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Roman Republican Pottery from the Vicinity of Sutri (Sutrium)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

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In 1958, an archaeological field survey located a Roman pit 2¾ km. south-east of Sutri (at grid reference 737789 on the 1: 25,000 Carta d'ltalia, Istituto Geografico Militare, sheet ‘Sutri’) (fig. 1). The pit had been dug on the south side of a narrow spur, near its point, there only 2–3 m. high. Surface finds showed it to be full of black-glazed ware (ceramica campana) and other Roman pottery. In 1959 it was excavated, with the courteous permission of the Soprintendenza alle Antichità per l'Etruria Meridionale and of the local land-owner, Sig. Sansoni, and with the kind assistance of friends. This article deals mainly with its contents.

The excavation achieved its aim, to collect a comprehensive group of Republican pottery. The deposit could date from the last half of the second century B.C., but this is the earliest possible date and it may well fall entirely in the first century B.C.

The pit was roughly oval, just over 2 m. long and 1 m. deep as it survived (fig. 1). It had been enlarged, not long after it was initially dug, by an extension on the north side. Erosion since antiquity had then removed much of it and clandestine digging had disturbed its contents. This helps to explain why in no instance was any vessel recovered in its entirety.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1965

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References

1 PBSR, xxvi (1958), p. 119Google Scholar, site 737789.

2 Cosa: Black-Glaze Pottery’, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, xxv (1957), pp. 65193Google Scholar: cited henceforth as ‘Cosa’. Unfortunately, this article appeared too soon to profit from Morel, Jean-Paul's ‘Céramique à vernis noir du Forum romain et du Palatin’, Ecole française de Rome, Mél. d'Arch. et d'Hist., Suppl. 3 (1965Google Scholar).

3 ‘Cosa’, pp. 70–71. Lamboglia, , ‘Per una classificazione preliminare della ceramica campana’, Atti del l° Congresso Internazionale di Studi Liguri, 1950 (Bordighera, 1952Google Scholar): cited henceforth as ‘Lamboglia’.

4 Lamboglia, p. 195, form 51.

5 Lamboglia., p. 140.

6 cf. Holland, , The Faliscans in Pre-historic Times (Rome, 1925), p. 81Google Scholar.

7 op cit., p. 142.

8 ‘Cosa’, pp. 152–154.

9 ‘Cosa’, p. 163, no. E 21a: classified, in error, as a fragment of a lid—see further below under Form 4.

10 ‘Cosa’, p. 153.

11 Fieldwork in 1958 and later located at least two potteries near Sutri. One was excavated and dated to about 60–70 A.D. The other was closely contemporary in character. Sites recorded in PBSR, xxvi (1958), p. 98Google Scholar and sites 713823, 726815: excavation reported in PBSR, xxxii (1964), pp. 3888Google Scholar.

12 See PBSR, xxvi (1958), pp. 91 ffGoogle Scholar.

13 Reported in PBSR, xxvi (1958), p. 98 ff.Google Scholar, sites (‘B’) included red polished ware (terra sigillata 734789 and 739790. Pottery from the former chiara).

14 This view depends on an assessment of local wealth, on the size of villas found and on the acreage of farms, as indicated by distribution maps. Under the Empire, the evidence on all these points is more abundant and is further aided by epigraphy, cf. PBSR, xxvi (1958), pp. 91121Google Scholar.

15 PBSR, xxvi (1958), p. 94Google Scholar, map fig. 7a and sites 739788 (Iron Age cemetery) and 732791 (Etruscan tomb).

16 On Falerii Novi and its environs, cf. PBSR, xxv (1957Google Scholar).

17 Now stored in the British School, under reference ‘FAL N.51 B’.

18 PBSR, xxvi (1958), pp. 63 ff.Google Scholar, figs. 1 and 7.

19 For the results of this fieldwork, see PBSR, xxx and xxxi.

20 PBSR, xxvi (1958), pp. 91Google Scholar.