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within a 25 km. radius of the Upchurch Marshes, including two sites
on the marshes themselves. Sherds of two vessels have been recorded from
Canterbury (Macpherson-Grant 1982, no. 150, and unpublished), and
none, to the knowledge of the present author, from London or Southwark.
Several vessels were recovered from Richborough, however (see Appendix 3),
in contexts dated to within the Flavian-early Antonine period. The high
density of find-spots within 15 km. of the Upchurch Marshes (six out of ten
sites), including occurrences in collections of mere handfuls of sherds,
suggests the hypothesis that these were either a local product or an exotic
ware from an unknown source that was intensively traded or exchanged within
the neighbourhood of the most obvious point of importation, Rochester.
Fine oxidised wares of the Flavian-Trajanic period include
biconical, globular and shouldered beakers, hemispherical and carinated
bowls often with ‘compass-scribed’ arcs (nos. 136 and 137 here), and
segmental bowls with bead- and flange-rims (nos. 163—4, 166), and flagons,
including ring-necked (cf. no. 73) and plain-conical rim (no.
160) forms. Flagons in both oxidised and white-slip wares are more common in
central-northern Kent, which was on the fringes of the distribution areas of
Brockley Hill and Canterbury ware flagons (see below, and Fig. 22), than
elsewhere, but are found in all regions. Shouldered and butt-beakers also
occur in white-slip ware, but bowls and dishes do not. White-slip and
Oxidised wares may well have been produced alongside reduced and painted
wares on the Upchurch Marshes, though the evidence from antiquarian reports
and collections (e.g. Roach Smith 1847, 1868) suggests that the numbers of
vessels in these wares that were recovered were very small in comparison to
those in reduced wares. The Hoo assemblage (Blumstein 1956) included
cordoned S-jars (cf. Camulodunum 220B — Hawkes
and Hull 1947), shouldered beakers (cf. Richborough 250 and 285 —
Bushe-Fox 1932) and a butt-
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beaker, an assemblage which, taken in conjunction with the range of flagon
types (collar-rim ‘Hofhelm’ types predominantly, plus ring-neck and
plain-conical rim forms, cf. nos. 56, 155 and 160 here), should be dated to
the A.D. 70s at the latest, that is at the period of transition between the
first two periods discussed in this chapter. The proportions of reduced to
oxidised to white-slip wares vary; in western and central-northern Kent they
are of the order of 2:1:1 to 4:1:1 (see Appendix 5), while at Canterbury
white-slip is generally the rarest of the three wares, and both this and the
oxidised fabric may be entirely absent from some contexts. Reduced wares are
ubiquitous, however.
The London area potteries do not seem to have produced
oxidised-surface, white-slip or geometrically painted wares, although
painted vessels of ‘marbled’ decoration do occur (Marsh 1978). A recent
survey of the Flavian-Trajanic fine wares of the London area suggests that
fine reduced, mica-dusted, ‘eggshell’ and ‘marbled’ wares were all
produced in or around the City in this period (ibid.). Oxidised ‘London’
(i.e. fine-combed, ‘compass-scribed’, and rouletted) wares are
considered to be ‘seconds’ (ibid., 198), that is vessels whose
firing rendered them imperfect by virtue of colouration (or in other cases
minor warps in the form). The ‘eggshell’ wares are so named owing to the
thinness of their walls, and are extremely rare in Kent, only two
occurrences having been noted by Marsh (ibid., 130—1), to which may
be added sherds of hemispherical cups from Canterbury (unpublished, cf.
Marsh 1978, Type 13.6). ‘Marbled’ wares in white to orange fabrics with
orange-brown brushed/wiped paint (over white-slip when the fabric is
oxidised) have been recognised by the present author at Springhead and
Richborough (Fig. 21: the sherd from Brenley Corner is probably a
mottled-slip Central Gaulish white ware beaker, cf. Greene 1978a, fig. 2.3
no. 2). Fine reduced ‘London’ ware may be widespread in Kent, but
macroscopic differentiation of London and Upchurch fabrics is hazardous, and
has
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