ONE HUNDRED SHERDS. CHILIA-MILITARI CULTURE RELOADED. ALEXANDRIA POTTERY CASE

Abstract

Preparing themselves for field survey along Limes Transalutanus , the authors are looking for references – other than book descriptions and drawings – concerning the so-called Chilia-Militari culture, laying on the both sides of the Roman frontier, stretching from the second half of the second century up to the late third (or early fourth) century. After several attempts with pottery contained in exhibitions, they finally reached an unprocessed lot of pot sherds from a recent digging on the by-pass route north of Alexandria city. Interested first of all in fabrication issues, in order to successfully deal with fragmentary pottery, they fill a database with notes, photos and drawings, and make a typology sustained by petrography. The distribution of artefacts on functional types – as uncertain as it is – shows a society thinking and living ‘big’, speaking either of tableware, liquid containers or storage vessels. Beyond shreds, shapes, colours and sizes, there is a flagrant ambiguity of a ‘barbarian’ culture born at the fringes of the empire, part inside and part outside, cooking Roman but drinking as Dacians did, setting the table for the Gothic feast.