undertaken further research in FranceGermany which has stren gthened th e division betwCentr al Gau lish an d Trier ‘rh enish ’ war e, by showtha t the two categories ha ve almost completely sepadistributions (the latter is extremely rare west of the rSaône), and that other production centres betwLezoux and Trier were not likely to have made closimilar wares. In addition, the low-girthed cornrimmed beaker form was found to be absent fCentral Gaul; this further emphasizes the Rhineorigins of the Nene Valley and Colchester industries,makes the attribution of Fig 46, no 2, to Central Gunlikely. I would like to thank M Desnoyers (Mlucon), J Gout -vest (Cha tea um eillan t), R Albert (Arg

ton-sur-Creuse), J Corrocher (Vichy), and W Bins(Trier) for their valuable assistance in these researcwhich were car ried out with t he help of a gra nt fromResearch Committee of the University of Newcastle uTyne.

A comprehensive account of pre-Flavian colour coand glazed ware is now in press: K Greene,excavation report: the pre-Flavian   fine wares, Cardthis replaces Greene 1972. For the later fine wares, K Greene, ‘Import ed fine wares in Brit ain to AD 25guide to identification’, in P Arthu r a nd G Marsh, eFine wares in early Roman Britain, Brit Archaeol Rforthcoming.

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