romano-british face pots and head pots

Romano-British Face Pots and Head PotsAuthor(s): Gillian BraithwaiteSource: Britannia, Vol. 15 (1984), pp. 99-131Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/526586 .

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Romano-British Face Pots

and Hlead Pots*

By GILLIAN BRAITHWAITE

I. INTRODUCTION

ace pots and head pots which, while never common, were clearly much more widely used in Roman Britain than the number of surviving whole vessels might lead one to believe, are among the most attractive and least documented products of the Romano-British

pottery industries. Face pots, with their crude, barbaric, rather comic-looking features stuck incongruously on a well-made Roman jar, are quite unlike any other type of Roman pottery, where free-hand figurative decoration is practically unknown. Head pots, with their contrived hair styles and naturalistic features, are more classical-looking and more acceptably 'Roman', and yet they seem to be a purely insular development, found only in the remote province of Britain and with no obvious close counterparts anywhere else in the Roman Empire except perhaps in North Africa. The purpose of this article is to outline the development of these two types of vessels in Britain and to make a preliminary attempt to define the regional groups that evolved, with a brief reference to the earlier and parallel developments on the Continent, and finally to discuss, in the light of the meagre evidence available, what might have been their function and possible significance.

Unfortunately, due to limitations of time and space, it has not been possible to include late Roman face-neck flagons, which are often grouped together with face pots and head pots under the one rather misleading title 'face urns', within the scope of this paper. While complete face-neck flagons are relatively uncommon, a considerable number of face-neck fragments have been found in Britain, showing signs of distinctive, and often highly individualistic regional groups, which are quite different from their counterparts on the Continent, and these would be well worth a separate study of their own. To avoid confusion, the term 'face urn' has only been used in this paper to describe face pots which actually served as cremation urns.

This survey in no way represents a corpus of all the face pots and head pots and their fragments found in Britain, though the distribution map in FIG. 3 lists all the places known to the author, at the time of writing, where these vessels have been found.'

* This paper originally formed part of a B.A. Dissertation on West Roman Face Pots, Face Beakers, and Head Pots, presented at the Institute of Archaeology in London in 1982. I would like to thank all those who took the time and trouble to answer my letters, and who have done so much to provide the background to this paper; and I would like to express my particular gratitude to the following for their help, advice and encourage- ment: my tutor, Dr Richard Reece, Mr Peter Scott, Maggi Darling, Mr Paul Austen, Professor John Wilkes, Dr Graham Webster, and my husband Rodric. I would also like to thank the staff and directors of the following museums for allowing me access to their collections: the British Museum (Prehistoric and Roman Department), the Museum of London, the museums at Verulamium, Colchester, Norwich, Ipswich, Malton, Wroxeter and Carlisle, the Moyses Hall Museum, Bury St Edmunds, the Cambridge Museum of Ethnology and Anthropology, the Yorkshire Museum, the Museum of Antiquities, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and the Grosvenor Museum, Chester.

1 I should be most grateful for details of any other face or head pots from sites not mentioned on the map.

99



IOO GILLIAN BRAITHWAITE

2. CONTINENTAL FACE POTS

Face pots were probably introduced into Britain during the middle of the first century by the Roman army. The earliest dated Continental Roman face pots have all been found on military sites on the Rhine or Raetian frontiers and they seem to have become a part of the Rhineland legionary repertoire during the first half of the first century. Their development may well have been influenced to some extent by the smaller face beakers, generally in orange/red fabric, of Northern Italy, Yugoslavia and the Middle Danube, which developed separately and probably slightly earlier, and could possibly represent a fusion of the naturalistic, East Mediterranean face vase tradition, and the stylized face masks of early Celtic art (FIG. I : 1-3). However, the Rhineland face pots, whose distribution extends to the Upper Danube and into the Benelux Lowlands, but apparently no further west or south, could also be related to a separate and long-lived European face urn tradition which appears sporadically in the archaeological record, on the Danube in the Neolithic,2 in Scandinavia and North Germany in the Late Bronze Age,3 in the Etruscan 'dolio' burials of Chiusi4 and in the Iron Age Face Urn Culture of Northern Poland.5 While face urns seem to be unknown in Germany and Scandinavia during the Pre-Roman Iron Age, once cremation again comes into fashion in the first centuries B.C. and A.D., a few face urns re-appear in the archaeological record, this time in North Jutland,6 and they may also be recognized in the 'eye urns' found along the North Sea coast of Germany and the Lowlands, which have two dents on the shoulder which are thought to represent eyes.7 It is possible, therefore, that the face pot tradition lingered on in the coastal regions of North Germany, Denmark, and the Lowlands, and that the Rhine- land face pots are a revival of this same tradition. This would account for the fact that a high proportion of them were used as cremation urns, though the survival of the face pot tradition during the non-cremating Iron Age would imply that face pots, or at least the face mask, retained a valid role outside the practice of cremation.

The earliest of these face pots, not surprisingly, seem to be rather experimental forms with a wide variety of face portrayal, but standard types emerge in the second half of the first century, in fine red, grey granular, and colour-coated wares, many of them with three spouts on the shoulder close to the rim. In the Lower Rhineland these 'spouts' tend to be cup-shaped and blind (with no hole connecting them to the inside of the pot) and there may only be two instead of three (FIG. I : 7). The rims are wider and occasionally frilled. The first-century forms tend to be more highly decorated than the later ones.8 Micadusting and barbotine shells or leaves are quite common on the reverse side of the vessel (FIG. I: 6), a number of face pots have a phallus on either side of the face and some have protruding tongues (FIG. I: 5-7). Later forms are much plainer, with spouts and frilled rims also disappearing (FIG. 2: 2). Face pots continue on the Continent through to the end of the fourth century, on civilian as well as military sites, though their distribution seems to be limited to the Middle Rhine and the Trier region. A separate type of vessel with several faces or busts around the girth developed in the Lowlands and the Lower Rhineland; these are known as Planetary Vases because the faces were thought to represent the planetary gods but this type does not appear to be found in Britain (FIG. 2: 3).

2 N. Kalicz and J. Makkay in F. Jeno and M. Jones (eds.), Actuelle Fragen des Bandkeramik (1972), o104, fig. 7: la.

3 H. C. Broholm, Danske Oldsager IV, Yngre Bronzealder (1953), 377-95. 40. Montelius, La Civilization Primitive en Italie vol. 11 (1895), pl. 222-4. - W. La Baume, Die Pommerellischen Gesichtsurnen (1963). 6 P. V. Glob, Acta Archaeologica viii (1937), 202 if, figs. 37 and 38. ' S. J. De Laet, La Necropole Gallo-Romaine de Blicquy (1972), 37. 8 F. Oelman, Die Keramik des Kastells Niederbieber (I914), 73.



ROMANO-BRITISH FACE POTS AND HEAD POTS IO1

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FIG. I. Danubian-type face beakers and Rhineland face pots. Scale 1:4. I. Cadra Minusio, Locarno; 2. Cumidava, Dacia; 3. Vienna; 4. Mainz; 5. Ki1n; 6. Nijmegen; 7. Hofheim.



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FIG. 2. Rhineland face pots and planetary vase. Scale 1:4. I. Kastell, Mainz; 2. Bonn,; 3. Bavai.



ROMANO-BRITISH FACE POTS AND HEAD POTS o103

3. ROMANO-BRITISH FACE POTS

Face pots appear in Britain soon after the Claudian conquest. All the examples clearly dated to the first century have been found on military sites except for the face pot from Camerton, Somerset (FIG. 4: 4), which was found in the primary silt of the Fosse Way ditch.9 However, none of the identifiably early Romano-British face pots closely resemble continental first- century types, nor do they conform to any recognizable early British type; the situation seems rather similar to what occurred in the first half of the first century in the Rhineland. Vivian Swan's suggestion10 that the Roman army may have taken some kind of pattern- books around with them to give local potters a rough guide to the types of vessels they wanted produced, rather than cart around the vessels themselves for the potters to copy, could explain the wide variety of vessel shapes and sizes and of face portrayal that is found in early Romano- British face pots, a variety also apparently encountered in early mortaria.11 The greater stan- dardization apparent in flagons could be due to the fact that more of these were brought over in the first instance, being used as containers for wine or other liquids. Another cause for variety could be the likelihood that all four legions involved in the conquest of Britain may well have had different face pot traditions.

