Ateliers De Tuiliers Romains

This is a revised and supplemented edition of a dissertation, defended in 2015 at the Department of Archaeology of the Historical Faculty in Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”.

The two-chambered updraught kiln is the most widespread and identifiable variant among the ceramic firing installations throughout the Mediterranean in Antiquity. Its popularity owes to its fine technical properties, as well as the long-established traditions in the manufacture of clay-made artefacts.
The present dissertation explores the development and distribution of the two-chambered ceramic kilns in the territory of modern Bulgaria during the 1st – 6th century. For that purpose, published and unpublished data for ceramic kilns is studied, from the time of their appearance in Thrace in the course of the Late Iron Age until the end of Late Antiquity. The catalogue comprises detailed information for 289 kilns dated to the Roman and Late Antique periods. The acquired data base provides ground for the identification of the construction techniques and materials used in the erection of these structures, and to distinguish those of the former which appeared in today’s Bulgarian lands after the Roman conquest. The developed typology for the two-chambered kilns under discussion is based on the floor plan of the combustion chamber and the type of support for the perforated floor. The last chapter of the dissertation is dedicated to the archaeologically attested production centres and workshops from the 1st – 6th century and includes an attempt for the clarification of the chronological limits of their operation, together with a proposition for a periodisation scheme of ceramic production in the considered time period.
Between the second half of the 1st and the beginning of the 7th century the two-chambered kilns were the most frequently used ceramic firing structures in today’s Bulgarian territory. The number of studied kilns from this chronological period is significantly larger in comparison to those from the previous and the next one – respectively the Late Iron Age and the Middle Ages. This fact could be explained with the considerable demand for fine and coarse wheel-made pottery during the Roman and the Late Antique periods, together with the large-scale urbanisation and fortification activities carried out in that time, which required a great amount of ceramic building material. The two-chambered updraught kilns were the optimal – and sometimes the only – variant for the firing of both types of goods.
The influences on the development and organisation of ceramic production in the 1st – 6th century owed to the infiltration of new population, the urbanisation projects carried out by central authorities, and, in general, to the incorporation of this craft in the Empire’s economy. Being intrinsic part of it, the manufacture of ceramic goods also experienced the negative effects of the multiple military conflicts in the studied time period, some of which may serve as chronological limits for certain phases of its development.

The completed PhD thesis was based on the analysed information for 265 ceramic kilns, excavated in the modern territory of Bulgaria and dated to the 1st – 6th c. AD. In addition, more than 20 pottery kilns from the Pre-Roman period in the same region were examined. The complex results from this survey led to the following conclusions. 
The earliest two-chambered updraught kilns excavated in Bulgaria were dated to the beginning of the Late Iron Age. After the Roman conquest in the first half of the 1st century AD these structures became the most popular among the ones used for the firing of clay made objects.
During the Roman and Early Byzantine periods two major techniques of kiln building were in use. The main feature of the first one was the employment of the natural soil as a building material, used for the design of most of the kiln components. The second technique was characterized by the use of large amount of building materials for the same purpose, mainly bricks, tiles, less frequently stones, prefabricated ceramic elements, ceramic pipes and mud bricks.
Great diversity was attested in the types of kilns in use at that time. The newly established typology comprised four types and seventeen subtypes of structures with round or quadrangular plan of the combustion chamber.
In the time between the second half of the 1st and the last decades of the 3rd c. AD most of the workshops and production centres were established along important roads and in rural settlements. The ones from the northern part of nowadays Bulgaria were supplying both the local population and the Roman military units, most of the latter stationed along the Danubian limes.
After the end of the 3rd and until the beginning of the 7th c. AD pottery manufacture was organized on a smaller scale, usually in towns and fortified settlements. On the contrary, there was a development in the production of building ceramics, especially during the 4th c. AD, which was probably related to building activities initiated by the authorities.

n"' 398, 399a, 399b, 445, 451 à 453 et 460 à 466; les Haas); un éparpillement important des mêmes scories couvre plusieurs centaines de mètres carrés avec parfois une concentration supérieure à 10 fragments de scories au mètre carré ; quelques dépressions peu profondes marquent les parcelles et certaines parcelles voisines (parc. cad. : n°' 304, 403, 422 et 460). Dans cette dernière, on trouve aussi du laitier jaunâtre et verdâtre. Engis/Hermalle-sous-Huy : fouille d'une installation protohistorique et d'une tuilerie gallo-romaine à la « Campagne de la Gérée » Christian FRÉBUTTE et Michèle GusnN Depuis 2004, une fouille préventive est en cours dans la zone d'activité économique d'Hermalle-sous-Huy, en bordure de la Meuse, au lieu-dit « Campagne de la Gérée» (parc. cad. : Engis, 4e Div., Sect. A, n°' 207b, 229' 2 et 230rl). Cette intervention est dirigée conjointement par le Service de l' Archéologie (Direction de Liège I, MRW) et la Direction de l' Archéologie (MRW). Le site comprend une occupation datant du Premier Age du Fer et un atelier de tuilier du Haut-Empire (Frébutte & Gustin, 2006). En 2004, la priorité des investigations avait été donnée aux décapages extensifs afin de dresser le plan général des occupations ; ce choix était lié à la menace pressante que représentait, à l'époque, la construction d' infrastructures industrielles. L'ensemble des vestiges de la zone I, essentiellement protohistorique (coord. Lambe1t : 219 ,536est/139,142 nord) avaient été également explorés. En 2005, le projet d'aménagement ayant été plusieurs fois différé, les structures mises au jour dans la zone II (coord. Lambert: 219 ,936 est/139 ,089 nord) ont été en grande partie fouillées ; des décapages supplémentaires ont permis de compléter le relevé planimétrique effectué l'année précédente. L'approche géomorphologique du site et les examens sédimentaires ont été confiés à O. Collette, les études carpologiques à C. Laurent (Université libre de Bruxelles), les analyses palynologiques à A. Defgnée (Université catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve) et l'examen anthracologique à F. Damblon et P. Procès (Institut royal des Sciences naturelles de Belgique).