Montans
About
Potters at this Tarn river workshop began stamping terra sigillata under Augustus and kept the kilns firing for two centuries, their wares reaching Britain, northern Spain, and the Rhineland. Clay-rich alluvial soil beside the river gave the workshop an easy raw-material supply that rivals like La Graufesenque lacked in the same abundance. By 117 CE Montans had been in continuous production for well over a century, one of three dominant South Gaulish sigillata centers.
What happened here
The workshop runs as a production line. Clay is dug locally, weathered over winter, kneaded and thrown, or pressed into moulds for the decorated wares. Vessels are dried under cover, stamped with the potter's name, stacked in the kiln around a central flue and fired for days with the temperature judged by eye and by test pieces pulled from a port in the side. A big firing holds tens of thousands of pots and a bad one loses the lot. Wasters are dumped in heaps beside the works. Some workshops export across half the empire and their stamps turn up thousands of miles away. Fuel is the limit on everything, so kilns sit near woodland and move when it runs out.
Sources
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →