Terra Sigillata-Production of Westendorf and Pfaffenhofen

Aim of the project is the documentation and presentation of the Raetian manufactures for sigillatapottery at Westerndorf and Pfaffenhofen, both situated in the surroundings of the modern town of Rosenheim in Bavaria. Though the research in the area began as early as in the 19th century the rich production of there workshops active at the end of the 2nd and during the 3rd century AD has never been studied in all aspects until today. As the pottery produced there was exported along the Danube fron Bavaria as far as Romania and Bulgaria it is an important indicator for economic development and relations in the Danube provinces during the 3rd century AD. The project intends a complete documentation of all vessels found in and around the manufactures themselves as well as in the area of distribution that comprises mainly Germany, Austria, Hungary, Ex-Yougoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria. New approaches in method as the classification of fabrics will it malte possible to distinguish clearly between the two workshops and to separate their production also from that of Rheinzabern, another famous production-center. This has not been possible until now. For each of the production-centers a typology of vessel-shapes will be created as until now vessels without relief- decoration could not be easily attributed to one of then. The chapter will be completed by a catalogue of all known name-stamps found an decorated and un-decorated sigillata and by a catalogue of the poincons used for decoration. Another section will deal with the problems of the chronology of there workshops and the development of their production and the sequence of the producers of moulds. Based an the results of there analyses questions conceming the distribution und the export of the Raetian sigillata should be discussed together with problems of the economic development of the Danube provinces during the 3rd century AD in general. The methods of documentation and interpretation will follow modern standards. The results will be published in a monography presenting likewise the material found in the workshops and the area of distribution.

Aim of the study, conducted in cooperation with the Archäologische Staatssammlung München, was the investigation and presentation of two production-centres for terra sigillata at the modern communities Westerndorf St. Peter (Lkr. Rosenheim) and Pfaffenhofen am Inn (Lkr. Schechen) in Southern Bavaria. The rich production of these assumed workshops, active at the end of the 2nd and during the 3rd century, was widely exported to the Roman provinces on the middle and lower Danube. Though archaeological research in this area began as early as the first half of the 19th century, until now the sites and their productions have never been completely presented. The present study aimed to collect material deriving from various sites within the two villages as well as from their area of distribution. We began with a catalogue of the various sites and from their analysis clearly derived that at the site of Kastenfeld in Pfaffenhofen no evidence at all does exist for workshops of terra sigillata. The material found there could be identified as the remainings of a Roman provincial vicus with some local production of household ware. The terra sigillata attributed to the workshop of Pfaffenhofen must therefore come from another site. Also at Westerndorf, the assumed workshop area emerged to be the original clay pit area, some of the pits refilled after exploitation with rubbish and remains of production and misfirings. The area of the workshops and the vicus form the potters remains still unknown. As a result of the project, for the first time we have at our disposal a comprehensive catalogue of fabrics and forms, of stamp types, decoration series and name-stamps by which a characteristic repertoire of forms and varieties of forms, different from other production centres, can be identified. By the detailed study of details of stamps, regarding scale and graphological features, it was possible to distinguish new series of decoration. These studies were accompanied by archeometric analyses (thin section and heavy mineral analyses) of samples of clay both from this original pits and the surroundings of Westerndorf as well as of the Rhenian and Raetian contemporary productions. By a classification according to systematically described characteristical features of fabrics, it is by now possible to distinguish both the plain and relief ware of the production of Westerndorf from other workshops. Based on the new evidence, it was possible to investigate the activities of export, their economic value and the contacts to other centres of production in the Middle Danubian area, showing a close relationship in the provenance of potters to Lavoye in the Argonnes and not - as has been assumed previously - to Rheinzabern.