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Crikvenica – Ad turres, Results of the Fourth Year of Systematic Archaeological Excavations of a Roman Pottery Workshop at the “Igralište” Site
Goranka Lipovac Vrkljan
; Institute of Archaeology, Zagreb, Croatia
Bartul Šiljeg
orcid.org/0000-0003-2286-7775
; Institute of Archaeology, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The “Igralište” site is situated on the northern periphery of the town of Crikvenica (County of Primorje and Gorski kotar) between the Vinodol hinterland and the urban city centre. With a chance find of a number of ceramic materials on the terrain of the secondary playing pitch of the Soccer Club Crikvenica, the archaeological discovery of one of the best preserved and largest local pottery workshops in this part of the Roman Empire began. In June and July 2009 the Institute of Archaeology continued with the fourth season of systematic archaeological excavations of a Roman pottery workshop of Sextus Metilius Maximus on the Crikvenica “Igralište” site. The archaeological excavations, as well as the processing of finds and documentation were led by the Institute’s Associate Researcher Goranka Lipovac Vrkljan PhD and with the help of the Associate Researcher Bartul Šiljeg PhD. The 2009 archaeological campaign proceeded in two areas: trial-trenching of the western peripheral part of the workshop and archaeological excavations of another workshop structure on the same side, and trial-trenching along the western margin of the workshop complex. The objective of this choice of location was to define the volume of the workshop rooms, particularly its western border. As a result of the trial trenching, the western wall of the Roman workshop was unearthed. All construction elements of the wall fully correspond to the unearthed border margin walls of the workshop. Alongside its outer front, Roman river dike was unearthed, that used to shelter this part of the workshop from floods. Thus the fact was confirmed that both the workshop’s eastern and western parts were surrounded by branches of the same river from the antiquity period that was fl owing from the north, i.e. from the Vinodol area. Of particular interest is also the find of a waste pit discovered in the follow up of the systematic excavations within the workshop’s production area, directly next to the western perimeter workshop wall. In its fill, characterized by cyclic exchange of two layers, the layers of ash and lye and of clay with fragments of coarse local Crikvenica pottery prevail. The applied methodology of filling the workshop’s waste pit stands out. Since the ashes and the lye taken out from the kiln were extremely hot, after their disposal in the waste pit their layer was immediately covered by a layer of clay and of pottery fragments, and after that the entire process was repeated several times. This information is extraordinarily important for the understanding of the pottery production process methodology. By linking the understanding and the findings which are the result of the 2009 trial-trenching and systematic excavations, the unquestionable fact is confirmed once again that the Roman pottery workshop of Sextus Metilius Maximus in the course of the 1st and the 2nd centuries represents an extraordinary archaeological economic facility in which almost all structures of the workshop’s production process have been preserved.
Keywords
Crikvenica; Roman pottery workshop; western fence wall; waste pit
Hrčak ID:
65254
URI
Publication date:
3.3.2011.
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