PRODUCTION OF 3RD C. SIGILLATA AFRICANA A/C (C1-2) OR SO-CALLED EL AOUJA WARE AND ITS TRANSITION TO SIGILLATA C3 WITH APPLIQUE DECORATION IN CENTRAL TUNISIAN POTTERIES

Michael Mackensen

Several studies by J.W. Salomonson are of paramount importance for understanding relief-decorated North African sigillata and A/C (C1-2) and C (C3) appliqué-decorated sigillata in particular. Nevertheless, what is now urgently needed is a modern, broader-based systematic investigation primarily of the technical considerations linking production of individual sigillata genres on the basis of materials. Nor has evidence of A/C production based on wasters or plaster matrices for clay appliqués been verified for any one of the important ARS production centers in central Tunisia. These potteries were discovered during a British-Tunisian survey and their respective ranges of forms and decoration were published in a preliminary report in 1990.

In contrast to Salomonson's initial assumptions, it is now possible to furnish unequivocal evidence, based on both stylistic and technical considerations, for links between the main phase of A/C (C1) sigillata and C3 appliqué-decorated sigillata. Appliqués of a large anthropomorphic motif from the identical matrix can be observed on the forms Hayes 171 (A/C [C1]) and 53 A (C3). Approximate synchronicity or at least only a small lapse in time between these appliqué-decorated vessels during a transitional phase probably covering the last quarter of the 3rd century or the early 4th is also suggested by several occurrences of typical El Aouja appliqués combined with appliqués found on later C3 sigillata of the form Löffler 591. It can be assumed, therefore, that the use of the same plaster matrices and the making of these vessels took place in the same pottery-making center in central Tunisia.

Reference groups were established for individual potteries on the basis of chemical analysis of the body in the context of an interdisciplinary archaeometric project dealing with sigillata production centers in northern and central Tunisia (G. Schneider/M. Mackensen). It has taken only a few analyses of typical El Aouja ware to support my assumption that the high-quality products from the main phase of El Aouja sigillata (A/C and C1) were made from the mid-3rd century at the central Tunisian production site of Sidi Marzouk Tounsi.

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