On a Roman Bronze Patella from Palace, Sc. 1&3 



Dr Smith makes sonie interesting remarks oil Ike artistic- 

 structure of this vessel, wkich are worthy of consideration. 



" The style of manufacture of this Eoman pot is perhaps worth 

 notice, in so far that we seem to have an arrangement of the 

 metal skilfully made so as best to adapt it for use in cooking. 

 The strong rim of the vessel, with its firm handle forming a com- 

 ponent part of it ; the sides of the vessel thin, so as to be easily 

 and rapidly heated ; and the bottom stronger and thicker, the 

 metal being thrown into ribs or rings projecting from its surface, 

 which not only increases its strength and enables it to stand the 

 tear and wear of use by skilfully adding to the amount of metal, 

 but also its power of retaining heat, which, with the tinned lining 

 of the pot seem to show an amount of applied science to vessels of 

 domestic use, that I am not sure we have surpassed in our own 

 day." The contrivance of rings would prevent the ingredients 

 that were cooked from being scalded. At present this is obviated 

 by the intervention of some modification of iron bars between the 

 pan and an open fire. 



Patella is a diminutive of Patina, a pan. In the sense of a 

 skillet or pannikin it occurs in Pliny: "In patella decoctum 

 pulmentarium." Some vessels of the same shape were employed 

 as ladles for drawing water. (See Guhl and Koner's Life of the 

 Greeks and Eomans, pp. 449-50, fig. 449, d.) 



A Eoman bronze patella of simpler form than this at Palace 

 and closely resembling the Eedesdale example, was discovered 

 under a large stone on a rocky hillside in 1876, along with other 

 bronze articles of British origin, — "a large massive Bronze 

 Armlet and two Bronze Horse-trappings ? " — on the farm of 

 Stanhope, the property of Sir Graham G. Montgomery, Bart, of 

 Stobo Castle, Peeblesshire. It is figured in the Proc. Soc. Ant. 

 Scot. iii. N.S. p. 322. "It measures 6 inches in breadth across 

 the top, 3t inches in depth, and 3f- inches across the bottom of 

 the vessel, which displays a series of 4 projecting concentric 

 rings. The handle measures 5£ inches in length." 



Another and larger Eoman patella was discovered with various 

 early British remains near a crannog in Dowalton Loch, Wigton- 

 shire, and was presented to the same Museum by Sir William 

 Maxwell, Bart, of Monreith, and described in Proc. Soc. Ant. 

 vol. vi. p. 109, 1865. There is a figure of it in the Catalogue of 

 the Museum, p. 60, where it is characterised as " Patella of 

 yellowish-coloured bronze, tinned inside, with handle inscribed 



