Back
in September, we excavated a substantial shard of a Roman mortarium (a
mixing vessel with a gritted inner surface). A particularly interesting feature
was some graffiti on the external surface, which has been interpreted as the
letters "LVCV":
Keith
Fitzpatrick-Matthews has suggested that this could be an owner's name, for
example an abbreviation of Lucullus.
And
in the last few days, we have discovered references to another mortarium shard
which was found in 1968 on the Old Market Hall site in Chester, with two
grafitti both reading "LVCV" ! From the picture in 'Roman
Inscriptions of Britain', these graffiti appear to be very similar to
ours. This is a fascinating discovery
which raises many questions - for example, were the two mortaria made or owned
by the same person ? We are continuing to investigate and will
post any further news on this website.
