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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 November 2011
The fragment of skillet-handle illustrated (FIG. I) was found during the 1973 excavations in Goss Street, and is the first example of a Roman bronze vessel with a manufacturer's stamp to be found in Chester. Unfortunately the handle occurred in a medieval robber-trench, but is likely to be derived from Roman military levels. Bronze skillets would appear to have been used by legionaries and the civilian population for mulling wine, for cooking and as capacity-measures. It has been suggested by Wright that a group of legionaries would each have carried one of slightly different size which belonged to a graduated set, and often there are internal markings within the bowl to measure a known amount. Skillets of this type were brought into Britain during the first and second centuries. Most of the earlier examples were probably made at the Campanian centres of bronze-working in Southern Italy, at Capua and Nola, but after about 60 it would appear that Gaulish manufacturers progressively captured the market. Campanian metal-workers produced a wide range of vessels, but it is mainly skillets that are stamped with the maker's name. To date, forty different vessels are known with stamps from the British Isles (see Appendix).
1 The Goss Street excavations were undertaken by J. C. McPeake for the Grosvenor Museum Field Section. We should like to thank T. J. Strickland (Field Officer) for help with the publication; P. H. Alebon for drawing and T. E. Ward for photographing the skillet-handle. We should also like to thank E. Owles (Bury St. Edmunds Museum), S. West (Suffolk County Archaelogist) and A. Gregory (Norwich Castle Museum) for information about the Brandon hoard.
2 Wright, R. P., Arch. Ael. 4 xlvii (1969), 3–4.Google Scholar
3 Frederiksen, M. W., ‘Republican Capua: A Social and Economic Study’, Papers Brit. School at Rome xxvii (1959), 80–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Willers, H., Neue Untersuchengen über die römische Bronzindustrie von Capua und von Niedergermanien, 1907. Hamburg and Leipzig.Google Scholar
4 The relationship between Campanian and Gaulish bronze-workers needs much more clarification. Kern, J. H. C. (Coll. Latomus lviii (1962), 870–83)Google Scholar has even suggested that in some cases the Campanian bronzeworkers were imitating those working in Gaul.
5 Professor Bosanquet's main contributions were noted by Richmond in Arch. Ael. 4 xiii (1936), 140.Google Scholar His note on the bath saucer from Brecon in Wheeler, R. E. M., ‘A Roman Fort at Brecon’, Y Cymmrodor xxxvii (1926), 107 ff.Google Scholar should be included.
6 Appendix, Nos. 3, 29 and 31.
7 Eggers, H. J., ‘Römische Bronzegefässe in Britannien’, Jahrbuch des Römisch - Germanischen Zentralmuseum Mainz 13 (1966), 67–164.Google Scholar
8 Appendix Nos. 11 and 13.
9 Appendix No. 10.
10 Appendix No. 8. This new reading was published by G. C. Boon. He suggests on comparison with skillets from Pompeii that the maker's cognomen was Augustalis or Augustanus. Boon, Silchester, the Roman Town of Calleva (1974), 47 f., 306 n. 31.
11 H. Willers, op. cit. (note 3).
12 M. H. P. den Boesterd, ‘The Bronze Vessels’, Description of the Collections in The Rijksmuseum G.M. Kam at Nijmegen (1956), 8.
13 V. Ondrouch, Bohaté hroby z doby rímskej na Slovensku nalezy (1957), 234-5, pl. 4 and pl. II, 2.
14 A. Radnoti, ‘Die römischen Bronzegefässe von Pannonien’, Diss. Pann. (1938), 44-56, esp. 53.
15 Frederiksen (op. cit. note 3), 109.
16 Appendix No. 13.
71 M. H. P. den Boesterd (op. cit. note 12), but see ibid 13 where an example from the Roman cemeteries in the Locarno region is cited dating from c. A.D. 20-40.