The Late Roman Unguentaria of Sagalassos
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BaBesch 74 (1999) The Late Roman Unguentaria of Sagalassos R. Degeest, R. Ottenburgs, H. Kucha, W. Viaene, P. Degryse, M. Waelkens 1. INTRODUCTION them, as was for instance the case with the publica- tion of the Ernst von Sieglin collection8. The precise The city of Sagalassos, the ruins of which are situ- origin of this pottery type could never be determined, ated on the western slopes of the Taurus mountain although Hayes considered a possible production range in southern Asia Minor, was already a town centre located somewhere in the Palestine-Lebanon in its own right when Alexander the Great subdued area. The vessels bear a marked resemblance to ear- it by force in 333 B.C. After this event the city lier Nabataean ceramics, at least as far as ware fab- remained in existence for nearly a millennium until ric and colouring are concerned9. The vessel shapes it was finally abandoned somewhere around the are different however, and there is a hiatus of sev- middle of the 7th century. The site has been under- eral centuries between the wares. Also, publications going excavation by an international team directed of archaeological material from this region fail to by M. Waelkens since the beginning of the nineties1. produce significant numbers of these vessels. Among the many finds a series of slender fusiform Logically it could be assumed that greater numbers vessels, called “Late Roman Unguentaria” by J.W. of finds would be present near the production area. Hayes2, have always attracted attention in In fact based on the quantitative evidence so far Sagalassos, because they are so distinctive when available for Constantinople, Limyra, Perge, and compared to the usual Sagalassos wares. The local Sagalassos, a production centre in or near Asia Minor products, both common and fine, are of a different now seems more likely10. The time frame of this spe- nature, as far as ware fabric composition, colour and cific type is as a whole not completely fixed, but other descriptive elements are concerned. In 1993, there is little doubt that the main concentrations are a first preliminary report on the presence of these to be found in the sixth and seventh centuries11. unguentaria was presented in the Sagalassos series The reason why this particular type of vessel is so of excavation reports3. In the present report we wish important at Sagalassos, notwithstanding the rela- to comment on the many examples that have come tively limited number of finds, can be attributed to to light since then and on the additional research that several factors. has been done. The first factor concerns the physical aspect: next Other types of unguentaria have been excavated at to the already remarked upon ease of identification, Sagalassos, but these were not deemed relevant to only one type, albeit with two variants, is found on the present study, as they fit into the much earlier this site. This type is called 8I110 in the Sagalassos tradition of Hellenistic to early Roman unguentaria4. classification scheme12. Both variants are only dis- The latter are mostly associated with funeral con- cernible in their lower part, i.e. the base, which com- texts and differ in shape and chronology to a con- monly is a massive spike13, while the rarer variant siderable extent from the late unguentaria. What initially attracted attention to the late unguen- 1 see Fig. 1. taria was the easy and virtually error-proof identifi- 2 Hayes 1992. cation of these vessels5. Even extremely small shards 3 Degeest 1993. could be recognized without trouble by their distinc- 4 For an overview of the earlier unguentaria see for instance Anderson-Stojanovic 1987. tive colour and finish. This vessel type was originally 5 Fig. 2. identified by J. Hayes as a separate and widely dis- 6 Hayes 1971. tributed vessel type from Late Imperial to Byzantine 7 Hayes 1968; Hayes 1992. times in the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond6. The 8 Pagenstecher 1913. 