Haltern saucepan
The Halterner saucepan is an earthen vessel shape from Roman times . Due to its frequency as a utility ceramic in East Gaulish and Rhineland settlement and military findings of the 1st century AD, it is used in provincial Roman archaeological research as a guide for dating sites. In the archaeological ceramic typology, the form is referred to as Haltern 91 after its eponymous place of discovery , the Roman camp Haltern .
Formal address
A Halterner saucepan is a bulbous vessel, the widest diameter of which is in the area of the vessel shoulder. It is characterized by an inwardly drawn, grooved bead with a sharp shoulder bend. It tapers steeply towards the bottom, with the narrowest part of the vessel at the level of the flat bottom. Early vessels are still hand-built. In the Tiberian times, however, they were replaced by disc-turned pots, whereby the shape was retained.
The surface of the vessel is often covered with a mud coat, which was roughened on the outside with straw or brushwood before the fire. In this way a better grip is created during use. The shard is clay-ground with sand depletion . Depending on where it is made, it is black, light or red-tinted.
In the specialist literature today a distinction is made between two variants. The shape holder 91 A is formed from a group of vessels that were fired from poorly grouted clay. Their shards are usually red-brown to black and have a cork-like texture (cork ware). The holder 91 B differs from this in that it uses clays that burn more densely. In contrast to the roughened surface of 91 A, the outer wall of holders 91 B is mostly smooth.
After discoveries from Haltern am See , Emil Ritterling made the first description in 1901.
Origin, distribution and dating
The shape is borrowed from Eastern Gaulish cooking pots from the late Latène period and has been found since the last decade of the 1st century BC. BC in the Rhine-Moselle area initially mainly in connection with Roman military sites. The main distribution area is the area between Cologne , Nijmegen and Mainz .
The latène shape of this type of vessel is usually still hand-built and does not yet have the characteristic shoulder bend of the Roman shape. The surface of the early forms is also mostly smooth and not roughened. Roman troops stationed in Eastern Gaul apparently took over the vessel type from the local population in Augustan times and brought it with them to the locations on the Rhine and Lippe in the course of the Drusus offensive with the occupation of the Rhineland. Shortly thereafter, Roman potters improved manufacturing with their more advanced pottery technology. However, hand-built forms in the range of finds of Roman military and settlement findings still occur at least until the 2nd decade after Christ. Most of these already show the roughened surface and the characteristic shoulder crease.
Halterner cooking pots were used throughout the 1st century by Roman soldiers as well as in civilian settlements in Lower Germany and the neighboring areas. From the Flavian period onwards it gradually disappears from the spectrum of finds.
A detailed chronology within the group of forms has not yet been possible. The variance within the shape with regard to distinctive features such as the shape of the lip bulge does not seem to have any chronological relevance.
use
In addition to being used as a cooking pot, Haltern cooking pots were also used as transport and storage containers for food. The peened edges found in some finds show that perishable goods were preserved in the vessels, whereby the vessel was covered with parchment , leather or the like. The cover was glued airtight to the edge of the vessel with pitch. In addition, the cover could be fixed with a cord. The circumferential groove above the shoulder bend served as a guide. A vessel found on the Kops Plateau near Nijmegen still contained the remains of 30 song thrushes that came from the southern Ardennes region . This storage vessel is typologically similar to the Haltern saucepan, but differs from the classic shape of Haltern 91 in terms of its edge.
As a secondary addition, Haltern pots were also used in the Roman burial rite. They were given as containers of food to a dead man's grave.
Remarks
- ^ Siegfried Loeschcke : Excavations at Haltern. The ceramic finds. A contribution to the history of the Augustan culture in Germany. Announcements from the Antiquities Commission for Westphalia 5. Münster 1909. P. 101 ff.
- ↑ Vegas 1975, p. 39.
- ↑ Ritterling 1901, pp. 160–162 panel XXXVIII 20 (vessel profile) and panel XXXVI 27 ff. (Edge shapes).
- ↑ For example: Manuel Fiedler: Death bed fittings of an early Roman grave in Cologne. In: Stephan Berke, Torsten Mattern (ed.): Roman graves from Augustan and Tiberian times in the west of the empire. Wiesbaden 2013, p. 123 Fig. 2c.
- ↑ Hupka 2015, p. 69.
- ↑ Harry van Enckevort: The camp on the Kops plateau. In: Johann-Sebastian Kühlborn : Germaniam pacavi - I pacified Germania. Münster 1995, p. 53 f. and Figs. 17-18.
- ^ For example, Fiedler 2013.
literature
- Hans Dragendorff : excavations at Haltern. The finds from the camp and the bank fort 1901–1902. In: Communications of the Antiquities Commission Westphalia. 3, 1903, p. 85 f. (in addition to Ritterling 1901).
- Ursula Heimberg : Colonia Ulpia Traiana. The earliest pottery from the forum excavation. In: Bonner Jahrbücher . Volume 187, 1987, pp. 411-474.
- Dieter Hupka: The Roman settlement finds, commercial remains and road findings in Mönchengladbach - Mülfort. Dissertation University of Cologne 2015, p. 69 f.
- Edeltraud Mittag: Investigations into so-called Haltern saucepans from the Colonia Ulpia Traiana area (Xanten). In: Xantener reports , Volume 8, Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1999, pp. 201-311.
- Mercedes Vegas: The Augustian utility ceramics from Neuss (= Novaesium VI , = Limes research volume 14). Berlin 1975. p. 38 f.
- Emil Ritterling: The Roman branch near Haltern. The finds. In: Communications of the Antiquities Commission Westphalia. 2, 1901. pp. 160-162 panel XXXVIII 20 and panel XXXVI 27 ff.