Let’s go to the muse um!

Today, we are going to visit an Ancient Roman exhibit of different artifacts. We will consider what life was like in Ancient Rome through a variety of objects. Let’s take a look!

Pottery jars, dishes and bowls

These pottery jars, dishes, and bowls pictured above were discovered in Britain. Pottery was an important part of daily living in Ancient Rome. A huge quantity of utensils, cooking pots, amphorae and fine wares were produced in enormous quantities in Ancient Rome, mostly for utilitarian purposes. Roman pottery was initially influenced by Etruscan and Greek style but later on established its own separate identity. Unlike Greek pottery in which decorations were painted on the pottery, Romans preferred to use a technique known as “relief” (described on the artifact below), or engraved them.

Decorated terra sigillata bowl from Gaul

Romans did not have a taste for painting the pottery for decoration like Greeks. They were more enamoured by relief work for the purpose of decoration. Relief is a sculptural technique where the

sculpted elements remain attached to a solid background of the same material. Romans also used the technique of glazing the pottery with lead and other materials to make them appear shiny and beautiful. Relief decorations were done on the most expensive pottery in Ancient Rome.

Birthday party invitation

A letter inviting a woman named Sulpicia Lepidina to a birthday party. This was written around AD 97-103, and was found at Vindolanda Roman fort (modern Chesterholm), Northumberland. This shows us that Ancient Romans had social gatherings for birthdays, just as we do today.

A pepper pot for a banquet

This silver object, shaped to resemble a Roman noble woman, has holes in its base, which indicates that it was used as a pepper pot. Pepper was an expensive luxury; it did not grow in any part of the Roman empire, and had to be transported by sea, river and overland from India.

The pot was one of four pepper pots found among other high quality objects used for dining: silver toothpicks, ladles, and spoons decorated with dolphins, the symbol of Bacchus, god of wine. There were probably also larger silver plates and vessels, like those found at nearby Mildenhall, but these have disappeared. We need to picture the pepper pot on a fine table surrounded by elaborate and precious dishes, jugs and other tableware. On the silver face, the eyes are picked out in gold, so as the flames from oil lamps flickered, the eyes would have seemed to come alive.

Roman Game board

All cultures have developed games to be played during leisure periods. The Romans are best known for their large-scale entertainments, but they also had simpler ways of passing the time such as board games. Evidence for the same Roman games can be found across the empire. This board, which was found in North Wales, offers a good starting point for finding out about everyday pastimes in Ancient Rome.

Tombstone of a soldier

Tombstones are a very important source of information about the Roman army. If the stones are carved with figures, we can learn about personal appearance, equipment, badges of rank and how the dead wanted to be represented. As most tombstones carry inscriptions, we are also able to find out about who the soldiers were, the different army units, how they were organised, who commanded them, whereabouts they were stationed as well as matters such as length of service and lifespan.

Head of the Emperor Hadrian

This head was part of a larger than life-size bronze statue of the Roman emperor Hadrian. Statues like this were raised across the empire. This one may have been put up to commemorate Hadrian’s visit to Britain in AD 122, as Hadrian traveled the empire establishing its limits and securing its boundaries. This object gives insight into Hadrian’s leadership and the use of the imperial image as propaganda.

Gold coins, A.D. 46-47

Roman coinage represented a guaranteed and widely recognised value which could be spent on all manner of goods and services. Coins also had a function as a vehicle to spread the imagery of the ruling class.

This particular coin celebrates Claudius' triumph over Britain. The back shows a triumphal arch, of the sort erected by Romans in honour of a victorious general, rather like London's Marble Arch or the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. On the top we see Claudius on horseback with two trophies of weapons either side of him. The letters on the arch read DE BRITANNIS, which is the Latin for '[A triumph] over the Britons'.

Ancient coins were used as propaganda to remind the empire who was in control. The focus was to have emperors on all coinage that made them appear god-like and used as an important means of disseminating this image throughout the empire.

Gladiator helmet

A 1st century CE bronze gladiator helmet. Roman gladiator helmets were richly decorated and plumed with ostrich or peacock feathers. This relatively plain example has the embossed head of Hercules at the front. Gladiator games were a blood sport. They initially happened at funerals and gravesides as a way of honoring the dead. As they increased in popularity, they were hosted by the ruling classes as a way of entertaining the masses and building their own popularity in society. Sometimes they were used as a way to distract the population from other negative issues in society. Sometimes these battles were used to celebrate winning wars, birthdays or the presence of an important visitor.

Surgical tools

Below are examples of the tools at a surgeon’s disposal in the first century CE. Since there was relatively little innovation in surgery and surgical tools from the time of 5th century BC and 2nd century A.D., this collection is typical of surgical practice for nearly a millennium and illuminates the practice of medicine in Ancient Rome.

These instruments were used for levering fractured bones into position and may have been used for levering out teeth.

The blunt end was used for dissecting and raising blood-vessels like the modern aneurism needle; the sharp for seizing and raising small pieces of tissue for excision and for fixing and retracting the edges of wounds.

A scalpel is a small and sharp bladed instrument used for surgery, anatomical dissection, and podiatry.

Your task:

Choose three of the above artifacts to analyze. Answer the following for each of the items:

a) What does the artifact tell us about the individuals who used them?b) Would the same artifacts have the same value to members of different social classes? c) What do the artifacts tell us about Ancient Rome society? What values did the Romans have?

Tie this to our essential question, What was worth Ffghting for?

Each artifact analysis should be at least 150 words (total of 450 words).

Use this example to understand the expectations of the assignment:

Decorated terra sigillata bowl from Gaul

What does the artifact tell us about the individuals who used them?

a) Since we know that most of the pottery in Ancient Rome was designed to be useful rather than attractive, we can infer that this particular piece of pottery likely belonged to a wealthy Ancient Roman. A more skillful and professional Roman potter probably designed this and it would have been far more expensive than the typical bowl. This object presumably belonged to an individual who was either a patrician or a wealthy plebeian.

Would the same artifacts have the same value to members of different social classes?

b) This particular bowl would have different values to different social classes. As previously mentioned, while the object would most likely have belonged to a patrician or wealthy plebeian, a less wealthy plebeian would have created the object in their workshop. A slave would be the one who would clean the bowl, and maybe put food in it.

What do the artifacts tell us about Ancient Rome society?

c) The object, with its features of relief, show us that Ancient Romans preferred relief compared to painted pottery (which is the style that the Ancient Greeks preferred). Since we know that relief decorations were only on the most expensive pottery, we can tell that Ancient Romans produced pottery on mass scales and didn’t care as much as other ancient civilizations did of the physical appearance of their pottery.