Given this wide variety, it is difficult to ascertain clearly which of the undated face pots belong to the early period. As the Rhineland face pots tend to have a fairly large face, on, or just above, the girth, whereas Romano-British face pots of the second century have a smaller face higher up on the shoulder, if not immediately below the rim, it is probable that any vessel with a large face on the girth will be early, as is the case with the Camerton and Usk face pots (FIG. 4: 4 and 3). I, therefore, include the Caerwent face pot (FIG. 4: 2) in this early group and also the Wroxeter vessel (FIG. 4: 1) which I suspect may be earlier than the Hadrianic deposits in which it was found.'2 The Usk face pot (or pots, as several similar fragments were found)13 is the only early one known to have had spouts, although the sherd from the Little Chester kilns14 (FIG. 4: 6) seems to have come from a face pot with three holes equi-spaced just below the rim and other vessels may well have had 'spouts' which have not survived due to part of the rim being missing. Beards seem to be rare and tend to be a notched strip below the mouth; there is no evidence of applied phalli or protruding tongues. The wide, arched eyebrows of the Rhineland face pots appear on many of the early British vessels; however, the sliced-mushroom-shaped, downward-drooping eyebrows with a wedge nose, characteristic of many later British face pots, particularly in East Anglia, already occur in the first century, as on the sherd from Wall,15 which has pieces of green glass inserted in the eyes (FIG. 4: 5), and on face sherds from the kiln site at Caistor-by-Norwich16 (FIG. 8: I1-3), which may have been a Neronian/early Flavian military kiln site.17 Fabrics are not of much value as an indication of date, as the early face pots seem to have been produced in a variety of oxidized and reduced fabrics; but a significant number do seem to have been made in fine red/orange fabric often called 'legionary ware', as for instance Nos. 2, 3 and 6 in FIG. 4, and the first-century sherd from York (FIG. 9: 2). In the second century, face pots in red fabric

I W. J. Wedlake, Excavations at Camerton (1958), 199, fig. 48: 6oo. 10 V. G. Swann in A. C. and A. S. Anderson (eds.), Pottery Research in Britain and North West Europe,

B.A.R. 123 (1981), 129. "1 ibid., 149, note 8. 12 G. Webster and M. J. Darling, unpub. info. 1982. 13 M. J. Darling in Dore and Green (eds.), Roman Pottery Studies in Britain and Beyond, B.A.R. 30 (1977),

fig. 6, 4: 18. 14 M. Brassington, Antiq. Journ. li (I97I), fig. II : 254. '6 A. A. Round, Trans. South Staffs. Arch. Soc. (1980), i-i i. 16 D. Atkinson, J.R.S. xxii (1932), 33, fig. 6. ' V. G. Swann, op. cit. (note io), 123.



104 GILLIAN BRAITHWAITE

KEY

A Face Pots from AD. 43-120 * Face Pots after A.D.100 or uncertain

S"Much Hadham" Face Pots * Head Pots + Smith Pots

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ROMANO-BRITISH FACE POTS AND HEAD POTS o105 tend to have a cream slip. A sherd in reddish fabric with an applied ear and what looks like part of a spout was found in Flavian deposits at Billingsgate, London,"8; another sherd in orange ware with arched eyebrows has recently been found at Clements Lane,19 this could be first-century (FIG. 6: 6).

By the second century the military presence was confined more or less to the North and West. Face pots are found at York, Chester and in forts in North East England and on both Walls. Face pots never seem to have been adopted into the civilian repertoires in the South West and in the West Midlands, but instead they took root in the South East and East Anglia, where by the second century quite well-defined regional groups seem to emerge.

REGIONAL GROUPS

Colchester Region The best known of these groups is at Colchester, the only Romano-British town where face pots are definitely known to have been used as cremation urns. The earlier face pots are in smooth, light buff fabric, with frilled rims, and three, occasionally two, handles (FIG. 5: I and 2). The face is on the shoulder, with applied ears, eyes, nose, mouth and notched arched eyebrows. Only a few have beards, while two of the beardless ones have horns. The height of the vessel varies from 18-30 cm. There is often horizontal fluting or grooving around the girth. All the complete examples of this type have been found at Colchester, where they were almost certainly made.

The upper half of a face pot (FIG. 10: 2) that clearly belongs to this group, and was very probably made by the same potter who made the Colchester face pot now in the British Museum (FIG. 5: 1), has recently been found at Camelon, just north of the Antonine Wall, in a securely sealed, first-century pit, presumably of Agricolan date.20 This find is of considerable interest, firstly because it is the only example of a Colchester face pot so far found outside the Essex area and secondly because of the date. Hull1 had dated these buff face pots to c. A.D. 120-220, but this find, if the fabrics do turn out to be identical, pushes the commence- ment date for these face pots well back into the first century. There is no evidence that this vessel was in any way associated with cremation.

Later in the third century, face pots in grey ware were also produced at Colchester with rather more compact faces (FIG. 5: 3 and 4), as well as similar types in coarse buff ware, both from the Colchester kilns.22

18 D. M. Jones, Excavations at Billingsgate, L. & M.A.S. Special Paper (1980), fig. 30: 206. 19 C. Evans, unpub. info. (1981). 20 V. Maxwell, unpub. info. (1983). 21 M. R. Hull, Roman Colchester (1958), 285. 22 M. R. Hull, The Roman Potters Kilns at Colchester (1963), 159, 169.

FIG. 3. Sites where face pots and head pots have been found in Roman Britain. I. Balmuidy; 2. Camelon; 3. High Rochester; 4. Tarraby Lane; 5. Carlisle; 6. Old Penrith; 7. Chesterholm (Vindolanda); 8. Chesters; 9. Corbridge; 10. Benwell; II. Chester-le-Street; 12. Piercebridge; 13. Catterick; 14. Lancaster; 15. Malton; 16. Norton; 17. Crambeck; 18. York; 19. Hayton; 20. Brough-on-Humber; 21. Chester; 22. Wroxeter; 23. Little Chester; 24. Wall; 25. Worcester; 26. Gloucester; 27. Usk; 28. Caerwent; 29. Camerton; 30. Littlecote; 31. Castle Hill (Margidunum); 32. Brough (Crocolana); 33. Lincoln; 34. Old Sleaford; 35. Castor; 36. Water Newton; 37. Grandford, March; 38. Littleport; 39. Denver; 40. Snettisham; 41. Brancaster; 42. Hockwold; 43. Saham Toney; 44. Brettenham; 45. Brampton; 46. Caistor-by-Norwich; 47. Caister-by-Yarmouth; 48. Burgh Castle; 49. Lakenheath; 50. Ixworth; 51. Wattisfield; 52. Elmsworth; 53. Hacheston; 54. Colchester; 55. Kelvedon; 56. Billericay; 57. Great Chesterford; 58. Baldock; 59. Bancroft; 6o. Welwyn; 61. St Albans (Verulamium); 62. Enfield; 63. London; 64. Springhead; 65. Bodiam; 66. Brenley Corner; 67. Canterbury;

68. Dover.



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FIG. 4. Early Romano-British face pots. Scale 1:4. I. Wroxeter; 2. Caerwent; 3. Usk; 4. Camerton, Som.; 5. Wall; 6. Little Chester.



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4 FIG. 5. Colchester face pots. Scale 1:4. I-2. Light buff fabric; 3-4. Grey fabric.




Verulamium Region The most easily identified group of face pots is in the Verulamium area, almost all in the characteristic whitish- to pinkish-buff sandy ware of the same region. The earliest examples of c. A.D. 120-160 have eyebrows merging into a plain rim, with a stabbed beard and two pierced spouts (FIG. 6: 1), but the commonest, and seemingly later type, c. A.D. 150-220, has no eyebrows, beards or spouts, but three handles equi-spaced round a frilled or rouletted rim (FIG. 6: 2). It seems possible that these handles, attached to the rim, which are so characteristic of British second-century face pots, may have evolved from earlier spouts. Sherds of around 20 to 30 vessels, as well as one complete face pot, have been found at Verulamium including seven or eight from a recently excavated bath-house.23 Other examples have been found at Enfield,14 Bancroft Villa,25 Welwyn,26 Baldock,27 and an unprovenenced pot is in the Ashmolean.

London The face pots found in London form a much less homogeneous group and appear to have come from a number of different sources.2 The most obvious group, comprising the three complete vessels in the Museum of London and a number of sherds, are in red fabric with a gritty cream slip; they are very similar to the Colchester early group but with the eyebrows up against the rim which is generally plain (FIG. 6: 3 and 4). There seems to be no evidence of any Verulamium-type face pots straying into this area. One piece in grey fabric (FIG. 6: 5) is very similar to sherds from the Caistor-by-Norwich kilns (FIG. 8: I-3). Other sherds seem to be in groups of their own (FIG. 6: 6-9).

Kent and East Sussex There seems to be an identifiable group in Kent and East Sussex during the second century and perhaps later, with face pots in red sandy ware, sometimes cream-slipped, with frilled or plain rims, three handles and the face high on the shoulder, sometimes merging into the rim (FIG. 7: 1-3). Several examples have beards. A kiln site producing this type of vessel was found in a later Roman cemetery at Canterbury.29 A rim sherd of a face pot with a semi- frilled rim in cream-slipped red ware (FIG. 7: 2) was found in a well at Springhead but not apparently associated with the temple complex.30

There seems to be no evidence of face pots along the south coast further west than Bodiam in East Sussex.a It is tempting to see in this a reflection of the passing of Vespasian's Second Legion, which was raised in Rome and campaigned in Spain before being moved to Strasbourg in A.D. io. Such a legion could possibly have had no face pot traditions. The Camerton face pot, found in the Fosse Way ditch, would rather seem to lie in their path but other troops could also have been involved at this stage. Meanwhile the Twentieth Legion, which came from Illyricum via Neuss, and went from Colchester via Gloucester, Usk and Wroxeter to Chester, seems to have left a trail of face pots behind it.

