Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 25. – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1995)

Rei Cretariae Romanae Fautorum Acta XXXIV - Swan, V. G.: Legio VI Victrix in the early third Century: The ceramic Evidence. p. 199–203.

Alba Regia, XXV, 1994 V. G. SWAN LEGIO VI VICTRIX IN THE EARLY THIRD CENTURY: THE CERAMIC EVIDENCE This is a summary of part of a paper to be published in the Journal of Roman Pottery Studies 5 (1992); most references are, therefore, omitted. In the mid 120s AD, Legio VI Victrix arrived in York as the new garrison of Eboracum, Britannia's, northernmost legionary fortress. Soon after, a workshop making tiles with the legion's stamp as well as pottery was set up outside the fortress, about 180m SE of its E corner on the site of the present Borthwick Institute. No actual kiln structures are yet known, but dumps of waste pottery, tile and fired clay debris attest to their location, close to the site of the earlier tilery of Legio IX Hispana. This pottery, oxidised orange or paler creamy-buff and of varying degrees of coarsness, is generally referred to as Ebor ware. It included culinary vessels of characteristic legionary types, some best paralleled in the Rhineland, where the legion had been previously based, and a small number of fine ware cups and platters mostly imitating sigillata forms. The manufacture of the fine table wares was short-lived, but the kitchen wares probably continued to be made well into the second half of the second century. Nearby, in Aldwark to the NW, and on Peaseholme Green to the S, recent excavation of dumps of kiln waste indicate two other later probable military workshops making Ebor ware and stamped tiles. The distinctively different style of their products, however, and the incidence of such pottery within the fortress and colonia suggests an abrupt change or complete break in the manufacturing traditions of the legion at about the beginning of the third century. The newly introduced products were mostly cooking-vessels, - bowls or casseroles and dishes with lids, types quite unparalleled in the north-western provinces (Figs. 1, 2, nos. 1-15). Their affinities are clear; many forms ressemble the indigenous culinary pottery of the North African provinces, particularly Proconsularis, Numidia and adjacent parts of the mediterranean littoral; some casseroles, in particular, have profiles identical to vessels from central and eastern Tunisia (Fig. 1, nos. 1-6). Since such ordinary kitchen wares are not known to have been exported to Britain, their York makers must undoubtedly have originated from that region. Yet another inference may be drawn from these pots. Most of the bowls and dishes have rounded, sometimes rilled, bottoms; the dishes often have a flange or groove at the junction of the wall and base, and the bowls are casserole-like in their proportions with a pronounced recess for the lid. Their nearest Romano-British equivalent, the black-burnished cooking-bowl (Gillam 1957, 227) was generally much smaller in diameter, proportionately deeper with a relatively narrow flat base. The distinctively dissimilar form of these African-type casseroles indicates a functional difference, a native cooking-technique that could not be performed satisfactorily with the Romano-British flat-bottomed bowls. From contemporary sites in North Africa and the central mediterranean, it is clear that cooking there was normally carried out over fired clay braziers. The broader sagging bases of the African-type vessels, presented a maximum heating area to the fire in the basket below, and the protruding rim, basal rilling, or angle-flange helped to steady such vessels on the lugs of the brazier pan-stand. In contrast, the cooking-technique traditional to Britain and the north-western provinces involved pushing vessels into the accumulated ash at the bottom of an oven; deeper flat-bottomed pots were necessary for this. The manufacture in quantity of these round-based vessels in York implies the presence of a large number of customers, who wanted such pots, and who knew how to use them. It thus seems likely that the York casseroles were made by Africans, for the use of Africans, presumably soldiers in the garrison. Another group of orange ware vessels, apparently local to York, comprises a remarkable series of head-pots (Fig. 2, nos. 16-18). These are also similar to North African 199