TEGULAE: Manufacture, typology and use in Roman Britain

Abstract

Ceramic building material, particularly roofing material, is one of the most common finds on Romano-British sites, yet despite its abundance, it has been relatively little studied. Whole books have been devoted to relatively minor pottery types, but it is extremely rare for a book to devote as much as a single chapter to ceramic roofing material. This book is devoted to the study of ceramic roofing material, primarily tegulae. It considers how they were made and develops and dates a typology. It looks at the role of stamps and signatures and how these can inform the study of when and by whom the tegulae were made. It analyses how the tiles were fitted onto pitched roofs, how these roofs were constructed and proposes four stages in their evolution. It suggests that tegulae might also have been used on some vaulted roofs. Finally the logistics, costs and economics of tile manufacture and distribution are addressed. The book follows a logical sequence considering first how tegulae were manufactured, next their typology and then their dating in order to prepare the ground for the subsequent chapters on stamps and roof construction. The final chapter brings all the evidence together to examine the economic and social data that can be derived from a study of tegulae, grouped together as a single site. In contrast, where a useful assemblage of tiles has come from an individual site within a town, this has been identified separately from other assemblages within the same town. If these separate assemblages within the same towns are aggregated together then the number of individual sites falls from 104 to 85.

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