Ancient Roman Jar Riddled with Mystery

[Melvadius]

Live Science is carrying an article about an intriguing ceramic jar currently on display 'at the Museum of Ontario Archaeology as part of an exhibit on Ur and Roman Britain. The show runs through the first week of September.'

 

The provenance of the jar is uncertain and it literally could come from either Roman Britain or ancient Ur. Although various suggestions about its possible intended use have been made it currently appears totally unlike anything else which is known from either area or period.

 

Personally I would have thought that in addition to sending round photographs of the reconstructed jar they should also have been sending round examples/ photographs of the fabric of the jar so ceramic experts could provide advise on whether it comes from any particular period/ location that they are aware of.

 

An ancient clay vessel reconstructed from pieces discovered at a Canadian museum is riddled with tiny holes, leaving archaeologists baffled over what it was used for.

 

The jar, just 16 inches (40 centimeters) tall and dating back about 1,800 years, was found shattered into an unrecognizable 180 pieces in a storage room at the Museum of Ontario Archaeology. But even after it was restored, the scientists were faced with a mystery. So far no one has been able to identify another artifact like it from the Roman world.

 

"Everyone's stumped by it," Katie Urban, one of the researchers at the London, Ontario, museum, told LiveScience. "We've been sending it around to all sorts of Roman pottery experts and other pottery experts, and no one seems to be able to come up with an example."

 

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[Klingan]

I would very much like to see the inside color - the perforated surface is commonly connected to heating (stuffing a vessel such as this one full with glowing coal and you have a nice radiator). The outer surface would, however, probably have been slightly burned as well, especially around the holes.

[Tribunicus Potestus]

This is a great mystery. Not only would it be useful to see the interior but a flat projection of the holes would be handy too. I have only 3 possibilities so far none very strong. Perhaps it was rolled with strings for dispersing seeds? Could it be a primitive planetarium for kids showing stars with a lamp inside? Maybe it was used as a rough and ready cage to hold a small animal or bird? Wait, I have a fourth, used in the middle of a stream to catch fish?