Globular pot, 25-50 (gray ware with black burnished slip & Barbotine decoration)

The work of Roman potters is very different from that of their Greek predecessors. Greek clay had allowed potters to throw thin-walled ceramics. Slips (paint) made from this clay had permitted painters to draw complicated scenes and figures with infinite care. As the Roman empire grew to include Germany and Britain, local clays found there were better for producing heavier pottery with three-dimensional decoration like the vases shown here. This jar decorated with a wheat pattern was probably filled with foods or liquids and given either as gifts to an elaborate burial or as offerings to a god's shrine.