23 S. Greep, unpub. info. (1982). 24 A. Gentry et al., Trans. London & Middlesex Arch. Soc. xxviii (1977), 143, 148. 25 M. J. Green, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies xxix (1980), 174. 26 This apparently unpublished, complete face pot is in the Cambridge University Museum. 27 V. Rigby, unpub. info. (1982). 28 The Museum of London has the largest collection of face pots and sherds in the country after Colchester,

almost none of which have been published. 29 J. M. C. Toynbee, Art in Britain Under the Romans (1964), 4o5. 30 J. Shepherd, unpub. info. (1981). 31 C. H. Lemmon and J. Darrell Hill, Sussex Arch. Coll. civ (1966) pl. iv: A.



ROMANO-BRITISH FACE POTS AND HEAD POTS lo9

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FIG. 6. Face pots from the Verulamium area and from London. Scale I:4. I. Enfield; 2. Verulamium; 3-9. London.



IIO GILLIAN BRAITHWAITE

Suffolk The Suffolk face pots form a well-knit group centred on Ixworth. These are in medium to dark grey fabric, 30 cm or more tall, with everted and rolled-over rims, no handles, a notched cordon below the neck and smallish compact faces with close-set eyes and a monkey-like, stabbed beard (FIG. 7: 4-6). None are from dated contexts. The Colchester grey face pots are somewhat similar but without beards. It is suggested that they belong to the third and fourth centuries32 but they could start earlier.

Norfolk In Norfolk there are the two face-pot-producing kilns of Caistor-by-Norwich (FIG. 8: 1-3) and Brampton. Unfortunately, no complete face pot has been found from this area, and Atkinson's partial reconstruction, reproduced by Swann,33 is the only guide to their form (FIG. 8: I). As mentioned above, the Caistor kilns are now thought to be first-century, while the Brampton kiln material dates mainly from the first and second centuries.34 Face pots probably continued in Norfolk, as in Suffolk, into the later Roman period but no dated examples are known.

Lincoln At Lincoln a number of grey face sherds with lattice decoration including part of a bearded, horned face pot (FIG. 8: 4) were found in a row of shops at the St. Marks site in third- to fourth-century deposits.35 In the last century a very unusual and much earlier-looking face pot was also apparently found at Lincoln and published in the Illustrated London News in 1848.36

The 'Much Hadham', Herts, Face Pots In the late third to fourth centuries a new type of face pot was produced, probably at the Much Hadham kilns, in burnished or polished red ware, which appears to have been widely distributed along the Thames Valley and up the coast of East Anglia (see FIG. 3). These face pots have a relatively tall, narrow neck with frilled rim and generally three vestigial strap handles with a Verulamium-type face just beneath the rim. The globular body may be plain (FIG. 8: 5) or decorated with stamps or raised bosses (FIG. 8: 6). These are the only face pots to have such a wide distribution and it seems possible that they may have been traded for their contents as much as for themselves.

The Northern Military Area Further north in the military zone the picture is much less clear. There are in fact a surprisingly large number of face pot sherds, very few of which have been published, but only one or two complete or reconstructable vessels. There seems to be a very wide variety of vessel types, face portrayal and fabrics, and almost no identifiable regional groups. As mentioned above, face pots have been found at York37 (FIG. 9: I and 2), Chester38 and in quite a number of the forts in Northern England and on the two Walls. Only in the Malton and Crambeck area in Yorkshire is there evidence of probable regional groups, and this may be a result of established

32 G. Briscoe, Proc. Suff. Inst. Arch. xxvii (1958), 176. 3 V. G. Swann, op. cit. (note io), fig. 8: 14. 3 C. Green, East Anglian Arch. v (197I), 31. 3. M. J. Darling, Lincoln Arch. Trust Annual Report (1980-81), 28; B. Gilmour, unpub. info. (1982). 36 A. J. White, Britannia xii (1981), pl. xxiv: B. 3 T. May, The Roman Pottery in the York Museum (1909), pl. xiii; P. V. Addyman. Antiq. Journ. liv (1975),

fig. 9: 12. 38 J. R. Petch, Journ. of Chester Arch. Soc., xxx pt ii, (1933), 38, pl xiv: 43.



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FIG. 7. Face pots from Kent and East Sussex, and from Suffolk. Scale 1:4. I. Dover; 2. Springhead; 3. Bodiam; 4. Ixworth; 5. Elmswell; 6. Lakenheath.



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FIG. 8. Face pots from Norfolk and Lincoln, and Much Hadham-type face pots. Scale 1:4. 1-3. Caistor-by- Norwich; 4. Lincoln; 5. Colchester; 6. Littlecote.



ROMANO-BRITISH FACE POTS AND HEAD POTS 113

civilian settlement. At Norton, just outside Malton, face pots in darkish grey burnished fabric seem to have been made in the third century, with small faces with almond-shaped eyes and tiny ring stamps above the eyebrows39 (FIG. 9: 5). The face pot fragment recently found in the fort at Catterick40 in late first- to third-century deposits, which seems to have tiny horns among the ring stamps, probably belongs to this group (FIG. 9: 6). At Crambeck a number of fragments have been found in or near the fourth-century kilns with stamped bosses on them; these seem to be a hybrid form of face/head pot (FIG. 13: 1I-3). Similar sherds have also been found at York. These are discussed below under Romano-Saxon head pots.

In the rest of the Northern Military Area, virtually each piece is different from the next, At Lancaster a face pot fragment in orange/red fabric was found with the typical sliced- mushroom shaped face with round pellet eyes set on the shoulder (FIG. 9: 3). Also a unique and quite extraordinary vessel, alas now lost due to war damage, was found in a cemetery cut through by the railway cutting in 1849-50 (FIG. 9: 4). Only the published engraving and a water-colour in the Merseyside County Museum, Liverpool, survive.41 The closest parallels to this pot would seem to be the Danubian face beakers, in particular the taller ones from the Middle Danube region, such as the one from Vienna (FIG. I: 3). Like them, it is in red fabric, with a beaky nose and large projecting ears, but it also has some unique features such as 'inlaid eyes, the pupils being painted white' and three hag-like teeth. It is undated, but the potters' stamps from the samian vessels found in the railway cutting and recorded in the museum archives range from the mid first to the second century.42 In the Carlisle area, a variety of very different types have been found. In the last century, three very unusual pieces were discovered at Carlisle and Burgh-by-Sands,43 which seem to be flagon-necks or spout- heads and not strictly face or head pots. A shattered, but more or less complete, face pot with lattice decoration and two faces, one on each side, (the only double face pot recorded in Britain, though several are known in the Rhineland) was found buried in a field by the Vallum at Tarraby Lane, just north of Carlisle, dated to the second century44 (FIG. 9: 8); also two face pot fragments, one in grey ware and possibly from a large vessel similar to the Wroxeter face pot in FIG. 4: 1, have recently been excavated in Carlisle itself (FIG. 9: 7).45 To the south, at Old Penrith, part of a very unusual grey face pot with a small snake's head above the right eyebrow, has just been found46 (FIG. 9: 9). Its frilled rim and strap-handles imply a first- to second-century date but the naturalistic features with the carefully incised almond-shaped eyes are quite out of character for Romano-British face pots; they are more like the eyes of third- to fourth-century head pots, although they are reminiscent of one or two face pots and planetary vases from Belgium and North East France.47

At Corbridge a correspondingly heterogeneous collection of face pot fragments has been found but with so much of the material inaccessible pending completion of the new museum these are best dealt with at a later date. I illustrate one very unusual piece with a classical- looking, moulded face perched uncomfortably on the side of a rather under-sized jar,48 (FIG. 10: 5). Other rather miscellaneous fragments have been found at Chesters (FIG. IO: I)

9 M. J. Green, Small Cult Objects from the Military Areas of Roman Britain, B.A.R., 52 (1978), pls. o107 and io8. 4o A. Bell, unpub. info. (1982). 41 W. T. Watkin, Roman Lancashire (1893), 186. 42 G. D. Marsh, unpub. info. (1983). 43 A. Ross, Pagan Celtic Britain (1967), pl. 38: a, b and c. 44 G. H. Smith, Britannia ix (1978), 31, fig.1 I9: 4o. 4 Jeff Taylor, unpub. info. (1982). 46 P. Austen, unpub. info. (1982). 47 Le Chanoine Bievelet, Latomnus xxviii (I957), 327, pl. C: 6. 48 M. J. Green, op. cit. (note 39), pl. 102.




