The Roman Potteries at Durobrivce. 457 



Durolipons, which, is represented by the modern Godman- 

 chester, and Causennse or Ancaster, and which there figures 

 under the name of Durobrivse. 



The man to whom we owe this discovery was Edmund 

 Tyrrell Artis, who resided on the spot as agent of the 

 Duke of Bedford, the modern lord of the soil. Mr. Artis was 

 an intelligent, but a self-educated man, and, unfortunately, after 

 publishing figures of the more interesting objects fonnd in the 

 course of the excavations, in a very handsome folio volume of 

 plates,* he was never able to write the volume of descriptive 

 text intended to accompany it ; and what he had learnt on 

 the subject has only been partly communicated to the public, 

 in two or three casual articles, from the pen of his friend, Mr. 

 Charles Roach Smith. f Mr. Artis calculated that he had 

 found the remains of the kilns spread over a space of not less 

 than twenty square miles, so that no doubt can be entertained 

 of the great extent to which this manufacture was carried at 

 Durobrivas. By this discovery we first became acquainted 

 with certain kinds of pottery which were undoubtedly manu- 

 factured in Britain under the Romans, and,: as no traces of the 

 manufacture of the same ware have been met with on the 

 Continent, and examples of it found there are not numerous, 

 and may therefore have been exported from Britain, we seem 

 justified in considering it as peculiar to this island. The 

 discovery of so many of the kilns, some of them nearly 

 perfect, discloses to us, moreover, the manner in which it was 

 made. Mr. Artis investigated this part of the subject with 

 great practical intelligence. 



There are some varieties of this Durobrivian ware, and 

 two especially have been remarked; the first blue or slate- 

 coloured, the other reddish-brown or of a dark copper colour. 

 The latter was coloured by a simple though curious process, 

 which Mr. Artis was enabled to investigate in a very satisfac- 

 tory manner. It will, perhaps, be best told in his own words. 

 (l During an examination of the pigments used by the Roman 

 potters of this place," he says, "I was led to the conclusion 

 that the blue and slate-coloured vessels met -with here in such 

 abundance, were coloured by suffocating the fire of the kiln, 

 at the time when its contents had acquired a degree of heat 

 sufficient to ensure uniformity of colour. I had so firmly 

 made up my mind upon the process of manufacturing and 

 firing this peculiar kind of earthenware, that for some time 

 previous to tbe recent discovery [in 1844] I had denominated 

 the kilns in which it had been fired smother kilns. The mode 



* The Durobrivce of Antoninus Identified and Illustrated, large folio, 1828. 

 t These will be found in \he Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 

 vol. i. p. 1 ; in (Smith's Collectanea Antiqua, vol. iv. p. 80, etc. 



