Two other local varieties of black ware peculiar to Britain are those known respectively as Upchurch and New Forest ware. Although no remains of kilns have been found in the former district, the pottery is obviously local, and its manufacture appears to have extended along the banks of the Medway from Rainham to Iwade, over what are now marshes, but was then firm ground. The remains consist of a thin finely-moulded bluish-black fabric, with graceful and varied forms, ornamented with groups of small knobs in bands, squares, circles, wavy, intersecting, or zigzag lines, or a characteristic pattern of concentric semi-circles resting on bands of parallel vertical lines (Plate LXIX. fig. 6). This ware has also been found on the Continent, and may either have been exported or else made in other places besides Upchurch; it is probably of quite late date.[[3615]]
The clay is soft and easily scratched, and is covered with a polish or lustre produced by friction; the composition is fine, and the walls thin and well turned. It varies in tone from greyish, like that of London clay, to a dull black. The vases are mostly small (cups, bottles, jugs, small jars, and occasional mortaria), and some have ribbed sides; the ornamentation is always either in the form of impressed lines or raised patterns made by applying pieces of clay before the vase was baked. No potters’ stamps have come to light, nor is this ware found with coins or other Roman remains. Rough earthenware was also made in the Medway district, of a red, yellow, or stone colour.
The New Forest ware is found in the north-west part of the Forest, between Fordingbridge and Bramshaw.[[3616]] It is sometimes spoken of as “Crockhill ware,” from the local name of the site of the furnaces, of which traces were found in 1852. The pottery consists of two varieties, one of thin, hard, slate-coloured ware, with patterns of leaves or grass painted in white (Plate LXIX. fig. 5); these are small jars, averaging six inches in height, sometimes moulded by the potter’s thumb into an undulating circumference. There are points of resemblance with the Castor ware. The other variety consists of a thicker ware, with a dull white-yellowish ground and coarse foliated patterns painted in red or brown, usually platters or dishes. It is a rude and inartistic fabric, of obviously native origin and resembling Celtic rather than any Roman or Italian pottery. It is found on other sites in Hampshire, such as Bitterne (Clausentum), and even as far north as Oxford.[[3617]] The date is probably the third century of our era. With the kilns there were found heaps of potsherds which had been spoiled in the baking and rejected; they were vitrified so as to resemble stoneware, and when again submitted to the action of fire, cracked and split. The glaze with which the local blue clay had been covered was of a dark-red colour and alkaline nature, but had probably been affected by imperfect firing.
5. Plain Roman Wares
The plain unornamented and unglazed Roman pottery which answered to the modern earthenware has usually been considered by writers on the subject in a different category from the glazed and ornamented wares. Although from the very simplicity of its character it defies scientific classification, yet it must be remembered that this common ware was not likely to have been exported very far from the place of its origin, and therefore where any differences can be observed in the nature or appearance of the clay, in peculiarities of form or of technique, it is not impossible to establish the existence of a local fabric. But up to the present little has been done except in isolated instances. Certain local wares have been recognised in Britain, as will be noted below, besides the Castor, Upchurch, and New Forest wares, some of which almost come under this heading; and others, again, in Gaul. Similarly in Germany, attempts have been made by Koenen and other writers to classify the plain pottery whether according to form or on other principles (see above, p. [536]).
Many years ago a rough but in some respects convenient classification was made by Brongniart[[3618]] on the basis of the colour of the clay employed, which he distinguished under four heads: (1) pale yellow or white wares; (2) red wares, varying to reddish-brown; (3) grey or ash-coloured wares; (4) black wares. In the first division he included the large, often coarse, vases, such as the dolia and amphorae; under the second head Roman ware of the first century, and under the third that of subsequent date; while the fourth class comprised Gallo-Roman and other provincial wares. A somewhat similar system, in some respects even less chronological, was attempted by Buckman,[[3619]] who distinguished brown ware as a separate fabric. The obvious defect of these systems is that they are neither chronological nor according to fabrics, and that their basis is in many respects a purely accidental one; but at the same time they have proved convenient for discussing plain ware which does not admit of much consideration apart from its forms and the general appearance of its composition. And at all events they enable us to discuss examples of certain shapes under one head, inasmuch as the amphorae and dolia are nearly all of the first class, the mortaria or pelves of the third, cups, dishes, and flasks of the second and fourth, and so on.
The yellow ware[[3620]] is distinguished by its coarse clay, of a greyish-white or yellow colour, varying to dirty white, grey, or red. It is to this division that all the larger vases belong, such as those used for storing wine and other commodities or for funerary purposes, and the innumerable fragments of dolia and amphorae which compose the Monte Testaccio at Rome.[[3621]] Some of these vases were made on the wheel, but others were modelled by hand and turned from within. Those used in burial were usually of a globular form, or even dolia with the necks and handles broken off, and contained cinerary urns and glass vessels. We also find lagenae, trullae (saucepans), and mortaria made in this ware. Another remarkable variety may be described as a kind of olla; its peculiarity is that it is modelled in the form of a human head, much in the same style as the primitive vases of Troy (Vol. I. p. [258]). A vase of this type found at Bootham, near Lincoln, had painted on the foot D(e)O MIIRCVRIO, “To the god Mercury,“ in brown letters.[[3622]] The clay is light yellow, with a slip of the same colour.
A finer variety of this clay, often of a rosy tint, or white and micaceous, was used for making the smaller vases, which are thin and light, and all turned on the wheel.[[3623]] They are sometimes ornamented with bands, lines, hatching, or leaves, slightly indicated in dull ochre, laid on and fired with the vase. Some specimens are covered with a flat white slip, of a more uniform character than that employed on the Athenian vases. In others the clay is largely mixed with grains of quartz. In Britain little jars of a very white clay have sometimes been found, as well as small bottles and dishes, painted inside with patterns in a dull red or brown. They seem to have formed a kind of finer ware for ornamental purposes, as well as for the table.
The second class, that of the red wares, forms by far the largest division of Roman plain pottery, and comprises most of the kinds used for domestic purposes; it is found in all forms and sizes, all over Europe, often covered with a coating or slip, white, black, or red. This class may be considered to include all varieties of red and reddish-brown ware, but as a rule the clay varies in colour from pale rose to deep coral, and in quality from a coarse gritty composition to a fine compact and homogeneous paste. It is usually without a glaze, and sometimes the clay is largely micaceous. To enumerate all the shapes which illustrate this ware is unnecessary, but the Romano-British and Morel Collections in the British Museum—and in fact any representative collection of Roman pottery—exhibit all the principal varieties, from the cinerary urn to the so-called “tear-bottle” or unguent vase. The principal shapes are also illustrated in the treatises of Hölder and Koenen.
Among sepulchral vases of this ware were the ollae in which the ashes of slaves were placed in the columbaria at Rome, tall jars with moulded rims and flat saucer-shaped covers.[[3624]] In Roman tombs in Gaul and Britain these ollae are usually placed inside large dolia or amphorae, to protect them from the weight of the superincumbent earth.[[3625]] In Britain they have been found at Lincoln, on the sites of Roman settlements along the Dover Road, at Colchester, and in other places, and as many as twenty thousand are recorded as having been found at Bordeaux.[[3626]] After the introduction of Christianity this practice seems to have been abandoned, but vases of smaller size continued to be placed round the bones of the dead.