Terra Sigillata Research Articles

The Poison Trials: Wonder Drugs, Experiment, and the Battle of Authority in Renaissance Science by Alisha Rankin

Reviewed by: The Poison Trials: Wonder Drugs, Experiment, and the Battle of Authority in Renaissance Science by Alisha Rankin Frederick W. Gibbs Alisha Rankin. The Poison Trials: Wonder Drugs, Experiment, and the Battle of Authority in Renaissance Science. Syntheses. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021. 330 pp. $35.00 (978-0-226-74485-8). When thinking about the nature of early modern experiment and knowledge production, the relevance of administering pulverized unicorn horn to condemned [End Page 416] criminals doesn't necessarily spring to mind. Alisha Rankin deftly shows why it should. In Renaissance Europe, poison was a very real threat to those in power (or wanted to be), making effective antidotes to poison a prized possession. But how could one know if a particular antidote actually worked—that it was a truly "authentic" substance naturally endowed with anti-poison properties, or a complex drug that was correctly prepared? What kind of evidence constituted proof of a drug's efficacy? Whom should one trust to make such a determination? While provocatively exploring these questions, Rankin immerses her readers in the early modern world of variegated medical practice, contested medical authority, and competing kinds of evidence. Efficacy of a drug or poison could be known from a number of sources: reasoning through medical theory, written testimony from physicians who had witnessed a drug's effects on patients, deceitful curative demonstrations in public markets, and of course personal experience. In showing how all these interfaced with each other, Rankin also brings to light the particular experience of performing contrived experiments with poisons and antidotes on criminals condemned to death as a way of establishing authoritative medical knowledge. Although focused on the sixteenth century, Rankin carefully situates poison trials in a long medical tradition. The first chapter provides a thorough overview of how thinking about poison and antidotes developed from antiquity through the Renaissance. The concluding seventh chapter shows how interest in poison trials persisted into the seventeenth century and remained significant for the burgeoning field of toxicology, even as poison trials moved from human to animal subjects. The book's three main sections—Authorities, Experiments, and Wonder Drugs—provide a helpful thematic heuristic, but what makes the book so exciting is how these boundaries are constantly blurred within and especially across the various chapters. The chapters at the heart of the book proceed chronologically, each focused on a different trial or antidote. Chapter 2 describes the advent of the early modern poison trials with Pope Clement VII and Caravita's oil, emphasizing how physicians framed trials of antidotes on condemned bodies not as a revolutionary new practice (although there was no recent precedent), but as an extension of the learned medical tradition. Chapter 3 highlights how university-trained physicians (including the well-known Andrea Mattioli) asserted their authority to create medical knowledge by carefully detailing the gruesome effects of poison on the human body and explaining any success or failure of an antidote in order to minimize the legitimacy of public spectacles by charlatans hawking fraudulent drugs. Chapter 4 examines the concerns about using living bodies to test antidotes given the potential disruption to the important social and religious function of providing a pious death to a repentant criminal. Taking a more global approach, Chapter 5 investigates the burgeoning interest in wonder drugs—remedies for basically any malady and especially poison—including bezoars, unicorn horn, terra sigillata, and tobacco—and how medical debates increasingly intersected with growing international commerce and private collections of these supposedly powerful new substances. Chapter 6 uses competing versions of terra sigillata from two rival medical empirics, Andreas Berthold and George am Wald, to illustrate [End Page 417] ow alchemical panaceas further muddied the waters of medical authority and credible evidence in the late sixteenth century. Readers will quickly cherish the vividness that Rankin brings to early modern texts, their authors, and medical debates. Specialists and nonspecialists alike will appreciate Rankin's energetic and conversational prose, as well as the fluidity with which she moves between micro and macro analysis. She weaves together, for instance, careful attention to the language used to describe poison trials—sometimes meticulously descriptive, sometimes curiously imprecise—with the broader cultural contexts of how...

