Roman Relief- Bowl from Clay, Terra Sigillata

This bowl has been produced in long and complex procedures of handcraft in Germany and now shows an enjoyable contrast to many of the imported and machine-made products on the market. The quality, the accuracy and the pleasure of manufacturing in traditional kind and in copying true
to original, are visible and convincing.

Clay from the German region Rheinzabern with the aid of slip builds the rough material for this high-class product. The clay is prepared in old Roman style without the use of filter-presses. After the preparation the clay is thrown on the potter’s wheel or is turned in form bowls. At the status of being leathery the pieces are decorated in a typical way.

Height: approx. 13 cm
Weight: approx. 0.9 kg
Circumference widest part: approx. 61 cm

Terra Sigillata

Terra Sigillata hasn’t been used as everyday’s tableware but only for special occasions. Only a few shapes like bowls, plates, cups as well as beakers and jars were used as eating- and drinking-tableware.

Terra Sigillata (sealed earth/ clay bearing little images) is high-class tableware with a red, silk- shimmering surface. Behind silver and bronze this fine pottery was the most representative crockery. Atthe times of the Roman Empire the yearly production expanded to more than one million exemplars, which were exported to Germania libera, Britannia and even to the Black Sea.

Archaeologists get valuable knowledge about the opulence of forms and decorations of the crockery andabout the names of the potters, who sometimes stamped their works, out of jars that couldn’t stand thequality check and were thrown into the rubbish pits.

Smooth Sigillata
These items were basically formed without any decoration.

Chip carving Sigillata
The decoration had been cut with different cutting tools into the surface.

Sigillata with Barboutine-Paintings
Slip decoration was painted onto the leather-hard clay body surface with a slip trailer.

Relief Sigillata
Relief-Sigillaten were rotated in biscuit-fired, porous form bowls, which were fixed on the potter’s wheel.

Rough Pottery
These jars (e.g. the rasp bowls) vary from the Sigillata-ware. More course-grained clay is used and the jars are burnt without glazed slip.

Shipping weight: 1.00 kg