A Handbook to Roman Pottery1

Abstract

THE term “terra sigillata,” denoting certain well-known classes of Roman pottery, may be unfamiliar to the ordinary reader, but it is gradually coming into use in place of the somewhat misleading “Samian ware” of the nineteenth-century antiquarian. The late Prof. Haver-field, indeed, stoutly upheld the use of the older term; but it is open to decided objections, being purely conventional, unhistorical, and non-descriptive. Such expressions as “Roman red-glazed ware,”“Gaulish red ware,” etc., may be more accurate, but are not sufficiently definitive. The authors of the work under review have, therefore, followed Continental precedent and adopted this term, which strictly denotes “clay decorated with stamped patterns” (from sigillum, a stamp). The ware with which they deal is the pottery produced under the Roman Empire and found in all parts of Western Europe, which is marked by the use of a fine red paste and a lustrous red glaze, and usually ornamented by means of patterns and figures in relief.