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FIG. 9. Face pots from the Northern Military Area. Scale 1:4. 1-2. York; 3-4. Lancaster; 5. Norton; 6. Catterick; 7. Carlisle; 8. Tarraby Lane, nr Carlisle; 9. Old Penrith.




and Vindolanda.49 Two forts on (or by) the Antonine Wall have produced face pots so far. At Camelon, as already mentioned, part of a Colchester-type face pot was recently excavated and also fragments of two vessels of Antonine date; these are closer in style to the Verulamium group50 (FIG. 10: 3) but in orange fabric with a cream slip, which is not the characteristic Ver ware, though the face pot from Enfield (FIG. 6: I) is in a similar fabric. At Balmuildy fragments of two or more face pots were found in yellowish-red fabric with a darker red slip with unique hatching above the eyebrows5' (FIG. IO: 4).

Most of these could belong to the first or second centuries, and it seems logical to ascribe the extreme diversity of types and styles to the continual movement and replacement of troops in Northern Britain during the earlier Roman occupation. It is not clear to what extent face pots continued to be used throughout the Northern zone during the later period. However definite evidence for their continuation in the North East, at least, comes from Chester-le- Street where a unique grey face pot, with an applied bearded face and appliqu6 smith's tools on the girth (FIG. Io: 6), was found buried as a foundation-deposit, with the bones of a small dog or cat, under the stone floor of a late third- to early fourth-century gate-tower.52

Face pots, therefore, which were brought into Britain by the Roman army, were taken with them when they advanced northwards and are fairly evenly distributed throughout the Northern Military Area, at any rate during the first and second centuries. In the Southern civilian zone, face pots seem to have taken root only on the east side of Britain and are found in the west almost entirely on military sites.

4. ROMANO-BRITISH HEAD POTS

Head pots differ from face pots in that they are moulded more or less in the shape of a head with naturalistically portrayed features, instead of being a cooking-pot type vessel with a mask-like face applied to the shoulder or neck. They seem to represent a quite different development from the face pots, at any rate in the earlier stages, and to be more closely related to the classical traditions of the Greek world than to the stylized face masks of Celtic and Germanic art.

Anthropomorphic plastic vase traditions in the Eastern Mediterranean date back as far as the Neolithic period, with large figurine vessels in the shape of a seated female figure with a face on the neck, such as those found at Hacilar in Anatolia.53 The vessels appear to have become smaller, and the modelling of the features increasingly naturalistic, culminating in the very beautiful and not very widely-known Attic face vases of the early fifth century B.C. These polychrome vases were copied in Etruria and Southern Italy, and possibly North Africa, in the fourth and third centuries B.C., portraying a similar range of minor deities, mainly nymphs, satyrs and also negroes, often with two faces, identical or quite different, on either side of the vase.54 A plastic vase tradition, which included face vases, seems to have continued in Southern Italy and parts of the Eastern Mediterranean into the second and first centuries B.C., though mainly, if not exclusively, in unpainted wares.

During the Roman period, the production of face vases was taken up by the rapidly develop- ing glass industries, first in Syria and Alexandria, and then spreading to Cologne in the

49 ibid., pls. 104, io6, and io9. 50 T. Robertson, P.S.A.S. cv (1972/4), 285. 51 S. N. Miller, The Roman Fort at Balmuidy (1922), pl. 1: 28 and 29. 52 R. Goodburn, Britannia x (1979), 285, pl. xv: 6.; P. Turnbull and J. Evans unpub. info. (1982). 53 J. Mellaart, The Neolithic of the Near East (1975), I18, fig. 69. 54 One of the best collections of these Attic and Etruscan polychrome vases is in the Metropolitan Art Museum

in New York. The Ashmolean also has several examples.




5

.7Q

Ilk6

FIG. IO. Face pots from the Northern Military Area. Scale 1-4. I. Chesters; 2-3. Camelon; 4. Balmuidy; 5 Corbridge; 6. Chester-le-Street.

Western Provinces by the end of the first century A.D.55 A roughly similar variety of deities seems to have been portrayed, although the head of an old man with a beaked nose seems to be a new addition. Ceramic face vases may have continued to be made on a small scale in the East in the first and second centuries A.D., but there is very little evidence for their manu- facture in Italy or the Western Provinces except for one or two very rare perfume flasks,

55 K61n I, I, Fiihrer zu Vor und Friihgeschichtlichen Denkmiilern, Bd. 37/1 (1980), 82-3, fig. I.



ROMANO-BRITISH FACE POTS AND HEAD POTS II7 almost certainly copied from glass vessels, such as the glazed face vase from Trier56 (FIG. I I: 2). In the third century, a number of terracotta vases or jugs in the shape of a young boy's head were produced in Athens, but these appear to have been a specialized local development.57 However, in North Africa in the late third and fourth centuries a great number of face vases in fine red ware seem to have been produced; these appear to be closely-linked to the same long-lived, Greco-Italian tradition, with finely moulded features portraying the familiar range of young men and women, satyrs, old men and negroes; most of them bear the name of the manufacturer boldly inscribed round the rim58 (FIG. I : I). These may have originated as copies of glass vessels, as they almost all have tall, narrowish, funnel-shaped necks which seem to be characteristic of the later glass head bottles. But so closely do some of them resemble earlier Attic, Greco-Italian and Black Sea face vases, particularly the male and female negro heads and the satyrs, that it is possible that the tradition continued here all along, only occasionally appearing in graves; alternatively, there could, perhaps, have been a deliberately archaising attempt to copy the ancient (and perhaps newly discovered) originals.

How, and to what extent, Romano-British head pots are connected with this rather sporadic face vase tradition of the Greco-Mediterranean world is not very clear. Possibly there is some cult connection, though no one single deity is represented; or, perhaps, a particularly influential potter, or group of potters, were brought in from the East or North Africa. Unfortunately, there are all too few closely dated examples, although those that are all come from late third- to fourth-century deposits. The head pots from York (FIG. I1I: 3-5) have traditionally been dated to the second to third centuries,59 though, as they all seem to have been chance finds from cemeteries, handed in by workmen over the years, except the one from Trentholme Drive which could not be closely dated,60 it is not clear on what evidence this dating was based. If indeed they are second-century, then there is little likelihood that they can be related to the late Roman North African tradition, but if, as I think more likely, they stem from the later third century, it is just possible that there could have been some connection. Alternatively, they may be copies of glass head bottles. In either case it is interesting that they lack the tall, narrow necks of both the glass and the North African vessels. Whatever their original in- spiration, Romano-British head pots, with their wide beaker-like rims, and their characteristic blend of naturalistic and stylized modelling, are a unique and isolated development, with no apparent close counterparts anywhere in the Western Provinces; even in Britain, their distribution seems to be limited to the eastern side of England, north of the Thames. As with face pots, distinctive styles can be identified, which in most cases seem to belong to regional groupings.

HEAD POT GROUPS

Head pots in fine red ware from York and the North East The best known of these are the group from York (FIG. I I : 3 and 4). At least four are still

5" This vase is in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier, No 27, 31. The face vase illustrated in J. D6chelette, Vases Ornees de la Gaul Romaine, vol. ii (1904), pl. x: 3, with no scale given, is in all likelihood another of these rare perfume bottles.

57 E. Harrison, Athenian Agora, vol. i, (1953), 66, pl. 47: d. There is a good example of these head vases in the British Museum. Professor Henry S. Robinson believes they are 'to be connected in some way with the Athenian practices of the "ephebeia"' (unpub. info. 1983).

58 A large number of these vessels are in the Loeffler Collection in the Romisch-Germanisches Museum in K61n, and several are also in the Louvre. Two or three are featured in Musdees et Collections Archdologiques de l'Algdrie et de la Tunisie (189o-i1928), but these seem to be less common and are possibly earlier types.

9 R.C.H.M., Eburacum (1962), 92. o60 L. P. Wenham, The Roman Cemetery at Trentholme Drive (1968), 84, fig. 33: 9.



II8 GILLIAN BRAITHWAITE

0)i~ CUA/

8All

Ili4

_ell 2

LO)6

FIG. I I. North African and Rhineland face vases; head pots from N.E. England. Scale 1:4. 1. North Africa; 2. Trier; 3-5. York; 6. Piercebridge; 7. Chester-le-Street.



ROMANO-BRITISH FACE POTS AND HEAD POTS II9

in existence,61 all in fine reddish fabric and all, it seems, from graves. Not one is the same; they appear to have been worked up on the wheel and then freely sculpted by hand, the features pushed out, and the detail incised. The eyes are large and deeply scored, with the iris also incised and the pupils hollowed out. This treatment of the eyes would seem to be a late Roman characteristic, and, as mentioned above, I would expect them to belong to the late third and fourth centuries rather than to the second.

