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 - Martin, A.: Central Italian lead-glazed Ware. p. 63–68.

Alba Regia, XXV, 1994 A. MARTIN CENTRAL ITALIAN LEAD-GLAZED WARE Among the various groups of lead-glazed wares of the Roman world there is one that has received attention as a class only recently, although isolated pieces were published occasionally over the years. It can be recognized by a fine sea-green glaze almost invariably covering the outside of the vessels and by a yellow glaze often on the inside, while the paste is white, occasionally with black grits and always with white ones. As we shall see, its origin is to be found on the Tyrrhenian side of central Italy and its floruit placed in the second and third centuries A.D. Here I wish to speak in particular of the characteristics that distinguish this class from other leadglazed products and to place it in a possible line of evolution. My comments are based on a large ensemble of fragments of lead-glazed ware found in excavations carried out in the 1970s at the Terme del Nuotatore at Ostia (cf. Panellá 1984, 205-208, for preliminary information on the excavation; Martin 1992, for a preliminary report on the lead-glazed ware). The stratigraphie sequence, dated from the Flavian period to the Severii, contained almost four hundred lead-glazed fragments. Compared to some 4500 pieces of sigillata and red-slip ware from the same layers, the lead-glazed ware is more frequent than in other contexts, although the large number found also reflects the abundance of finds of all sorts. Most of these stratified pieces were in late Antonine layers. Besides the pieces from the stratigraphie sequence nearly two hundred more, found in disturbed layers, can be used for comparative purposes. The size of this ensemble allows a more ample discussion than the few pieces normally found. The origin of the class in Latium or Campania has been established with some certainty by scientific analyses, although no kiln site or wasters have been found as yet. In the most complete analyses, a pétrographie and mineralogical investigation conducted on several samples from the Terme del Nuotatore context, a small group presented a clean marly clay with a few micaceous particles, augite and small calcareous grits, while most of them had a more generic marly clay with a good deal of small calcareous grits: the former gives a good fit with the area from the middle Tiber valley to Rome, and the latter is not incompatible with Latium (Martin 1992, 324; Sfrecola 1992, 584, 587). Another analysis carried out on a group that contained a fragment from these layers at Ostia suggested an origin somewhere in the neighborhood of Rome with clay formed from degraded travertine (Arthur 1979, 392-397). The results of a third investigation that once again included pieces from this context indicate generically Latium or Campania, with perhaps a preference for the latter (Desbat 1986, 110; Picon-Desbat 1986, 125-127). As far as Campania is concerned, it should be noted, however, that the description of the paste of a piece found at Pompeii and considered to be produced in the neighborhood of Naples does not correspond well to the pieces from Ostia (Soricelli 1988, 248). This class was produced for a longer period than has sometimes been suspected. The material from the Area NE of the Terme del Nuotatore indicates that its production began at least in the second half of the first century, as the Flavian layers contained twelve fragments of the class. There is also some evidence for a continuity of production in the third to fifth centuries between this class and the late antique lead-glazed vessels considered to have been produced in the area of Rome (MeneghiniStaffa 1992, 330-339; Paroli 1992b, 34-35). The area of distribution of this lead-glazed ware is surprisingly vast (cf. Martin 1992, 329, for basic references). It occurs throughout the western Mediterranean: in particular in the Tyrrhenian area of the Italian peninsula (now also Luni: Lusuardi Siena Sannazaro 1992, 110) and on the southern French coast 63