Mortarium

This Roman mixing bowl is called a mortarium and was made by potters in modern-day St Albans or Brockley Hill - archaeologists found this one at Billiter Street. The rim is stamped with the Latin abbreviations 'ALBINI.FE.MATVGENV'. These stamps shows that two potters had made this mortaria. 'ALBINI' is Albinus, a highly skilled potter, who produced huge quantities of mortaria- 420 with his stamp have been found in London and elsewhere in Britain. 'MATVGENV' is the other potter and his work has also been found in London and across Britain. The 'FE' means 'fecit' in Latin, which translates as 'made this'. Mortaria were made with a gritty clay, because they were used like a pestle-and-mortar, to grind up foodstuffs. Scientific analyses of mortaria in Britain discovered that they were used to grind dairy products, fats and plants, but we don't know what was ground-up in this one.