Uma sepultura da Antiguidade tardia em Quintela de Lampaças, Bragança

An archaeological survey carried out in an agricultural field located at Quintela de Lampaças, Bragança, led to the discovery of a Late Antiquity grave. The structure in which the burial is settled is made out of loose stones and clay building materials, and bears a rather unclear configuration that diverges from the known funerary models from this epoch. The dating proposed for the set is the second half of the Vth century AD, as suggested by the materials that are most suitable for dating, such as the pieces of Late Terra Sigillata. Amongst the pile of clay materials that made the covering of the grave was deposited one hammer during the funerary ritual. This hammer is of a known roman type, and is a unique find in the region, in addition to being found in a rather unusual context.

Corpus of the Roman Finds in the European Barbaricum. Romania 1

Abstract The goal of this paper is to present the Roman products found in Arad County (West Romania), to analyse the Roman-Dacians connections, and the avenues by which the Roman goods made their way into the Dacian world, west of the Carpathians. Excluding the coins, Italian goods are sporadically found in Dacian sites dating from the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD: some fragmentary bronze and glass vessels, terra sigillata, and various ceramic plates. Most of the imports occur in settlements and hoards, but except for the coins, other types of Roman items were not treasured. The preponderance of the Republican denarii (and imitations) over the imperial ones can be easily distinguished – no matter where they were struck. The conspicuously high quantity of coins could indicate special donations received by the Dacians from the Romans, particularly during the reign of Burebista and Decebalus.

Book Review of Stamps on Terra Sigillata Found in Excavations of the Theatre of Aptera, Crete, by Martha W. Baldwin Bowsky

Book Review of Stamps on Terra Sigillata Found in Excavations of the Theatre of Aptera, Crete, by Martha W. Baldwin Bowsky

Ceramic technology: how to characterize terra sigillata ware

As part of the Topical Collection on the archaeometric study of ceramics, this paper focuses on terra sigillata ware. The main aims are to provide a review on the state of the art of the studies and to provide a guide to the most suitable analytical techniques. The text is divided into four main parts: (1) a brief archaeological introduction on the ancient production of terra sigillata; (2) a summary of the archaeometric studies carried out to date; (3) a reasoned list of the most suitable techniques for the investigation of the ceramic body and (4) an in-depth discussion on the most effective techniques for the study of the coating. The application of both destructive and non-destructive techniques is critically evaluated as well as the advantages and disadvantages provided by the different instrumentation, in terms of sample preparations and expected results.

Innovation and Investment in the Roman Rural Economy Through the Lens of Marzuolo (Tuscany, Italy)*

Abstract: The presence, uptake and economic impact of innovations in the Roman world have been much debated. Not subject to debate, however, is the agency behind innovation, which is assumed to be the large, elite landowner. Evidence of experimentation at the rural terra sigillata production site of Marzuolo (Tuscany, Italy) does not fit dominant models of external investment in the Roman world and challenges the directionality of innovation. Instead, this article makes the case that experimentation at Marzuolo was driven by intensification on the part of local smallholders, but was curbed by a lack of capital investment. A later, scaled-up terra sigillata production phase at the same site, linked to infrastructural investments, shows predatory investment behaviour by a landowner who appropriated a tried and tested facility. Recasting innovation as an open-ended process of trial and error that is centred on human capital development, labour and relations of production, changes the terms of study of the Roman economy and aligns it with broader conversations in economic history.

