Introduction

The Department of Classics is working towards the completion of the Leeds Index of Potters' Stamps, the work of the late Brian Hartley, compiled during the last 40 years.

The index will be a compendium of potters' stamps on 1st to 3rd century AD Roman samian ware (terra sigillata), listed alphabetically by potter, with illustrations of the stamps and records of vessel forms, occurrences by site and dates. It will be published both in book form and as a data-base. Currently, the index is in the form of an extensive Microsoft Word document.

Brenda Dickinson FSA and Rosemary Wilkinson are currently working on production of two pilot volumes, with a one-year grant awarded to Professor Michael Fulford FBA, University of Reading , by the British Academy .  Further funds are being sought to continue the project for a further four years from 2007. 

Background

During his career in the Department of Classics, University of Leeds, Brian Hartley, who died in 2005, assembled a unique catalogue of the stamps (The Leeds Index of Samian Potters Stamps) used by the samian potters working at the various workshops, principally in south, central and eastern Gaul, and where, and on what forms of vessel, they have been found. 

The authority and originality of the index is founded on the fact that it is based on rubbings of the imprint of the individual stamps used by each potter throughout their working life.  It derives from the study of site finds and material in museums across, principally, Britain , France and Germany . 

The index now includes an estimated 300,000 different stamp-die records, the product of approximately 4,600 different potters, their names themselves representing a vitally important contribution to our understanding of the development of Gaulish personal names over time and space. 

Potters are represented sometimes by only a few stamps, sometimes by as many as 80-90 dies.  The dating of the stamps is provided by their archaeological context (where known), such that it is possible to chart the history, not only of individual potters, but of the major concentrations of workshops, such as at La Graufesenque (South Gaul) or Lezoux ( Central Gaul ). 

With over 300,000 provenanced finds of stamp-dies of different producers, of particular interest for historians of the ancient economy is the evidence that they can provide of the organisation of workshops and industries, and of their various distributions.  This in turn offers the possibility of very important insight into the mechanisms behind the distributions over almost 250 years. 

The dated stamps have also provided an invaluable supplement to the evidence of coins and other datable material in the construction of excavated site chronologies and information on potters and their dating is constantly sought from the Index.