Budapest Régiségei 19. (1959)

ANYAGKÖZLÉSEK - Szentléleky Tihamér: Aquincumi mécskészítő műhelyek 167-203

V To the south of the Macellum, in the course of excavations carried out in the Papföld in 1929, the remains of a pottery plant have been discovered under several superstructural layers, containing rich material. According to the Gordianus III coin, found in the layer, this plant can be supposed to be working till 240 of our era. The same types have continued to develop here which had been manufactured in the pottery plant near the gas-works. Also the indistinct, bluntly outlined types of the FABI products are known from this material. On the slightly modified type IX, horizontal foliform ornaments are applied beside the FABI mark. Its analogous example has turned up as a sporadic item. Also the small tree mark, known from the material found near the gasworks, is met with. VI In the site of the labourers' lodgings the traces of a workshop have been excavated in 1911/12, where exclusively lamps had been made. In total 39 pieces of negative forms turned up. No direct connection with preceding workshops can be demonstrated, the types are similar yet there must have existed in addition one or more intermediate plants representing a connection with the material of this isolated workshop. As a basis for the dating of these items from the end of the 3rd and from the beginning of the 4th centuries the fact may serve that in the type XVII, with one exception, no firm-mark appears or, if there exist any, they are entirely worn off; further, that the specimens are very rough and porous and that, in a great number of cases there can be found, besides the simple moulding, dotted ornaments punched into the negative. A characteristic piece of the workshop is a variant of type IV. Pine-branch and vine-leaf ornaments are of frequent occurrence. Type XVII is slightly modified, incised lines resembling fishbones are drawn in the upper part of the brim surrounding the burner. Their characteristic feature is, in addition, the large foliform handle and the thick, wide bottomring. One of the most important points of the Aquincum lamps-industry, as reconstructed on the basis of the data furnished by the workshops mentioned above, is afforded by the fact that a continuous idea may be formed about the development of this industry from the 2nd century on, concerning a period for which the lamp-material of western provinces does not yield such a full conception. The development in Pannónia is, with local modifications of less importance, the carrying on of lamp-production developed in Italy and in the western provinces. The types of southern Greece show, in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, differences from the variants of Pannónia. The rich material of the finding places reported above offers us a possibility to elucidate also the technique of production and its role played in the development of the lamps manufacturing industry. In Aquincum the production of lamps was started by craftsmen accompanying the military troops. In the course of the 1st century of our era there may have existed masters in the North of Italy and later in Gaul who have probably made the moulds for the lamps, because the production of the moulds for the first variants of the lamps required the skilled hands of masters. A simplification in the technique had to follow, to enable them to supply the buyers' market with lamps as this market grew more and more extensive. Hence, owing to the recent and more developed manufacturing process, the maker of negative moulds is not forced to dwell near the reproducing workshop any more. Fritz Fremensdorf is presenting a model for the production of negative moulds from the Mainz museum (SATRIUS model). The workshops are producing the negative forms after these positive moulds, attaining thus the possibility of manufacturing an abundant quantity of similar lamps. Fig. No. 10. demonstrates the phases I to V of production. It is doubtful, however, whether it is justified to draw generalizing conclusions from the single model of the Mainz Museum. The method just described was used in the course of the 1st century of our era in the provinces where romanization had reached a level where it was possible to start local lamp-production. The lampproduction of Aquincum presents a different aspect because here the pottery-plants begin producing lamps, among other articles, but at the beginning of the 2nd century. From the last years of the 1st century on, also in the provinces situated northwards from the Alps, the types are beginning to change. The variants of firns' lamps spread rapidly. According to Fremersdorf's opinion, the main reason for this spreading was that the workshops of Northern Italy, working for the most part with plaster-mouldings, had been destroyed during the civil wars following Nero's reign. On the other hand, apart from the numerous other concomitants, perhaps an other factor should be taken into consideration, namely that the manufacturing of the new types, as compared with the reliefed lamps, proved to be much more simple, and the laborious working process and the expensive technical apparatus needed previously have proved antiquated. Parallelly with this, the makers strive for pushing their articles within the broadest possible bounds, if only for the reason that in the place of the earlier, adorned and expensive lamps a greater quantity has to 201