СHRONOLOGY OF THE ARMLETS WITH CONICAL CONE ENDS FROM THE MАEOTIAN SITES OF THE KUBAN REGION

Currently there is a need to develop of regional chronological schemes for certain categories and types of archaeological finds. The bronze armlets with the conical cones at the ends can be quite reliable chronological indicators for the assemblages of the first centuries AD in case of lack of other possibilities for dating. The assemblages with armlets from the Maeotian burial grounds of the Kuban region are analyzed in the paper. The published materials from the Don Maeotians burials are also used in order to compare and clarify the chronology. The analysis was mainly carried out basing of the burials with fibulae which are the base for chronology of the armlets. The types of fibulae are quite diverse: the Early Roman type «Aucissa», the «ocular» of Almgren 53 type, the provincial-Roman not enameled brooch, with a hinge of two racks, a round brooch with a clasp of a bow construction, highly profiled fibulae of the Black Sea types, lamellar fibulae with a S-prominent curl and with a button at the end, as well as bow garter fibulae. In separate burials glass vessels and Terra sigillata plate have been found which helped to clarify the dating.
 In total, 38 burials from the Maeotian burial grounds of the Kuban and the Lower Don were analyzed. Among them 10 assemblages belong to the first half of the 1st century AD., 17 — to the second half of this century, 8 — to the 1st — beginning of the 2nd century AD., 1 — to the first half of the 2nd century AD. and only 2 burials date widely — the 2nd century. The main period of existence of the armlets with the conical cones at the ends among the Kuban Maeotians, as, however, on the Don, within the 1st to beginning the 2nd centuries AD. The burials of the 1st century BC. with such armlets are not yet known to us. Perhaps this is due to the difficulties in distinguishing assemblages of this time due to the small amount of imported items and the lack of reliable chronological indicators.

Pattern recognition techniques for provenance classification of archaeological ceramics using ultrasounds

This paper presents a novel application of pattern recognition to the provenance classification of archaeological ceramics. This is a challenging problem for archaeologists, which involves assigning a making location to a fragment of archaeological pottery that was found along with other fragments of pieces made in different distant locations from the find. The pieces look very similar to each other and, often, other contextual information about the use of the pieces cannot be used due to the small size of the fragments. Current standard methods to solve this problem are limited since they are time consuming, require costly equipment, and can lead to the destruction of a part of the pieces. The proposed method overcome those limitations using non-destructive ultrasonic testing and incorporates versatile data analysis through advanced pattern recognition techniques. Those techniques include the following: feature ranking, sample augmentation, semi-supervision based on active learning; and optimal fusion. This latter is based in the concept of alpha integration, which allows optimal fitting of the fusion model parameters. Different provenance classification problems are showcased: provenance classification of terra sigillata ceramic pieces from Aretina, Northern Italy and Sud-Gaul origins; and provenance classification of Iberian ceramic pieces from archaeological sites of Paterna, and Les Jovaes in Valencia, Spain. We demonstrate that the proposed fusion-based method achieves the best results, in terms of balanced classification accuracy and F1 score, compared with competitive methods like linear discriminant analysis, random forest, and support vector machine. Experiments for simulating small sample sizes and uncertainty in labeling of the pieces are included. In addition, the paper provides a design of a practical specialized device that could be used in different applications of archaeological ceramic classification.

Bridging the Gaps: Bole and Terra Sigillata as Artefacts, as Simples and as Antibacterial Clays.

Medicinal earths are an important and yet, so far, little scientifically explored archaeological resource. They are almost always identified by their source locality. Our work over the last few years has focused on their chemical and mineralogical characterization and their testing as anti-bacterials. This paper presents the results of the mineralogical analysis and antibacterial testing of six medicinal earths, bole or Terra Sigillata (stamped earth) of unknown date and provenance in the Pharmacy Museum of the University of Basel. Only one of them, a red (Armenian?) ‘bole’, was found to be antibacterial against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. A yellow powder of Terra Tripolitania was mildly antibacterial and against one pathogen only. We argue that medicinal earths are in a pivotal place to bridge the gap between currently dispersed pieces of information. This information relates to: (a) their nature, attributes, and applications as described in the texts of different periods, (b) the source of their clays and how best to locate them in the field today, and (c) the methods employed for their beneficiation, if known. We propose that work should be focused primarily onto those medicinal earths whose clay sources can be re-discovered, sampled and assessed. From then on, a parallel investigation should be initiated involving both earths and their natural clays (mineralogy at bulk and nano-sized levels, bio-geochemistry, microbiological testing). We argue that the combined study can shed light into the parameters driving antibacterial action in clays and assist in the elucidation of the mechanisms involved.

