K. Palágyi Sylvia szerk.: Balácai Közlemények 2005/9. (Veszprém, 2005)

GIRARDI JURKIC, VESNA: Roman Villa rustica in Cervar Porat (Croatia) - Excavation and Presentation

the kiln belongs to type Il/b with its square chamber and a single corridor with arches.

9 On the axis of the bed of the kiln, on the southern wall, there was a large door opening through which it was possible to enter from the exterior anteroom (K), from where the furnace must have been fed. Beside the main room of the kiln there were other two siderooms (L,M) functionally linked to the main room. A small quadrilateral pool (c) was discovered in the comer of one of the two rooms. Its dimensions are 1.3 x 1.4 m, it was lined with white water proof mortar and paved with yellow bricks. Three large, uneven, round containers (M, „wells") used to refine argil, were found in the other room. The perimeter of the kiln is defined by the remains of the perimeter pilasters on which the rectangular burning chamber was built. From the surviving remains it is not clear whether the kiln had a stable structure (i.e. had an opening for ingress and filling/ emptying) or whether it was disintegrated after each firing cycle. Considering that the kiln was situated inside multilayered building elements of the production building, it is likely that it had a stable structure. The outer dimensions of the kiln are 9 m x 8 m, while inside it measures 7.5 m x 6.3 m. Only the lower elements of the chamber are preserved. The lower part of the chamber had nine ribs 4m long and 30 cm wide, built with grayyellowish brick (lateres) of the usual modular brick size (40 x 30 x 10 cm), so-called „bipedal" brick, and with stone which bore the bricks of the grid. The distance between the ribs was 28 to 32 cm. Nine side channels, 28 to 30 cm wide and 4 m long, were perpendicularly connected to the main channel whose bottom gradually rose to the level of the fire box towards the edge of the kiln. The wall of the main channel was built with wedge-shaped brick and as a result the vault of the channel was regularly rounded. The transversal ribs that held the grid were built with brick as well, which on the inside was well bound on a regular base by hardened clay. Due to the high temperatures the ribs acquired a green-grayish color.

10 A coating made of amorphous fire clay is present in many points: it held the bricks together, forming a solid rib of the kiln under which a relatively regular semicircular arch of the channel was profiled, whose arches also composed a part of the main channel of the kiln. The dimensions of the grid placed on the ribs of the kiln towards the surface of the channel were 4 m x 5 m. In one of the later phases (probably 4

th century AD) the back side of the kiln, in relation to the position of the entrance to the fire box (praefurnium), was walled up by the walls of a small home thermae facility with a fire box and hypocaust (H, I). The furnace (praefurnium) is tunnel shaped (9 m long), with a semicircular barrel shaped vault built with wedge shaped bricks. It is in the ground so that the top of the vault that held the grid was on the level of the surrounding rooms." Research work conducted on the inside of the channel proved that the channel was thoroughly cleaned after the last baking process (as was usually done after each and every production cycle). Fragments of archaeological objects were found in the channel: a little green glass bowl, a ceramic oil lamp with volutes and a relief representation of Pegasus, and fragments of a fine Roman ceramic dating back to the second half of the 1

st century AD. Those remains made it possible to determine the time at which the kiln ceased to be used.

12 The kiln was abandoned probably because the upper parts got worn out, that is the parts that