Fig. 218.—Tile Tomb, York.
It may be added that, on tiles of one kind or other, the name of the legions and cohorts quartered in particular localities where they were made, are frequently found impressed. The soldiers were brick-makers and masons, and made the tiles and built the houses, &c., at the places where they were stationed. Tile-stamps thus become important aids to history.
It is curious to add that some of the tiles which have been found tell a silent tale, which they were never intended to carry, of the dress or hand or foot of the maker, which have become accidentally impressed upon their surface while in a soft state, and are afterwards rendered imperishable by firing in the kiln. One example of this kind of accidental ornamentation (Fig. [207]), which exhibits the impress of a man’s feet, or, rather, shoes thickly studded with nails,—like the “hob-nailed” boots of our own day,—will suffice as an illustration.
Fig. 219.—Clay Coffin, Aldborough.
One extraordinary and highly interesting use of tiles among the Roman inhabitants of Britain was that of forming them into tombs.[26] A large tile was laid flat on the ground; two others of the same length were placed upright, one at each side, to form the sides; two shorter ones were placed upright as ends; and another tile formed the cover (Fig. [216]). Thus a fictile cist, or chest, was formed, and in this was deposited the sepulchral urn containing the ashes of the departed, with its accompanying group of smaller vessels. Cists of this kind are found frequently in the Roman cemeteries at Colchester. “The practice of enclosing or covering the sepulchral deposits with tiles appears to have been so general, that the word tegula, a tile, was often used to signify a tomb. The reader will at once call to mind the lines of Ovid:—
“Est honor et tumulis; animas placate paternas,
Parvaque in extinctas munera ferte pyras.
Parva petunt manes; pietas pro divite grata est