Técnicas de digitalización, reconstrucción y visualización 3D aplicadas a los moldes de Terra Sigillata de Los Villares de Andújar.

Digitization, reconstruction and 3D visualization techniques applied to the molds of terra sigillata of the roman site of Los Villares de Andújar (Isturgi). Possibilities in the dissemination, study and conservation of the archaeological heritage. Innovation and the strong development around the digitalization tools and 3D modeling softwares in recent years, as well as its application within the field of Archeology, has represented obvious benefits for the study, conservation and, very especially, within the area of the dissemination of archaeological heritage. In the following lines we will expose the possibilities of applying jointly photogrammetric techniques, 3D restoration post-processes and digital analysis on terra sigillata hispánica molds from the Roman site of Los Villares de Andújar (Jaén).

Форма Dragendorf 30 из раскопок римского форта в Картале

Форма Dragendorf 30 из раскопок римского форта в Картале

Гончарство тунисского Набёля: древние традиции и современность

The article examines the pottery production of the Tunisian city of Nabeul, the administrative center of the province of Cap Bon, located in the north-eastern part of the country, on the Mediterranean coast. Modern Nabeul is situated on the site of the ancient city of Neapolis. A common occupation of local residents — pottery — is due to the large deposits of marl clays available in the district. The origins of this craft originate in the first centuries of our era, when the Romans founded their city on the site of a small Greek trading settlement and brought here their traditions of pottery. Archaeological surveys in Nabeul and its environs have revealed the existence of several pottery workshops engaged in the manufacture of both large ceramic containers — amphorae, and fine tableware imitating the Roman Terra sigillata. From here, Nabeul ceramics spread throughout the Mediterranean and was discovered in archaeological sites in Libya, Egypt, Spain, Britain and other regions. This phenomenon illustrates trade relations between various provinces of the Roman Empire. Nabeul’s modern pottery production, oriented both to the domestic market and tourists, also focuses on the production of large forms and richly ornamented tableware, the decor of which generally reflects the style of Islamic glazed ceramic products, but is more closely related to the style of modern Arabic ceramics of the Maghreb countries, especially Morocco. Also, Tunisian modern ceramics shows similarities in form, ornament and color palette with modern provincial ceramics in Spain, especially Andalusia, and probably has common roots.

ALABANDA PAYANDALI SARNIÇ AFRİKA KIRMIZI ASTARLI SERAMİKLERİ

Aydin Province, Cine District’s located about 7 km. the ancient city of Alabanda (Araphisar) to the west is it is a Carian city located at west of the Marsyas River. In the hilly area of the northeastern part of the city center, a two-chambered cistern was identified within the scope of archaeological excavations conducted in 2012 and 2013.The Terra Sigillata examined as the characteristic ceramics of the Roman Period dated to the perennial Roman and Early Byzantine Period in the cistern have not been cleaned from the red slipped ceramics (Africa, Phokaia, Cyprus, Egyptian Red Slipped) in the derivatives in the eastern centers. This group was evaluated for the first time by grouping 45 African red slip ceramics, 21 bowls, 21 bowls and 3 plate profiles, in 17 forms and analogically comparing them with parallel samples in other centers. In the classification here, similar examples from Anatolian origin and outside Anatolia were identified. Parallel examples are closely similar to Myndos, Nysa, Perge, Laodikeia, Tripolis, Hadrianopolis, Hac Dagi, Sarachane, Gozlukule, Kelenderis, Tarsus, Antiokheia, Anemurium, Alexandria, Kartaca and Athens Agora ceramics and Alabanda Palaces Cistern ceramics. As a result of it was defined that the red-lined ceramic groups of African origin in in the city of Alabanda were used extensively in the II nd and VII th centuries AD.