9 Hayes 1971. most complete publication concerning these vessels 10 Hayes 1992; Pülz 1995, 69-70; Atik 1995, 180-181. A was also from his hand, namely that of the excava- gazetteer of find locations can be found in the original article by tions at Saraçhane, the former church of Saint Hayes (Hayes 1971). Since then more finds have been published, Polyeuktos in Constantinople7. Although vessels of but we considered it outside the scope of this work to include them here. this type were rare in publications before their sys- 11 Hayes 1971, 245; Riley 1975, 37; Atik 1995, 181. tematic description and typing, earlier publications 12 Degeest, forthcoming. sometimes contained references and even images of 13 Fig. 3c-e. 247 has a flat, thick-walled base14. There is no known base of the triangle located on the upper part of the chronological difference in their spread, as both are vessels and the point near the spike. From the way found in the same contexts. Another type of unguen- in which the slip trickled down onto the lower part tarium has been identified by Riley as Type A, but of the body, it is clear that these are the impressions no traces of this type could be found at Sagalassos. of a triangular stand on which the leather hard ves- Type A unguentaria show a soft brown micaceous sel was placed to dry after immersion of the top half fabric that is very different from the very hard-fired in a slip solution. The three contact points were Type B15. clearly not at the same level, with two points pre- Secondly, the local stratigraphy at Sagalassos indi- sumably at the same level and higher than the third cates that the time frame for this ware is rather lim- point. In some instances the potter has used a small ited, with a very late appearance, i.e. presumably sponge or similar instrument to wipe down the ves- not before the end of the 5th century, and a disap- sel, since traces of such markings with a width of pearance at the latest around the middle of the 7th approximately 2 cm have been found. On a minor- century. ity of the vessels a stamp is present on the lower half Another contributing factor is the presence of a of the body. Often the clay was so wet at the time number of stamps, which may eventually lead to of the application of the die, that the stamp was par- further information on the history of Sagalassos and tially smudged. its trade related connections. To describe ceramic fabrics macroscopically at Sagalassos the descriptive algorithm developed by D. Peacock was used. This has proved to be a very 2. THE TYPOLOGY AND MINERALOGY OF THE LATE popular one over the years since its first publication UNGUENTARIA in 1977, because of its straightforwardness17. The only notable exception was the initial use of Before we start with the distribution of the unguen- Munsell Soil Color Charts for colour descriptions, taria, a description of the physical characteristics of instead of common name descriptions. In the end these vessels is appropriate. Whereas at first the former proved to be too time-consuming for the research was perforce limited to a purely macro- description of individual shards, and the practice is scopical description, the integrated approach of the now largely discontinued, except under special cir- Sagalassos project allowed a close collaboration cumstances, i.e. when new fabric ware groups are between the archaeological and geological branches, encountered. which resulted in more detailed information. Macroscopically the ware fabric group that com- The general shape is a slender fusiform one with prises these vessels is our group 818. This fabric is mostly a massive foot16. A rarer variant shows a very hard fired, many fragments show distinct sin- slightly wider string cut base with a thinner wall in tering. Rarely some fine whitish inclusions occur. this region. The vessel was clearly never intended The latter do not react to the standard hydrochloric to be stood upright by itself, as even the broader acid test19. based variant is unable to stand independently The colour is very irregular, with a range extending because of the irregular shape of the base. In from gray to maroon and purplish red, usually with Sagalassos we encountered mostly the same size of a colour difference between the core and margins. vessel, with a maximum height of 21-22 cm, a body The combination of a gray fired core and reddish width of 5-5.8 cm, a rim diameter of ca. 3 cm, and buff surface is most common. The colour gradation a base width of 1-3 cm, depending on the type of is facilitated by the thickness of the lower parts of base. The rim is thin and slightly flaring with a dis- these vessels, which can be more than 1 cm. The tinctive horizontal ridge at its base. The vessel was Munsell charts give often 10 R 5/6 or 7.5 YR 6/6 wheel thrown, apparently made in a single opera- reddish yellow as margin colour and 2.5 YR 5/0 gray tion, with a wet smoothed outer surface and dis- as core colour. The fracture is always conchoidal, tinctive interior spiralling as the shape of the vessel did not allow a proper smoothing of the interior, except at the very top. Not always immediately 14 Fig. 2. 15 Riley 1975: p. 36-37. It should be noted that this Type A is noticeable is the presence of a slip layer on the top more prevalent in Palestinian contexts than Type B, but is totally half.