Imagine, you are living in Germany. Near where you live, you know there was once a Roman settlement and one of your favourite things to do is wander out into the fields to see if you can find any evidence they left behind. Occasionally you discover a coin or a piece of pottery, but your favourite things to discover are the pieces of Samian Ware. With their vivid colour and beautiful decoration, you always feel you have discovered something treasured when you turn one up in the earth.
When I took these pieces of Samian Ware to show the children, they thought that, even as fragments, it was beautiful. The bright red colour and delicate portions of decoration surprised them, as they had assumed that beautifully decorated pottery was a modern invention. The thing which surprised them most was what they could deduce about the shape of the pots from the shape and curve of the rim pieces. To be able to make a good guess at what shape a pot might have been from a tiny fragment was stunning to them, and to discover that there were actually people in the world who could accurately reconstruct pots (often digitally) from such small pieces was amazing!
Samian ware is one of the most recognisable of the Roman potteries. Its glossy red colour is instantly recognisable, and often it is also beautifully decorated making it not only easily identified, but a joy to look at. It is also sometimes called Arretine Ware, after Arretium where it was first produced or terra sigillata. Glossy black and red pottery was first produced in Italy and is similar to Samian Ware, but true Samian Ware with its deep red colour mainly comes from the areas of Gaul, now France and Germany. It was made in large quantities in factories, allowing huge amounts of it to be exported across the Roman empire. Often, when a piece of Samian Ware is discovered experts can even tell where it was made as the factory name was often written on the base of the piece, as it appears to be in the picture above. Sometimes they can even tell which individual potter created it!
Producing such large quantities of Samian Ware meant that various processes to make production quick had to be created. One of the most common shapes were bowls, but Samian Ware was also made in the shape of cups and dishes. Sometimes the decoration was made by sticking the clay figures to the outside of the actual bowl, and occasionally the pieces were made on a pottery wheel. Often the pieces were moulded though, but of course before the piece could be made, the mould had to be created. To do this little clay stamps would be handcrafted and fired, then the mould would be created for a plain bowl out of fresh clay. The stamps would be pressed into the inside of the mould, so that when a bowl was made the decoration could be moulded at the same time. One mould wouldn't be enough though - they would have needed hundreds!
