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The tiny brick stamp at a Roman fort in Carlisle that flipped how I date pottery
I was at the Roman fort site in Carlisle last month, just poking around the museum's handling collection, when I picked up a chunk of samian ware that still had a potter's stamp on the base. I'd always ignored stamps because they seemed like decoration, but the volunteer there showed me a lookup book and we matched it to a maker working around 160 to 190 AD. That one stamp pinned the whole layer we were digging in about 50 years tighter than the pottery shapes alone. So now I photograph every base sherd before I bag it, even the ugly ones. Anyone else here using maker's marks as their main dating tool, or do you stick to coins and stratigraphy?
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