A Hoard of Samian Ware from Pompeii

Abstract

During a visit to Naples in June, 1913, I was permitted by the courtesy of Professor Spinazzola, the distinguished Director of the National Museum, to examine a number of decorated bowls of Samian ware obviously of south Gallic style, preserved in the ‘magazzini’ of the museum. Professor Spinazzola most kindly afforded me every facility for their study, and consented to their publication. Seventy-six of these bowls bore, in addition to the inventory-number, the date 1882, and a subsequent reference to three passages in the Notizie degli Scavi made it possible to identify ninety bowls in all as belonging to a group found together at Pompeii. The circumstances of the discovery were as follows: the ninety bowls were found on 4th October, 1881, in the ‘tablinum’ of house 9, insula 5, region viii (ii). They were arranged in order in a wooden box, of which some charred fragments remained, together with thirty-seven earthenware lamps said to have shewn no sign of use. Of these lamps twenty-four bear the stamp STROBILI; six, COMVNIS; four, ECHIO; two, FORTIS; and one is uninscribed. Side by side with this box were found two others, containing red powder, either pounded brick or red earth, the use of which I do not know.