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Abstract
This article presents a group of ceramic building materials (bricks and pipes) from the city of Aelia Capitolina. This group bears rare impressions consisting of three Latin letters: IVL. The IVL group is studied typologically and petrographically, suggesting that a private workshop operated in Aelia Capitolina no later than the 3rd century CE. Petrographically, the IVL group is different from the well-known ceramic building materials bearing impressions of the Xth Roman legion Fretensis, manufactured in the kilnworks near the Jerusalem International Convention Center (Binyanei HaʾUma). This suggests that the IVL group was not produced in the legionary workshop. The current study is an additional facet contributing to the discussion on the various modes of production of ceramic building materials in Jerusalem during the Late Roman period. Further examined is the relation between military, municipal and private ceramic production, possibly as a mirror of the municipal development and processes that Jerusalem underwent during the period under discussion, and the role of the City of David within these processes.
Acknowledgements
Our thanks are extended to Joe Uziel and Moran Hagbi for fruitful discussion in the course of this study, to Israel Antiquities Authority curators Adi Ziv-Asudri and Navit Popovich for their assistance in providing us with the CBM from Ramat Raḥel and the JICC excavations, to Avshalom Karasik for the digital scanning of the City of David CBM, to Itamar Ben-Ezra who prepared the map and to Yulia Gottlieb who drew the impressions. The authors would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments.
Notes
1 This excludes the bathhouses constructed by King Herod in his royal resorts during the 1st century BCE, which incorporated ceramic tubuli (Netzer Citation1999). To the best of our knowledge, with the exception of the Herodian episode, CBM is first used in Judaea only after 70 CE, at which point it became extremely common within a very short period of time.
2 It is noteworthy that the legionary workshops were established in military camps, whereas in Jerusalem the military kilnworks were most likely a separate institution that could have been operated by auxiliary troops, which also produced CBM stamped by the Xth Legion Fretensis. However, we use the term ‘legionary’ following previous publications (see, e.g., Rosenthal-Heginbottom 2019: 2).
3 The first comprehensive assemblage of legionary impressions was published by Barag (Citation1967); it was later expanded by Gutfeld and Nenner-Soriano (Citation2012).
4 For the main excavation reports from the JICC workshop and discussions regarding the CBM production, see Arubas and Goldfus Citation1995; Citation2005; Beʾeri and Levi 2018; Cohen-Weinberger, Levi and Beʾeri Citation2020.
5 The excavations discussed here were undertaken along the course of the Tyropoeon Valley, within the confines of the City of David National Park. The excavations were conducted by N. Szanton, M. Hagbi and J. Uziel on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and were funded by the Ir David Foundation (ELAD).
6 Pipe-shaped columns were also used to support the hypocaust in one of the two bathhouses from Shuʿafat dated to the period between the two revolts—the late 1st–early 2nd centuries CE (Bar-Nathan and Sklar-Parnes Citation2007).
7 B. Arubas: personal communication in 2019. A final report of the entire impressed CBM assemblage from the JICC excavations has not yet been published. Thus, the exact proportions and the different variants currently remain unknown.
8 IAA Nos. 1964-1395, 1964-1397, 1964-1398, 2018-831 and 2018-832; the registration number of one is unknown.
9 Uncovered in an excavation carried out in 1970, directed by Y. Margovsky, Permit No. 2867/0. IAA Licence Nos. 76-1447, 76-1282, 76-1279 and 76-1460.
10 These mollusc fragments most likely include the ostracoda species Veeniacythereis Jezzineensis, Cythereis namousensis and Cythereis mdaouerensis (see Scarpa Citation1990), which are fossil guides of the Moza Formation.
11 The name IOΥΛΙC, ‘Julius’ in Greek (Di Segni Citation2011), was found impressed on a tile uncovered in the Temple Mount excavations. Preliminary petrographic results indicate that the raw material used for this tile differs from that used for the IVL-impressed CBM. Iulius was a common name in the Roman period, and its appearance on a tile that most likely derived from another workshop is possible. The abbreviation IVL for the common name Iulius was also impressed on other CBM, for example, within a rounded frame on a tile found at the amphitheatre at Pazzuoli (C IVL. DEYTERI) and dated to the end of the 1st or the beginning of the 2nd century CE (Dennison Citation1898; Bodel Citation1983).
12 Cockle (Citation1981) introduced three papyri from Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, dealing with the lease of kilns for one or two years to potters who manufactured wine amphorae.
13 Another group of privately produced CBM bearing impressions of private names was recently discovered in the Moẓa excavations (S. Terem: personal communication in 2021) and in the Western Wall Tunnels excavations (S. Weksler-Bdolah: personal communication in 2021). It is hoped that their study will contribute to our understanding of the development of private CBM production in the Jerusalem region in the Roman period.
14 CBM bearing Xth-Legion impressions together with the title Antoniniana suggest that the JICC workshop operated during the 3rd century CE. The title Antoniniana appears in connection with the Xth Legion only in the days of the Roman emperors Caracalla (212–217 CE) and Elagabalus (218–222 CE) (see Gutfeld and Nenner-Soriano Citation2012). CBM with this title were found in the JICC kilns, therefore suggesting that they functioned until the 3rd century (Arubas and Goldfus Citation1995; Ecker Citation2009).
15 Although the IVL bricks from Ramat Raḥel were incorporated in the floor alongside legionary bricks, this does not necessarily indicate that the structure was associated with the military. Legionary tiles have also been discovered in non-military contexts (see, e.g., Ben-Ami and Tchekhanovets Citation2010).
16 CBM including tubuli were also found in the recent excavations at Moẓa (S. Terem, personal communication, 2021). Although no bathhouse has been uncovered there to date, these tubuli suggest such a structure during the Late Roman period.