File:A base sherd from a Roman Central Gaulish Lezoux samian ware plate or shallow dish possibly Walters Form 79 dating to AD 170 - 200. (FindID 846857).jpg

English: A base sherd from a Roman Central Gaulish Lezoux samian ware shallow dish possibly Walters Form 79 dating to AD 170 - 200. The sherd has a beaded foot base. A maker's stamp NAMILIANIM with the A dotted, not barred is impressed in the centre of the inside of the base. This is the stamp of the potter Namilianus, who was working in Lezoux from AD 170 - 200. The fragment has a pink fabric and is coated in a red slip on both the inside and outside. Similar examples are illustrated in Oswald & Pryce (1920: Pl. LVIII. fig.1).

Dimensions: length: 102.60mm; diameter of foot ring: 88.73mm; height: 26.83mm; weight: 121.07g.

Another samian vessel by the potter Namilianus on the database is SF6174.

Darling and Precious (2014:247) write "Stamps from this die occur on forms 31R and 79R. His other stamps have been noted from Hadrian's Wall and in the group of late 2nd century samian recovered off Pudding Pan Rock c. AD 160-200."

Oswald & Pryce (1920:199) write "Plate or shallow dish with curved wall, inturned rim and flat base. This plate, in its typical form is evidently a copy in coarser and thicker material of the early type Ritterling 1.

The inturned rim, demarcated internally by a groove, the slight ledge or groove at the internal junction of the base with the wall, and the flat base are all characteristics of its pre-Flavian prototype. Intermediate examples do not appear to have been recorded, but doubtless they will yet be forthcoming.
This plate occurs in both a large and small forms, evidently comprising two members of the same service. The foot-stand approaches a rectangular profile in section, and is of medium height in the larger examples, whilst in the smaller it is relatively high.

This plate was manufactured at Lezoux, Rheinzabern, and Treves, but, apparently, not at Heiligenberg. Commencing in the prototype as one of the earliest South Gaulish products, it was subsequently successively introduced in a coarser form into Central and East Gaul.

Its greatest incidence apart from the plate Ritterling Type 1 so far as present knowledge goes, is in the Antonine period, and it belongs typically to the second half of the second century. "

References: Oswald, F. and Pryce, T. Davies 1920. An introduction to the study of terra sigillata, London.

de la Bedoyere, G. 1988. Samian Ware. Shire Publications Ltd, Aylesbury.

Webster, P. 1996. Roman Samian Pottery in Britain. Practical Handbook in Archaeology 13. Council for British Archaeology, York.

Darling, M. and Precious, B. 2014. A Corpus of Roman Pottery from Lincoln. Oxbow Books.