Tritium Magallum
About
Terra sigillata hispanica fired at this Ebro valley town under Vespasian's municipal charter reached markets across Hispania and, in smaller quantities, as far as Gaul, Germany, and North Africa. Tricio and its sister complex at Los Villares de Andujar together dominated Spanish fine-ware production for two centuries. By 117 CE the Tricio kilns were roughly midway through their peak run, which lasted from the mid-1st to the mid-2nd century CE.
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.
In ancient writing
- Ptolemy, Geography 2.6
Ptolemy's gazetteer of the Berones lists Tritium (Tricio) among their towns — a bare place-name entry, distinct from a similarly named Tritium of the Autrigones that Pliny separately mentions (Natural History 3.27).
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 →