To the north of York is a group of head pots that could possibly be related. The best- preserved is the one from Piercebridge (FIG. II : 6), which was found in the primary silting of the fort ditch, dug c. A.D. 270. Most of the face of another very similar vessel in the same apricot-coloured ware was also found here.62 An unprovenenced head pot from Chester-le- Street (FIG. I I: 7) seems to be in the same fabric and a sherd of an apparently similar vessel was found at High Rochester.63 A common characteristic of all these head pots seems to be the use of an incised line parallel with a row of dots to delineate the eye or eyebrow. The same technique is used on the two York head pots illustrated in FIG. II, and on another face sherd in the Yorkshire Museum. The modelling of the head and features on all these northern red-ware head pots is unusually fine and naturalistic and could imply the presence of immigrant potters, possibly from North Africa or the Eastern Provinces.

Parchment-ware head pots with painted decoration This is the most dispersed group; it seems to stretch from Colchester in a line north and slightly west via Littleport (Cambs.), Denver (Norfolk) and Lincoln to York (FIG. 12: 1-3; FIG. 11: 5). They are all in relatively fine whitish-buff (parchment coloured) fabric, with decorative detail and features painted in reddish-brown slip. The leafy head-dress on the Littleport fragment64 (FIG. 12: I) is apparently unique, although both the Lincoln and Colchester head pots have the remains of a wavy line painted up both sides of the head which could possibly be an echo of this. The Lincoln head pot (FIG. 12: 3) has DO MERCURIO in painted letters inscribed around the base; this is reminiscent of similar votive inscriptions on ceramic or glass face vases made in the Eastern Mediterranean or Black Sea. The much abraided, whitish-buff head pot from York (FIG. II I: 5) is a rather different shape and has painted hair rather than a head-dress, although it has the same painted neck-rings as the Colchester pot (FIG. 12: 2). It is possible that there is a separate northern sub-group. A painted head pot sherd from Benwell65 seems to have some kind of leafy head-dress. Also at York is a fragment of a horned head pot in 'pinkish buff ware' but without painted decoration.66 Unfortunately, none of the parchment-ware head pots or fragments come from securely dated contexts, but again, the treatment of the eyes would seem to be late Roman.

Dark grey head pots from the East Midlands. This group of head pots in dark grey sandy fabric, possibly from the Swanpool kilns, seems to be concentrated in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire (FIG. 12: 5 and 6). Two complete pots were found at Margidunum67 and the lower half of a similar vessel was found on the Flaxengate site at Lincoln.68 The rather heavy applied eyebrows with finger indentations (fingered-strip eyebrows) are a characteristic of these head pots. Several sherds of similar

61 R.C.H.M., op. cit. (note 59), figs. 54 and 71 and pl. 29. 12 p. Scott, unpub. info.; Current Archaeology v, no. 8, 24.

I. Collingwood Bruce, Descriptive Catalogue of Antiquities at Alnwick Castle (I88o), 150. 64 M. J. Darling, unpub. slide. SArch. Ael. (3rd Series) iii, ii (19o6), frontispiece. " J. Dickinson and L. P. Wenham, York Arch. Journ. xxxix (1956-8), 313, fig. 9: 29.

17 F. Oswald, Trans. Thoroton Soc. xxxi (1956), 55. 8 M. J. Darling, unpub. info. (1982).




*

3

4

5 6 FIG. 12. Head pots from Eastern England. Scale 1:4 except No. 5 (unspec.). I. Littleport, Cambs; 2. Colchester;

3. Lincoln; 4. York; 5. Margidunum; 6. Lincoln (Flaxengate site).




vessels have also been found at Lincoln (Flaxengate), at Old Sleaford,69 and Brough, Notts,70 in third- to fourth-century deposits.

Romano-Saxon Head pots These are the bossed and stamped head pots of the late third to fourth century, so-called 'Romano-Saxon'.71 Except for the two from the Nene Valley group, there are no complete or reconstructable pots. The main characteristic is the use of raised bosses, generally pushed out from inside with stamped decoration on them, either rosettes, crosses and pellets, con- centric circles or spirals, which are usually arranged in a circle around the face. There seem to be three separate regional groups.

(i). Yorkshire Group These have all been found at York, or in or near the Crambeck kilns (FIG. I3: 1-3). They are in grey, buff or red fabric; they all appear to have a ring of stamped bosses around the face, while ring stamps may be used to portray hair, or stamped bosses for eyes.72 The vessel appears to be less headshaped, and more of an ovoid jar. This group could logically be included among the later Roman face pots, but because they seem to be clearly related to the other Romano- Saxon head pots, and also since they have the face on the girth and not on the shoulder or neck as with all the other Romano-British face pots, except for the earliest examples, it seems most likely that they are a part of the head pot tradition in Britain, though they no doubt represent a later and more stylized development.

(ii). Nene Valley Group These vessels have the more usual head-pot-shape with pronounced, everted rims (FIG. 13: 4 and 5). They are either in whitish ware with a brown colour-coat or plain light cream fabric;73 the eye is incised and the pupil hollowed out. Sherds which appear to belong to this group have been found at Grandford (March), Burgh Castle, and Brettenham (Norfolk).74

(iii). Suffolk and Essex Group These are in fine, dark grey ware (FIG. 13: 6 and 7). Hull's reconstruction of the very fragmentary Colchester vessel, with its apparent horns,75 seems convincing and could also fit the Ixworth fragment.76 Another piece which could also belong to this group was found at Brough, Notts.77

Head pots then were adopted into the Romano-British pottery repertoires in Eastern Britain alongside face pots during the later Roman period. It is just possible that they may have started in York in the second century. They do not seem to be found south of Colchester or in the western half of Britain.

69 S. M. Elsdon, unpub. info. (1982). 70 T. C. S. Woolley, Trans. Thoroton Soc. x (1906), pl. 4: 11. 71 W. I. Roberts IV, Romano-Saxon Pottery, B.A.R. Io6 (1982), 122-6. 72 P. Corder, Antiq. Journ. xvii (1937), 4o5. , M. J. Green, op. cit. (note 25), pl. iii; V.C.H. Hunts, (1926) pl. iii: 3. This head pot is now in the Cambridge

Museum of Ethnology and Anthropology. 7 T. W. Potter, B.MI. Occ. Papers (1982), no. 297; W. I. Roberts, op. cit. (note 71), D. 39. 7; the sherd from

Brettenham is in the Norwich Museum, Acc. no. 145. 966.

7 M. R. Hull, op. cit. (note 21), fig. 59. 76 J. Warren, Proc. Suff. Inst. Arch. i (1853), 78. 77 T. C. S. Woolley, op. cit. (note 70), pl. 4: 10.




050

• L___,_it'l?

(t

/

//

4

1/t i -II

t/

FIG. 13. Romano-Saxon head pots. Scale 1:4. I and 3. York; 2. Crambeck; 4. Castor, Cambs; 5. Water Newton; 6. Colchester; 7. Ixworth.




5. DISCUSSION

The evidence we have for the function and significance of face pots and head pots is unfortunately extremely limited. There seems to be no reference in contemporary sources that sheds any light on the subject or mentions these vessels at all. What evidence there is, therefore, can only be gleaned from the pots themselves, from the places in which they were found, when these can be identified, and from the pottery and other objects, if any, associated with them.

Needless to say, only a small proportion of all the complete face pots and sherds come from securely identified deposits but, from the list of find-spots (FIG. 3), it can be seen that in Britain face pots are found on a wide range of settlement sites: forts, towns, ports, villages and villas. Thus, even if they are not very common, they do not seem to have been restricted to one particular strata of society. Of those sherds and pots which do come from well-identified contexts, surprisingly few, it seems, were found in graves, in fact only the buff face pots from Colchester (plus one other, presumably of the same group, from a cemetery at Billericay78 and the unique vessel from the railway-cutting in Lancaster79 (FIG. 9: 4). All the rest seem to have come from non-funerary deposits. At Verulamium sherds of five or more face pots were found in a row of shops,s80 and, as mentioned above, a number of sherds were also found in shops at Lincoln; again at Verulamium, fragments of seven or eight face pot sherds have recently come to light in a newly excavated baths-building in Branch Road,8 while the Caerwent face pot seems to have been found in or near a baths-block, though the building in question could be later than the pot itself.82 Quite a number of complete vessels seem to have been buried in ritual deposits; the Tarraby Lane vessel (FIG. 9: 8) was found by itself in a field83 as were two of the Suffolk face pots.84 The small London face pot and the Dover fragment85 were found in stream beds and the Springhead sherd was found in a well. Other complete vessels have come from pits which may have been ritually filled,86 as at Verulamium87 and London.88 Only the Chester-le-Street face/smith pot has definitely been identified as a foundation deposit89 but it is possible that the horned face pot from Lincoln may have been set into the floor of one of the shops.90 Only two face pot fragments have definitely been found in buildings of a religious nature: at Colchester a grey face pot sherd was found low down in the doorway of the Mithraeum where a smith pot sherd was also found,91 at Littlecote the upper half of a 'Much Hadham' face pot was found embedded in the secondary floor of one of the rooms of the apsed building with the Orpheus mosaic.92 The Brenley Corner sherd, mentioned by M. J. Green,93 is unstratified and likely to be of second- or, at the latest, third- century date,94 while the possible shrine on this site belongs to the fourth century judging from

