James Hepworth

A sherd of red-slip pottery scratched with the name of its last owner: L IVLI IPPONI

Sometime between AD 55 and 65 a man named Lucius Julius Hipponicus scratched his named into a Samian Ware drinking cup

Because of this simple act, he is one of the first residents of Exeter (ISCA) for whom we have a name

📷 May 2025

@rammuseum.bsky.social #FindsFriday #Roman #Archaeology #Devon

Half of a spindle whorl made from red Samian pottery sits in the palm of a hand wearing a white latex glove

A wee Samian spindle whorl from Ambleside Roman Fort for #FindsFriday

I love objects made from recycled bits of pottery 🤩 Such wonderful examples of reuse and the many lives an artefact can have!

📷 my own

Two leaf-scroll handled Roman red pottery (Samian ware) dishes on display in Worthing Museum. Both made in Germany and both stamped with a makers mark (FAVVO and IVVENIS)

Two rare leaf-scroll handled Samian Ware dishes found with a #Roman cremation at Sompting West #Sussex in 1971

In the wonderful Worthing Museum @wtmworthing.bsky.social

Made in Rheinzabern #Deutschland in the early 3rd century, they're stamped with the makers names, FAVVO and IVVENIS

#FindsFriday

#FindsFriday

Samian bowl (Form 30) by the potter MARTIALIS South Gaulish AD 50-60. Found during excavation at Burrium, Usk.

#History #RomanBritain #Archaeology #pottery

do, a deer! I actually said, upon finding this delightful fragment of decorated Roman Samian Ware bowl on the Thames foreshore recently, showing the whole body of a deer. #mudlarking

Sign the Petition Save Cardiff University Ancient History Degree

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🏺🧪 #archaeology

A hand holding a Roman oil lamp. The lamp is reddish brown with white accretions. On the top is a mould-made decoration in the form of a chi rho. The nozzle of the lamp is broken.

For #FindsFriday (and finishing my celebration of Roman Lancaster), one of the more enigmatic objects in the City Museums: a chi-rho lamp.

This object has long been treated in Lancaster as the earliest evidence of Christianity in the city. Sadly, it’s almost certainly not.
Why not, you say? 🏺🧵

Great to see you too, and an afternoon of reading sorted 😀

Fresh from the kiln today, a Roman, Barbotine decorated, green glazed cup showing two gladiators fighting. A sector armed with a gladius (short sword) and scutum (shield), challenges a retarius armed with trident, net and pugio (dagger) #archaeology 🏺

A relief of the Greek god Dionysus or Bacchus in the Roman pantheon. Appropriately, there are decorative berries in the figures hair. Otherwise, their hair is neat and curled with a tendril lying across the right shoulder. The figure is quite androgynous in appearance and has a narrow headband across its forehead. There is slight discoloration to the bronze with hints of verdigris at the temple but the features are remarkably well preserved. There is a suggestion of yellow paint of some kind in the right eyeball. I’m not sure if that may have originally indicated a little dissolution! It seems unusual and it may be a darkening change of color over time. The head is attached to a longer piece of bronze which may have been part of a ships figurehead or prow.

A relief of Dionysus, discovered in 1907 in a shipwreck off the coast of Mahdia, ancient Aphrodisium, in Tunisia. Archaeologists believe the ship was sunk in the 1st century BC, and its cargo, which contains other important statues, may have been stolen during the sack of Athens by Sulla in 86BC. 🏺

🥳

I can live with the messy solder when it turns out the “gilt coin” set into the bowl of the George III silver punch ladle you bought does indeed turn out to be the 22ct GOLD third Guinea you thought it might be.

#antiques

If you care for such things a short film on the engraving of Exeter silver is available over on my YouTube channel now.

Though to say the content is “niche” may be something of an understatement.

#Antiques

Definitely one of my favourite parts of Hadrian’s Wall up on Walltown Crag as the wall snakes along the cliff edge

“Of the Sixth Cohort, the century of Lousius Suavis” a centurial stone from #HadriansWall now built into a nearby garden wall at Thirlwall, the stones marked building work and instilled a sense of pride between the units #RIB3401

Snowy hills and in a dip between slopes sits a sycamore tree without any leaves. Hadrian’s wall a metre high t descends the hill

I’m sad we’ll no longer have this snowy view of Sycamore Gap to enjoy this winter on Hadrian’s Wall.

Milecastle 39 on Hadrian’s Wall the new really

Godmanchester BB2 Jar, Child's Cooking Pot Details This delightful little cooking jar stands at a dinky 10 cm tall, and we based the size and shape of it on a 2nd-century original that is believed to have been made in Essex.  But why on eart...

Sometimes it's the simplest little pots that inspire people the most: This tiny Roman BB2 Black Burnished cooking pot was found in a child's grave at Godmanchester. Was it a toy or could it have contained a last meal, lovingly prepared for the afterlife? #archaeology ⚱️

The photo shows an owl fibula made from bronze. It's brightly decorated with enamel. The body is mainly turquoise, the huge eyes orange.

A charming Roman enamelled fibula (a pin for fastening garments) in the form of an owl.
Found in the civilian settlement of the Saalburg fort.

Photo: Römerkastell Saalburg / Peter Knierriem

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Working on an upcoming post on Brundisium last week, and from the Museo Archeologico Francesco Ribezzo in Brindisi, the bronze head of a philosopher, perhaps Antisthenes. Possibly the work of Silanion. From the waters of Punta del Serrone, dated to the 4th century BCE.

AncientBlueSky 🏺

Fabulous. Is it a Scottish made spoon?

Just about the best period engraved crest on a spoon you’ve seen for a while I bet.