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 - Istenić, I.: Glazed Pottery the Western Cemetery at Poetovio. p. 23–26.

Alba Regia, XXV, 1994 J. ISTENIC GLAZED POTTERY FROM THE WESTERN CEMETERY OF POETOVIO The western cemetery of Roman Ptuj (NE Slovenia) lay on the right bank of the Drava, in the fields of the villages of Upper and Lower Hajdina (today both are Hajdina) around the Roman road to Celeia. Among other finds were tombstones, which indicate that legionaries and veterans of the legions stationed at Poetovio were buried here. It is suggested that it comprised over 3000 graves (Mikl-Curk 1984, 181 ff.). Most of the cemetery was excavated at the end of the last century, and the finds are kept in the Landesmuseum Joanneum in Graz and the regional museum in Ptuj. Unlike the material in the Ptuj museum, where the grave contexts are not preserved (MIKL-CURK 1976), it was possible to reconstruct 799 grave-groups from this cemetery on the basis of information in the invertory books of the Landesmuseum Joanneum. Analysis of the cemetery has indicated that the great majority of the graves are Early Roman in date. There are only five glazed vessels amongst the ceramic assemblage from this cemetery. The following discussion will be mainly concerned with their date and origin. Three small pots stand out as a group. The small pots

(l) from graves 375 and 560

(2) (Fig. 1, 560/4, 375) are, in form (slightly everted rim, low squat body and wide base), dimensions (rim diameter: 4,0 - 4,1 cm; (1) Inv. nos. 8592 and 8211. (2) The graves were re-numbered. Those mentioned in this article have been known in the literature up to the present as: gr. 294 = Upper Hajdina, the field of Franc Maruäek, parc. no. 435/1, gr. 26, excavations of LMJ, Fischbach 1892 gr. 300 = Upper Hajdina, the field of Franc MaruSek, pare. no. 435/1, gr. 33, excavations of LMJ, Fischbach 1892, gr. 352 = Upper Hajdina, the field of Gasper Maruäek, excavations of LMJ, Vnukl893,gr. 17, gr. 375 = Upper Hajdina, the field of Gaäper Maruäek, excavations of LMJ,Vnukl895,gr.43, gr. 560 = Lower Hajdina, Mihael Stole, excavations of LMJ, Vnuk 1894 (July to September). height: 4,7 - 4,8 cm), fabric (light brown (C/D 54)

(3) soft pottery (hardness 2 or 3 on Mohs' scale) with greyish mottling, sparse flint fragments, moderate to frequent coarse, brownish-red inclusions and frequent to intense, fine, micaceous inclusions) and poorly-preserved glaze (olive-brownish-yellow colour - H 78/86), virtually identical. Mikl-Curk (1969, 189, T. 1/2) has published a further example of these small pots from Poetovio. The small pot from grave 300 (fig. 1, 300/3) is very similar to the above vessels in form and glaze, and the fabric of this vessel belongs to the same group as the small pots below. Graves 300 and 560 can be dated to the period from C.60 AD to the beginning of the 2nd Century,

(4) and to the period from the end of the 1st to the 2nd Centuries

(5) respectively. On the grounds of the fabric, it may be surmised that they were manufactured in Poetovio, as they appear to belong to the fabric group which is typical of local products. ' The colours are determined on the colour scale of Calleux A./Taylor G., Code Expolaire, editions N. Boubée & Cie. Correspondances with the Munsell Scale are as follows: С 54 = Munsell 7,5 YR 7/4 D 54 = Munsell 7,5 YR 6/5 H 78 = Munsell ? H 86 = Munsell 2,5 YR 6/4 The date is derived from the base of an oil-lamp with a SATURNINI stamp, which, from the fabric, is considered to be an (Italian) import. SATURNINI stamps are mainly known from lamps with a closed channel (Loeschcke type IX), and also from rare, early oil-lamps with an open channel (Buchi 1975, 142 ff.), so that their occurrence later in the 2nd Century is improbable. The production of stamped oillamps probably started in the fifth decade of the 1st century, the main period of the production and widest distribution being in the Flavian period (LEIBUNDGUT 1977, 42 f.; GUALANDI GENITO 1986, 261 f.) ( ) The grave is dated on the basis of a brooch of Almgren type 236h (GARBSCH 1965, 37f; 1974, 180f; 1985, Abb. 5). (4) 23