78 Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. iii, 250. 7 W. T. Watkin, op. cit. (note 41), 186. 80 S. S. Frere, Verulamium Excavations, vol. I (1972), fig. 125 and 132. 81 S. Greep, unpub. info. 1982. 82 V. E. Nash Williams, Archaeologia lxxx (1930), 229. 83 G. H. Smith, op. cit. (note 44), 31. 84 G. Briscoe, Proc. Suf. Inst. Arch. xxvi (1957), 80 and op. cit. (note 32), 176. 8* S. E. Rigold, Arch. Journ. cxxvi (1961), 99, fig. 6: I I. 86 A. Ross in J. M. Coles and D. D. A. Simpson (eds.) Studies in Ancient Europe (1969), 278. 87 K. M. Richardson, Archaeologia xc (1944), I117, fig. 16: I12. 88 The Museum of London face pot (Acc. no. 18302) was found in a pit behind the Guildhall, (FIG. 6: 4). 89 p. Turnbull and J. Evans unpub. info. 1982. 90 M. J. Darling, unpub. info. (1982) and op. cit. (note 35), 27. 91 M. R. Hull, op. cit. (note 21), I37. 92 B. Walters, unpub. info. (1981). 93 M. J. Green, op. cit. (note 25), 175. 4 R. Pollard, unpub. info. (1982).




the coin evidence; the so-called face urn sherds from Temple V at Springhead95 are not strictly from face pots at all, having tiny medallion-type moulded faces of an unusual 'Celtic' type.96

Interestingly enough, the picture thus gained from this survey of findspots in Britain turns out to be rather different from the general picture so far emerging in the Rhineland. Though my research here is still far from complete, it is clear that a far higher percentage of face pots were found in graves as cremation urns and cemeteries are by far the commonest known provenance, at least for complete vessels; whereas in Britain, only at Colchester and Lan- caster, out of the sites where whole or reconstructable face pots have been found, did these vessels come out of graves. As for the Rhineland face pots and sherds from non-funerary contexts, again the impression gained is slightly different, although the number of closely provenanced pieces is so depressingly low as to be more or less valueless for statistical purposes. Of these, almost all are from bath-buildings, cellars, or sunken temples to Mithras or Jupiter Dolichenus. However, it must admitted that not only are such buildings among the easiest to identify, they are also the ones most likely to fill up with rubbish once they fell out of use. Nevertheless, I have found no evidence as yet of face pots being found in shops or in isolated ritual deposits.

Coming to head pots, of those found in certified contexts, five were apparently found in graves at York, two were from a pool outside the Schola at Margidunum,97 the Piercebridge head pot was in the late Roman fort ditch,98 the Ixworth fragment was in a baths-building,99 and the Colchester head pot, its upper half missing, was in a rubbish dump outside the Balkerne Gate.100

Two points in particular emerge from all this. Firstly, well over 50 per cent of the whole face pots in the Rhineland probably come from graves, while in Britain the majority probably come from ritual deposits. While this takes no account of the many sherds found on settlement sites, it does imply that face pots had some kind of religious association, even if their function may have changed somewhat when they were introduced into Britain. The same can be said for head pots, some of which were found in graves, while others may have been from ritual deposits. The second point that stands out is the number of sherds that have been found in domestic contexts, far outnumbering those found in religious buildings. However, this does not in fact negate the first point. For religion, and religious observances, were so much an integral part of everyday Roman life in Italy and the provinces that every house would have its household shrine, just as every military baths-building seems to have had an altar to Fortuna; have been in constant everyday use, just as they are in many countries today. What this does religious objects (amulets, charms, figurines, incense burners, vessels for libations etc.) would signify, however, is that the discovery of a face pot sherd on a site does not by itself imply the existence of a Roman religious building.

As regards pottery and other artefacts associated with face and head pots, the list is dis- appointingly short, just a few grave-groups and the bones found with the Chester-le-Street face/ smith pot. Unfortunately, the grave-groups are not much help. Both at Colchester and in the Rhineland, face pots seem to come from more or less ordinary graves, with the usual complement of platters, bowls, flagons and lamps. They are, however, relatively rare; on average, about one in a ioo graves may turn out to have a face pot, and this figure is only

9 M. J. Green, op. cit. (note 25), 181. 96 N. S. Penn, Arch. Cant. lxxvii (1962), 121, fig. 4: 3 and 4. 97 F. Oswald, op. cit. (note 67), 55. 98 P. Scott, unpub. info. (1982). 99 J. Warren, op. cit. (note 76), 78. 100 M. R. Hull, unpub. notes.




for the cemeteries where face pots happen to have been found; it does not take into account the many cemeteries where none have been found at all. This does at least tell us that the presence of a face pot indicates a relatively unusual grave. It is possible that they denote a particular group in the community, priests perhaps, or almost any other restricted group, such as moneylenders, midwives, smiths, soothsayers etc, or some particular group within the army.

This leaves the cat or dog bones found in or with the Chester-le-Street pot. The dog is an attribute of the Celtic hammer god Sucellos,101 who might have been associated with the Smith God. Dog bones seem to be quite commonly found as foundation burials under gate-posts etc, although cat bones seem to be rather rare, but either way they do not tell us much except to emphasize the fact that a deliberate votive deposit of some kind was buried beneath the gate-tower floor.

Finally the pots themselves. Firstly their shape and size. Face pots are of a storage-jar or cooking-pot form, in fairly coarse ware, and would seem unlikely containers for wine, although the spouts on the early types imply that liquids could at one time have been poured in or out. However, the blind, cup-like 'spouts' on many of the Rhineland face pots and some British ones could also have served as holders for candles or tapers of some sort. Almost certainly, the function of face pots changed over the years, and from province to province. It is possible that they could have served as containers for amulets and charms, or other items that were thought to have magical or healing qualities. Or they could have held dry goods such as flour or nuts etc. Some found in votive deposits may have held oil, wine, or grain; K. Schumacher102 mentions an ancient Bavarian fertility rite, still practised in the nineteenth century which involved the burial of face pots with three different kinds of grain in them to ensure good harvests. Head pots, which seem to have been made in finer wares, might have held wine, at any rate for libations or cult use. They could also have held honey or other viscous substances. So too could the widely distributed 'Much Hadham' face pots in fairly fine red ware, whose tall narrowish necks could quite easily have been corked or plugged so that they could have been traded with their contents inside them.

Of the various attributes portrayed on the vessels, the most explicit are almost certainly the smith's tools on the Chester-le-Street pot (FIG. io: 6). The importance of smithing and the Smith God on this site would seen to be confirmed by the further find of the bottom half of an altar stone (now in the church) with the figure of what seems to be a smith, cut off waist- high, standing on an anvil with a wheel carved on it, and two spoked wheels on either side. A fragment of another smith-pot was also found in the fort, and evidence of metal-working was found in a fourth-century fort building.103 The wheel is an attribute of Jupiter Dolichenus who also seems to have been associated with the Smith God. It is possible that there could be some connection between the Smith God cult at Chester-le-Street and a similar one at Cor- bridge where a frieze from a shrine of Dolichenus has been found,104 and also some grey pottery sherds with lattice decoration and appliqu6 figures holding hammers and tongs, one of which has a spoked wheel beside it; these are thought to represent Dolichenus or the Smith God.105 While the Chester-le-Street face/smith pot is the only one to combine a face with smith's tools, a number of smith pots of similar shape and size to face pots, but bearing only the smith's tools (hammer, anvil and tongs) have been found in Eastern England; all of them, it seems, in places where face pots have also been found (see FIG. 3). The few that are dated are from

101 A. Ross, op. cit. (note 43), 339. 102 K. Schumacher in Altertiimer Unseren Heidnischen Vorzeit V (I 91 1), 347. 103 P. Turnbull, unpub. info. (1982). 104 I. A. Richmond, Arch. Ael. (4th Series) xxi (1943), 127. 105 J. Leach, Arch. Ael. (4th Series) xl (1962), 35; Southwark Excavations 1972-4 (1978), 369, fig. 166, no. 1273.




late second- to third-century deposits. The only other evidence that face pots might be connected with the Smith God or Dolichenus comes from the Rhineland, with the face pots found in Dolichena and a unique face pot from Rheinzabern which has a spoked wheel on it.106 None of this, however, is sufficient to prove any conclusive or general connection between face pots and the Smith God/Dolichenus; the Chester-le-Street vessel may just be a mani- festation of a particular local cult, or it could be that smith's tools and spoked wheels, like the face mask and phallic symbols, were thought to have particular, apotropaic powers.

