It contains different stamps on all four faces, naming two different, though presumably related, oculists – Gaius Valerius Amandus and Gaius Valerius Valentinus. They are made of soft stone and generally contain three components – the name of the medicine, a personal name (assumed to be that of the oculist) and the name of the ailment it proclaimed to treat (Jackson 1996).Ī collyrium stamp from Biggleswade (RIB II.4, 2446.2, discussed in Tomlin 2018) is a good example to explain the type. Over 300 such stamps are known from the Roman world, with 28 from Britain (Baker 2016). The museum’s interpretation tentatively identifies it as a ‘name-stamp for marking goods such as eye-ointment’, and it is indeed reminiscent of a category of object known variously as ‘oculist’s stamps’ or ‘ collyrium stamps’ – used to press information into blocks of semi-solid eye ointments (known as collyria). The stamp is located just right of centre, above and to the right of the large tile. Display at the Hull and East Riding Museum. Sadly he did not include it in any of his publications about finds from the area so its exact findspot remains unknown. The stamp was on display the last time I visited the Hull and East Riding Museum, as part of a display on literacy. It was acquired for the museum by the first curator Thomas Sheppard (an early pioneer of museum archaeology nationally), who was born in South Ferriby, and it may be one of his own finds. The Curator of Archaeology at the Hull and East Riding Museum has kindly provided some information on the provenance of the stamp. The South Ferriby stamp flipped horizontally, showing what I believe to be the nomen ‘CINCII’ He may have been a freedman who took his master’s name. The gens Cincia were an ancient Roman family, though this individual’s connections with the wider family remain unknown. Such a triple name – praenomen, nomen and cognomen – indicates a Roman citizen. The inscription is a personal name – Gaius Cincius Apollonus. The stamp is cast with a retrograde inscription, designed to be read when the stamp is pressed into something else. The museum’s online catalogue records the inscription as ‘C.CINCI APOLLONI’, but from examining the image, particularly when flipped, I believe that it actually reads ‘CINC II‘, the first ‘I’ being slightly damaged. Image copyright Hull and East Riding Museum: Hull Museums The existence of the stamp is not widely known and as far as I can tell it has never been published, but it is an unusual and intriguing object to be found in a Romano-British context. The collections of the Hull and East Riding Museum contain an unusual copper alloy stamp from South Ferriby in North Lincolnshire.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |