Osječki zbornik, Vol. Vol. 28 No. xx, 2007.
Original scientific paper
Unpublisched Roman tiles from the Museum of Slavonia with imprinted workshop stamps
Slavica Filipović
; Muzej Slavonije Osijek
Emil Podrug
; Muzej grada Šibenika
Abstract
Since long before, examining stamps on tiles has become of great interest in the research on the antique ceramic building material. The importance of stamps as a source .of useful information on the Roman building techniques and the level of tile production and trade in a certain area has been recognized. The beginning of a systematic analysis of the stamps of Pannonian workshops that produced tiles and bricks was marked by J. Szilagyi's Inscriptiones Tegularum Pannonicarum, written in 1933, which is followed by a serious of publications of this type of the material which had more local features (stamps found on a small area, at a specific findspot or those in museum collections.
About sixty stamps from the Museum of Slavonia, found in Osijek and its neighbourhood were published by Mirko Bulat (Stamped Roman bricks and tiles from the Museum of Slavonia, Osjeeki zbornik IX - X, 1965: 7-24) are here added by a catalogue of 15 still unpublished examples. They comprise tiles produced in two legionary workshops, Mursan imperial and one workshop ran by a civilian.
The first three items from the group of legionary stamps, found in Batina Skela (Cat. No. 1,2,3), belong to the legio II Adriutix stationed in Aquincum from the 2nd — 3rd century. Tiles from this workshop make the most common building material used by the Roman army in Pannonia. These finds, among other finds of building material in Batina made by the same legion can be related to the renovation or construction of an annex at the Batina castellum Ad Militare at the end of the 3rd or the beginning of the 4th century.
The catalogue items No. 4 — 8 represent products of the legionary workshop cohortis VII Breucorum situated at the castellum Lugio in the Hungarian Baranja in the period from the mid 2nd to the mid 3rd century. Stamps of this workshop found in the same area are also known to experts. Determining the date of the finds is facilitated by the fact that the first three stamps (Cat. No. 4 — 6) without an honorary cohors (legionary) title belong to the second half of the 2nd and to the beginning of the 3rd century, and stamps with the catalogue number 7 and 8 have an honorary title of the Antnoninus legion (during the reign of emperor Caracalla, 212 — 222). We have tried to interpret the emergence of a considerable number of already known legionary stamps in the Osijek area in the context of the previously assumed intensive construction work as a result of the destruction Mursa went through during the Marcommanic wars for which there are other indications (especially epigraphs)
The most interesting stamps are the ones made in the workshop owned by emperors which was, according to the geographical distribution of products, located somewhere on the territory of ancient Mursa (present Osijek). The stamps form two groups. Stamps of the first group (Cat. No. 9 — 11) carry the inscription CAE(saris).N(ostri), and was probably made only as one type (text of the stamp within tabulae ansatae) which could suggest shorter use of such a tile mould. The second group has the inscription IMP(eratoris) N(ostri) (Cat. No. 12, 13) and has so far been recorded in a large number of typological variants.
One previously known stamp with the text IMP(erator).HAD(riani) is the only item which can be positively dated in the first half of the 2nd century. At dating other variants cannot be taken without some doubt since they have been based on the shape and dimensions of the letters and the ridge of the stamp. Comparative material from other workshops showed that such an approach should be the only one in determining the date of the finds. For that reason we pointed out that only reliably determined and dated stratified context can offer an answer to the issue of dating the Mursan imperial stamp which do not offer-more precise information themselves (names of emperors — owners). Thus, we are unable to date the stamps precisely but to approximately place them in the age of the Empire. The last two stamps (Cat. No. 14, 15) belong to a so far unknown workshop. Since they were found in the Osijek area, we assume they were made in a local civilian workshop.
The text of the stamp is comprised of two elements in ligatures, most probably nomen gentile and cognomen, which, at the moment, makes impossible for us to transcribe the name of the owner with certainty: Am(---) Ma(---).
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
154488
URI
Publication date:
5.12.2007.
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