The only other face pot with a recognizable attribute is the one from Old Penrith (FIG. 9: 9), with a snake's head just visible above the right eyebrow. This seems to be unique both in Britain and on the Continent, although vessels with snakes on them, often entwined around the handles have been found in a number of places and are thought to be connected with the worship of Mithras.107 None of these have faces, however, except for two planetary vases, one recently discovered at Cambrai, which has four 'female' faces on the girth and snakes around the neck,108s and an incomplete one from Tourines St Lambert in Belgium, which has only three unbearded faces and snakes around the neck and also part of a goat and a cock, which imply a connection with Mercury.109 As the closest parallels for the Old Penrith face pot also seem to come from this same area of the Belgian/French border, it is just possible that the face pot may be connected in some way with the pottery and cult traditions of this area, but too much of the vessel is missing for it to be possible to determine any likely association with Mithras or Mercury. It is also just feasible that a gorgon head was intended.

The question really is whether the faces on face pots were actually intended to represent any one particular deity or a number of different ones or whether the face mask had a significance of its own. Masks have been used since time immemorial in almost all, if not all, societies the world over. And in Roman times the face mask, which has survived in the archaeological record only in antefixes, stone or ceramic theatrical masks, face pots and the occasional mosaic or wall-painting, was almost certainly a much more important motif than we can now appreciate, particularly in peasant art, in wood-carving, leatherwork, painting and textile design, of which no trace has survived. Possibly, many pots, which now seem quite plain, had garish faces painted on them, of which nothing now remains. The face was obviously an important element in early Celtic and Germanic art, as can be seen from the stylized enig- matic faces that peer out of metalwork designs; it is not impossible that masks would have been worn for many religious ceremonies and occasions. Indeed, this mask-wearing tradition (which is the basis of the Greco-Roman theatrical masks which evolved from those worn in religious processions) survives to this day in Western Europe in the make-up masks of harle- quins and circus clowns and in the pumpkin faces and costume masks of Hallow E'en. Death masks, too, are part of a similar religious tradition, arising out of the need to equip the dead with the protective, apotropaic powers of the face mask and not a desire to provide a life-like image of the deceased. The face masks on cremation urns may well have had such apotropaic significance, and the addition of phalli and gorgon-like protruding tongues would fit well with this interpretation. Face pots buried as foundation deposits may also have been intended to ward off evil spirits, as were the antefixes on the rooves and the phalli built into the walls, although in the case of the Chester-le-Street face pot with its smith's tools, it is possible that its purpose was also to invoke the benevolent protection of the Smith God. Possibly the role of the mask on face pots was always protective-of the dead, of the home, of the fields and the harvest, of foods, or of a particular treasure (in parts of Africa the women keep their cut-off

106 W. Ludowici, Stempel-Namen und Bilder Romischer T6pfer in Rheinzabern, Kat. V (1927), 275, K 25. 107 M. Amand in Actes du Colloque International d'Arche'ologie, Rouen, (1978), 165. 108 ibid, 168. 109 This vessel is in the Mus6es Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Bruxelles.




hair in such a vessel). In each region the potters would have interpreted the mask according to their own local religious beliefs and superstitions, some giving it a beard, others phalli or a protruding tongue, or horns, or green glass eyes, or smiths tools, or even a snake, which is also a potent apotropaic symbol. Very probably the function of face pots varied consider- ably from province to province and from region to region, as can be seen from their frequent use as cremation urns on the Continent but not in Britain except in the Colchester region. But the idea of the face pot, of putting a protective face upon a container, must have been rooted in some basic religious tradition that seems to have survived from the Bronze Age if not the Neolithic and continued in Northern Europe up to recent times.

And this tradition, if the distribution of face pots on the Continent is anything to go by, would seem to be Germanic rather than Celtic. Unfortunately, any wide-ranging survey of Continental pottery is heavily reliant upon published material, and it is not impossible that there is a built-in bias due to the exceptionally high standard of German archaeological excavation reports, particularly where pottery is concerned, and the relative paucity of published pottery from the rest of Western Continental Europe. However, if face pots were adopted by the Celtic civilian populations of Europe west of the Rhine, one would expect one or two to have surfaced somewhere in museum or excavation reports. On the evidence as it stands, and leaving out of account the face pots and face beakers of the Danubian Provinces, face pots start with a purely military distribution along the Rhine and Raetian frontiers, and by the end of the second century, when finds seem to be more from civilian contexts, there is no evidence that they have moved any further west than Trier. The Bavai face pots seem to fade out by the beginning of the third century and in the later Roman period face pots seem to be mainly restricted to the Middle Rhine and the Trier region. Their distribution then would seem to be limited to the Germanic fringes of the Empire in Western Europe.

In Britain, where my evidence is based much more on first-hand information, the distribution in the civilian zone is again restricted to the east. This is of particular interest, as there are relatively few distribution patterns that show clearly divergent cultural traditions in Roman Britain. This same eastern concentration is also characteristic of Iron Age Stamped Pottery,110 of Early Roman Stamped Wares,111 and of Romano-Saxon Pottery,112 all of which are related to Germanic pottery styles on the Continent. It is difficult to know what to make of these at present, and many more distribution maps of non-classical Romano-British material are needed before any coherent picture can emerge, but they do appear to indicate close and continuing cultural contacts between Eastern England and parts of Germanic Europe throughout the Roman period, which seem to be on a different level from the more generalized trade contacts evidenced by the import of East Gaulish Samian and other Rhenish pottery. However, in whatever way one chooses to interpret the distribution of face pots, both on the Continent and in Britain, it is difficult to see how they could have evolved from the Celtic cult of the head without many more examples being found in the Celtic heartlands of Western Europe, although it is not impossible that the face pot tradition may later have been assimilated with this cult in some areas of Celtic Britain.

Where head pots are concerned, they also have an eastern distribution, although they do not seem to have been found south of the Thames. Again it is difficult to see how they could have been connected with the Celtic head cult without more examples being found to the west, but in this case there seems to be no obvious Germanic connection, except for the glass head bottles; instead these vessels seem to be much more an off-shoot of the long-lived Greco-

0 S. M. Elsdon, Stamped Iron Age Pottery, B.A.R. Io (1975), figs. I and 2.

1 W. Rodwell in P. Arthur and G. Marsh (eds.), Early Fine Wares in Roman Britain, B.A.R. 57 (1978),

fig. 7: . 112 W. Roberts IV, op. cit. (note 71), pls. 51-4.



I28 GILLIAN BRAITHWAITE

Italian face vase tradition, which somehow found its way to this remote province, possibly introduced from North Africa or from the Greek East. It seems very likely that they were intended to represent deities of one kind or another. The only clue is provided by the Lincoln head pot with DO MERCURIO written around the base (FIG. I2: 3). The other two parchment- ware head pots, from Littleport and Colchester, may also represent the same deity; the latter vessel with its neatly twirled moustache is very clearly masculine (FIG. I2: 2). The York and Piercebridge ones, however, look more feminine, though the York head pot with the side ringlets (FIG. I 1: 4) has been described as male.113 Head pots seem to have been a completely separate development from face pots, and were probably used for different purposes. They appear to be found less in domestic contexts, although it is hard to judge with so few provenenced examples. There is only one instance when the two traditions seem to merge, and that is in the York-Crambeck area with the Romano-Saxon head/face pots, but by this period the distinctions between the two vessel types may have become somewhat blurred.

To conclude, therefore, Roman face pots evolved on the Continent in the first century when the frontiers of the Empire were stabilizing along the Rhine, and were brought into Britain by the Roman army where they took root in Eastern England and in the Northern Military Area. Head pots, which developed later, have a similar distribution, though none seem to have been found south of the Thames or in the north western Military Area. The face pot tradition which appears sporadically in the archaeological record in Eastern and Northern Europe from the Neolithic onwards, continued long after the Roman period, in Germany, Frankish Gaul and Anglo-Saxon England, up unto the seventeenth-century Bellarmines, and even into modern times with the Toby Jugs. What exactly the faces represented we shall almost certainly never know, but the face pot tradition, based on some ancient superstition no doubt long since bereft of its original significance, lived on long after Rome was forgotten.

NOTES TO ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. I

I. Face beaker with moulded satyr's head upside down on the reverse side, Cadra Minusio. After H. Simonett, Tessiner Grdberfelder (1941), pl. 15: 9.

2. Face beaker in red fabric, Cumidava. After N. Gudea and I. Pop, Das R6merlager von Risnov, Cumidava, cover photo.

3. Face beaker in brown fabric, Vienna. After A. Neumann, Vindobona (1972), pl. 34. 4. Face pot in fine red fabric, Mainz-Weisenau. Mittelrheinisches Landesmuseum, Mainz. 5. Face beaker in whitish fabric with brown/red colour-coat, Kiln. R6misch-Germanisches Museum,

Koiln. 6. Face pot with barbotine decoration on reverse, Nijmegen. After P. Stuart, Een Romeins Grafveld

uit de eerste eeuw te Nijmegen (1977), fig. 54: 4. 7. Face pot in dark grey, granular ware with three 'blind spouts', Hofheim. Museum Wiesbaden.

