Seeing Red 2011
International conference on new economic and social perspectives on Gallo-Roman sigillata.
University of Reading 1-3 April 2011
The publication of Brian Hartley's and Brenda Dickinson's Names on Terra Sigillata, the catalogue of stamps of potters producing sigillata in the Gallo- Roman tradition is arousing new interest in this distinctive aspect of Roman material culture. The decorated and plain red-slipped table ware produced in massive quantities in workshops in the south of Gaul in the 1st century AD was distributed widely across the European provinces of the Roman Empire as well as beyond into Barbaricum and around the Mediterranean. While production moved northwards in Gaul and northeastwards to the German and Danubian provinces in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, the principal markets remained the European provinces of the Roman Empire from Britain to Pannonia and beyond, including far outside the European limes. Thus the geographical spread extends from the Atlantic shores to central Europe, both within and beyond the Roman frontier, and embracing the provinces of Britain, Gaul, Germany, Raetia, Noricum and Pannonia.
Programme
Friday 1 April : 14:00 - 17:30
Welcome
Theme: Production centres: history, location and technology
Richard Delage: Sigillata, workshops and technology: a review
Penelope Goodman (Leeds): The production centres: settlement patterns and spatial organisation
Silvia Radbauer (Vienna): The Roman Terra Sigillata-production of Westerndorf (South Bavaria, Germany)
Theme: Chronology and distribution
Allard Mees (Mainz) and Marinus Polak (Nijmegen): Chronology and distribution
David Wigg-Wolf (Frankfurt): Coins and potsherds: what dates what?
Saturday 2 April
Theme: Consumption and distribution
I. Provincial: morning session: 09:00 - 13:00
Peter Webster (Cardiff): Samian, soldiers and civilians in Roman Wales
Steven Willis (Kent): Supply and consumption of samian ware at villas and other rural sites in Britain: an examination of site evidence and general trends
Dénes Gabler (Budapest) and András Márton (Brest & Budapest): Names on terra sigillata and stamps in Pannonia
Macarena Bustamante Álvarez (Cadiz): Gallo-Roman sigillata in the Iberian Peninsula: economic and social aspects
Catarina Viegas (Lisbon): Red in West: consumption patterns of Gallo-Roman sigillata in southwest Lusitania (Portugal)
Afternoon Session: 14:00 - 17:30
Geoffrey Dannell: Aspects of the marketing and distribution of samian: three case studies
Martin Pitts (Exeter): Global imports in local contexts: comparing samian and Chinese porcelain in NW Europe in the 1st and 17th century AD
Klára Kuzmová (Trnava): The occurrence and context of terra sigillata finds beyond the frontier of Noricum and Pannonia
Lubomira Tyszler (Lodz): Terra sigillata in Poland: workshops, context and chronology of importation
Mariana Egri (Cluj-Napoca): Sigillata in Barbaricum: comparative models of consumption
Sunday 3 April : 09:00 - 13:00
Theme: Consumption (continued)
Gwladys Monteil (Nottingham): Sizes in production, sizes in consumption
Edward Biddulph (Oxford): The blind potter: the evolution of samian and its imitations
Theme: Onomastics
Alex Mullen (Cambridge): Names on terra sigillata
Theme: Iconography
Joanna Bird (Guildford): Samian in religious and funerary deposits: a study in choice
Janet and Peter Webster (Cardiff): Classical figures in a provincial landscape: a study in the iconography of samian