3§ 
ROMAN POTTERY FOUND IN BRITAIN. 
Belgica, and the Danubian lands, where t'hey lasted for centuries.” 
These are, therefore, the types found so abundantly in the 
Romano-Belgic cemeteries recently excavated in Belgium,! and 
forming the accumulations in the turf bogs of Flanders and in 
the Upchurch marshes referred to. 
The characteristic colours of Upchurch ware are grey, slate- 
colour, brown and black, and, as previously stated, most of the 
examples are equally common in France, Belgium and Germany. 
It only remains to be pointed out that, according to C. R. Smith}, 
the processes adopted to give bluish-black and slate coloured 
pottery its characteristic colour on the Nen and on the Medway, 
must have been identical. His words are, “ My friend, the late 
Mr. Artis, who carefully examined specimens of the dark 
Upchurch pottery, decided that the colour was produced by 
suffocating the condensed smoke of vegetable substances in a 
description of kiln well-known to him, termed smother-kilns,’’ 
which were among those excavated by him on the banks of the 
river Nen in Northamptonshire.§ 
As already explained, soot and fine carbon particles have been 
dismissed by modern chemists from the category of ancient 
colouring ingredients, and replaced by black iron oxide and ferro- 
silicate, the latter being a stable and refractory substance, 
familiar in the forms of iron slag and obsidian, quite capable of 
being produced by steaming in smoke fumes and of bestowing on 
Late Celtic and Romano-British fumed wares, Belgic terra nigra, 
early Italian bucchevo ntvo , as well as on Greek glazed black 
vases and pre-historic Egyptian earthenware, the black lustre 
which has resisted 15 to 50 centuries of decay. 
* Loeschcke, Westfalenev Mitteil , V. p. 264. 
f Ann. de la Soc. Arch, de Namur, VII., and Id. dc Bruxelles, V. 
X Collectanea Antiqua, VI., p. 179, ft. 
§ The MS. of the account given by Mr. Artis of this kind of ware is in the 
writer’s possession. 
Whether found naturally in the clay, or added in the form of rouge, 
haematite, ground iron, or ‘bull-dog.’ 