FIG. 2.

I. Face pot in buff/orange ware with three pierced spouts, Kastel, Mainz. After Schumacher, op. cit. (note IO2), pl. 59: 1o70.

2. Face pot in yellow/grey fabric, Bonn. After Oelman, op. cit. (note 8), fig. 56, Type 4o. 3. Planetary vase with tricephallic head and 6 others in fine ochre ware, Bavai. After M. Bersu,

Germania Romana V (1930), pl. xxiv: 6.

FIG. 4. I. Incomplete face pot in hard grey fabric, by the Macellum, Wroxeter. 2. Face pot in brownish/red fabric, rim reconstructed, Caerwent. National Museum of Wales, slide

no. 249.

113 R.C.H.M., op. cit. (note 59), 92.




3. Face pot in fine orange ware, with two 'blind spouts', c. A.D. 55-70, Usk. After Darling, op. cit. (note 13), fig. 6: 18.

4. Face pot in 'sandy biscuit cream-coloured' fabric, A.D. 55-90, Camerton, Fosse Way ditch. After Wedlake, op. cit. (note 9), fig. 48: 6oo.

5. Body sherd in hard buff fabric, possibly of an applique face, pieces of green glass in the eyes, late first century, Wall.

6. Rim fragment in orange fabric, Little Chester kiln site. After Brassington, op. cit. (note 14), fig. II1: 254.

FIG. 5. I. Face pot in smooth buff fabric, Colchester. British Museum. 2. Face pot in smooth buff fabric, with three handles, Colchester. Colchester and Essex Museum. 3-4. Face pots in hard dark grey fabric, Colchester. Colchester and Essex Museum.

FIG. 6.

I. Upper half of face pot with two pierced spouts in cream-slipped orange fabric, Enfield. After Gentry et al., op. cit. (note 24), fig. 20: 44.

2. Face pot in whitish buff Ver region fabric, with three handles, in pit by Macellum, Verulamium. Verulamium Museum.

3. Face beaker in cream-slipped red fabric, with two handles. Walbrook stream, London. Museum of London.

4. Face pot in cream-slipped red fabric, with two handles, in pit behind Guildhall, London. Museum of London.

5. Body sherd in medium grey fabric, Walbrook stream, London. Museum of London. 6. Body sherd in orange fabric, Clements Lane, London. D.U.A. 7. Rim sherd in red/yellow fabric with indented mouth, Walbrook stream, London. Museum of

London. 8. Rim sherd with pierced spout in yellow buff fabric with red core, Princes St., London. Museum of

London. 9. Very unusual rim sherd in reddish fabric with a grey core, London. Museum of London.

FIG. 7. I. Upper half of face pot with three handles in red fabric, mid second century, in stream bed, Dover

harbour. After Rigold, op. cit. (note 85), fig. 6: I I. 2. Rim sherd in white-slipped red fabric, in a well at Springhead, Kent. 3. Rim sherd in reddish sandy fabric, early second century, Bodiam, E. Sussex. After Lemmon,

op. cit. (note 31), pl. iv: a. 4. Face pot in medium grey fabric, broken but complete, Ixworth, Suffolk. Ipswich Museum. 5. Rim sherd in medium grey fabric, Elmswell, Suffolk. Moyses Hall Museum, Bury St Edmunds.

FIG. 8. I. Body sherd in grey fabric with partial reconstruction, kiln site, Caistor-by-Norwich. After Swann,

op. cit. (note io), fig. 8: 14. 2. Body sherd in hard grey fabric, kiln site Caistor-by-Norwich. Norwich Castle Museum. 3. Body sherd in hard grey fabric, kiln site, Caistor-by-Norwich. After Atkinson, op. cit. (note 16),

fig. 6. 4. Half of face pot in greyish-brown fabric with metallic sheen and scored cross-hatching; beard

and hair portrayed with applied squashed pellets, Lincoln (St Marks). After M. Darling, unpub. drawing.

5. 'Much Hadham' face pot in burnished red fabric, three handles, Colchester. Colchester and Essex Museum.

6. Upper half of 'Much Hadham' face pot in 'soft, buff-orange, sandy paste', vertical burnishing on neck, three handles; triangular sets of indentations interspersed with four moulded felines, post A.D. 360, Littlecote villa. After Bryn Walters, unpub. photo.




FIG. 9 I. Upper part of grey face pot, York. After May, op. cit. (note 37), pl. xiii. 2. Body sherd in orange 'legionary ware', late first-century IXth-Legion kiln site, York. After Addyman

op. cit. (note 37), fig. 9: 12. 3. Body sherd in fine orange fabric, burnished on cheeks, Lancaster. After photo from Lancaster

City Council Museum. 4. Face beaker in red fabric, with 'inlaid eyes, the pupils being painted white', Lancaster. After

Watkin, op. cit. (note 41), I186. 5. Body sherd in dark grey burnished fabric, with ring stamps above eyebrows, Norton. Malton

Museum. 6. Body sherd in grey fabric with 'horns' and ring-stamped hair, Catterick fort. After A. Bell, unpub.

drawing. 7. Body sherd in hard grey fabric, Carlisle. After Jeff Taylor, unpub. drawing. 8. Face pot with identical faces back and front, in fine grey fabric, Tarraby Lane. After Smith, op.

cit. (note 44), fig. 19: 40. 9. Part of top half of face pot in fine hard grey fabric, with applied, spiral-decorated pellets and small

snake's head above right eyebrow, applied eyes with incised irises and pupils, Old Penrith. After P. Austen, unpub. drawing.

FIG. IO I. Body sherd in dark grey fabric, Chesters. Chesters Museum. 2. Light buff face pot, Colchester type, Camelon. After Sean Goddard, unpub. drawing. 3. Fragmentary face pot in cream-slipped buff-orange fabric, Camelon. After Robertson, op. cit.

(note 50), 285. 4. Two body sherds in red-slipped yellow-red fabric, Balmuidy. After Miller, op. cit. (note 5I), pl. 1:

28 and 29. 5. Rim fragment with applied face, Corbridge. After M. Green, op. cit. (note 39), pl. 102.

6. Face/smith pot with applied face and smith tools, and lattice scoring, Chester-le-Street. After Goodburn, op. cit. (note 52), pl. xv: B.

FIG. I I. I. Roman face vase in fine red fabric, early fourth century, North Africa. Loeffler Collection, R5misch-

Germanisches Museum, K61n. 2. Perfume flask with green-yellow glaze, Trier. Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Trier. 3. Head pot in dark red fabric, Fishergate, York. Yorkshire Museum. 4. Head pot in orange-red fabric, rim missing, Micklegate, York. Yorkshire Museum. 5. Head pot in parchment ware with reddish brown-painted decoration, York. Yorkshire Museum. 6. Head pot, rim and base missing, in fine apricot-red fabric, Piercebridge. After Louise Hird,

unpub. drawing. 7. Head pot in apricot-orange fabric, Chester-le-Street. Museum of Antiquities, Newcastle-upon-

Tyne.

FIG. 12.

I. Top half of parchment ware head pot, brown painted decoration, Littleport, Cambs. After M. Darling, unpub. slide.

2. Parchment-ware head pot, much of upper part missing, Colchester. Colchester and Essex Museum. 3. Parchment-ware head pot, with DO MERCURIO in brown paint round base, Lincoln. British

Museum. 4. Top half of pinkish buff head pot, York. After Dickinson and Wenham, op. cit. (note 66), fig. 9:

29. 5. Grey head pot, Margidunum. After Oswald, op. cit. (note 67), pl. xx. 6. Part of dark grey head pot, Lincoln (Flaxengate). After M. Darling, unpub. drawing.




FIG. 13. I. Base of pinkish-buff, bossed head pot, York. After W. Roberts, op. cit. (note 71), pl. 43: D. 39. 3. 2. Sherds of bossed head pot in smooth red fabric, Crambeck. After W. Roberts, op. cit. (note 71),

pl. 42: D. 39. 2. 3. Body sherds of grey, bossed head pot, York (Heworth). Yorkshire Museum. 4. Bossed head pot in whitish buff fabric, Castor, Cambs. After M. Green, op. cit. (note 25), pl. iii. 5. Bossed head pot in whitish ware with dark brown colour-coat, Water Newton. Cambridge Univer-

sity Museum. 6. Fragments of bossed head pot in fine grey ware, Colchester. After Hull, op. cit. (note 21), fig. 59. 7. Body sherd of grey, bossed head pot, Ixworth, Suffolk. After Warren, op. cit. (note 76), 78.

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