4 6 
ROMAN POTTERY FOUND IN BRITAIN. 
When used for pottery of the Roman period, it must be looked 
upon as an adulterant or inferior substitute for silica, since ex¬ 
posure to strong heat converts calcite into quicklime which absorbs 
water and quickly dissolves away. Examples of this tendency 
are to be seen in the Tullie House Museum, Carlisle, where an 
otherwise perfect cooking-pot (No. 215) is pitted over the entire 
surface with holes, some of which go through the side, owing to 
the dissolving out of the calcite particles originally mixed with the 
clay and of which very little remains. The other similarly pitted 
examples are from the Poltross-burn Mile-castle, and are ascribed 
to IV. Century. Gibson & Simpson, Poltross-burn, p. 453. 
Cooking-pots from Silchester in the Reading Museum, the clay 
body of which is filled with grains of calcined flint, are much 
better preserved. They are supposed to be a native ware in use 
long before the Roman period, and to have been made there 
throughout the occupation, f (Fox & Stephenson, Short Guide to 
the Silchester Collection, 4 th edition, igio, p. 3 eg). 
One or two examples recently found at Corbridge, and not yet 
published, belong to about the IV. Century. A rim fragment of a 
mortarium of the same ware, also found there, is of the hammer¬ 
head type, with grooves on the surface of the collar, but roughl) r 
made. 
Fragments are recorded at Elslack (May, Yorks. Arch. Journal, 
Vol. XXI., p. 161), and have been found abundantly at Ribchester 
(not published). 
Langenhoe, Essex, Fig. 8, B., “ the paste being of a very poor mixture, contain¬ 
ing lumps of flint.” 
“Another well-known class of pot is evidenced by the fragment, Fig. 9 (4), 
which has the burnished diagonal lines forming the ‘trellis’ or ‘lattice’ pattern.” 
It was concluded that the pottery found in the Red Hills belonged to the 
late Keltic period, and dated from the first-half of the I. Century of our era. 
f Geo. E. Fox and Mill Stephenson, “ Short Guide to the Silchester Collection,'' 
in the Reading Public Museum, p. 30. The examples of British ware from 
Silchester in the Reading Musum are in Case XI. 
In the Short Guide it is stated that—“ They differ from all other pottery 
from the site in that the paste or clay of which they are made is filled with 
grains of calcined flint, and that most of the vessels are hand-made, not thrown 
on the wheel. There are, however, at the end of the shelf a few vases of this 
same paste which are well-shaped and wheel-turned, but only a small number of 
these have been found. This was probably a native ware in use long before the 
Roman period. It was employed in the town for the roughest purposes.” 