New Finds of Decorated South Gaulish Terra Sigillata in the Foreland of Brigetio

New Finds of Decorated South Gaulish Terra Sigillata in the Foreland of Brigetio

Un nouveau décorateur «Génial» de Lezoux et la collection des moules pour Sigillée gallo-romaine du Musée du Louvre

Abstract Moulds and potters’ marks are primary sources for our understanding of the relief decorated terra sigillata production. In this paper the Gallo-roman terra sigillata moulds (for relief decorated bowls and goblets) from the collection of the Louvre are presented together with a signed fragment from a relief decorated terra sigillata bowl from Lezoux. Among the moulds several potters’ centres are represented: La Graufesenque, Les Martres-de-Veyre, Lezoux and Rheinzabern ranging chronologically from the Trajanic to the Antonine periods. These finds allow a better understanding of workshop activities, individual potter’s style and enrich the repertory of motifs and dies used by the decorators. The bowl fragment reveals the name of a Trajanic Lezoux potter Genialis. Based on this fragment, we can hitherto name a previously anonymous Lezoux potter (Potter X-5) and characterise better his activity as one of the early workshop leaders “advertising” himself by large marks stamped into the decoration.

Terra sigillata from the territory of the civil town of Brigetio

On the territory of the civil town of Brigetio systematic excavations were carried out on regular basis between 1992 and 2016 which resulted in a huge amount of terra sigillata sherds besides the other finds. In this paper I present a few pieces uncommon in Pannonia province as well as those which provide the most relevant data from a chronological viewpoint. Furthermore, these terra sigillata sherds not only provide information about dating but also allow a glimpse into the everyday life and commercial relationships of the civil town.

Recent Publications on Archaeological Ceramic Analyses and their Contributions to the Study of Ancient Pottery Technology

Recent Publications on Archaeological Ceramic Analyses and their Contributions to the Study of Ancient Pottery Technology

EL COMERCIO DE TERRA SIGILLATA EN MESAS DO CASTELINHO (ALMODÔVAR-PORTUGAL): DATOS CONTEXTUALES Y PATRONES DE IMPORTACIÓN EN LA LUSITANIA MERIDIONAL

Mesas do Castelinho (Almodovar) is located in southern Portugal, an area traditionally recognized as a natural path connecting coastal region in the Algarve and the inland Alentejo region. Occuppied since 5th century BC, the site is still relevant during the Roman Republican phase. After the Augustan reforms it progressively loses importance to be abandoned at the end of the 1st century AD. Terra sigillata , recovered in the project directed by C. Fabiao and A. Guerra is abundant and forms a set of 322 pieces. Main categories are Eastern sigillata A, Italian-type, South Gaulish, Hispanic (from Andujar and Tritium ) and Penaflor type sigillata (“ sigillata de imitacion tipo Penaflor ”), ARS A and Phocean red slip ware. Following the economic dynamics of the site, the major phase of imports took place in Augustan-Tiberian period with progressive decrease until the end of the urban settlement in late 1st century AD. Episodic presence in the end of the 5th century AD is testified by one fragment of Phocaean red slip ware. The strategic position of Mesas do Castelinho determined its role during the Islamic period with fortress and settlement from the 9th-10th until the12th century, affecting and disturbing previous Early Roman phases.

A unique fragment of a terra sigillata vessel from the Polish Carpathians

A unique fragment of a terra sigillata vessel from the Polish Carpathians

The production centres and river network of Italian terra sigillata between the Arno and Tiber valleys: a geographical point of view

The study of ceramics – which has become almost prohibitive nowadays due to the amount of money and time it requires – still plays a fundamental rôle in the historical reconstruction of trade in the Mediterranean. Just as geology and archaeobotany allow for reconstructing ancient landscapes, and archaeozoology for reconstructing the dietary habits of ancient peoples, so the archaeology of production, with its unappealing routine of recording and classifying finds, is essential for understanding the economic dynamics of a given area. Typology, combined with appropriate archaeometric analyses of the fabric and the coating, allow for ascertaining, with a reasonable degree of surety, the provenance of vessels, and hence the ratio of imports to local products. This can make a significant contribution to the historical reconstruction of ancient economies and commercial exchange.