A Super-size Roman Pot!

Pots come in all shapes and sizes, but this one is larger than most! This large Roman storage jar, which originally stood about 60 centimetres high, comes from a site at Frithend in Hampshire, and was one of four similar jars found in one part of the site, where they seem to have been deliberately placed (probably as complete pots) in purpose-dug pits. At least two of the jars had been buried with deposits of burnt material, one also contained two smaller pots, and an iron axe had been placed in another. The site had been used for pottery production in the Roman period, as part of the Alice Holt industry of the Hampshire/Surrey border, and these four large jars are typical of the late Roman phase of the industry, featuring horizontal bands of white slip and combed decoration. Two of them show fairly severe firing cracks on the inside, but would still have been functional. It is possible that they served some practical purpose, such as the storage of dry goods. Alternatively, they may have been intended as a ‘closing’ deposit, marking the end of pottery production on the site. Coins and radiocarbon dates suggest that activity on the site was confined to the later 4th century AD, right at the end of the Roman occupation of Britain.

 

The pots will shortly be deposited, with the rest of the site archive, with Hampshire Cultural Trust’s archive store in Winchester.