What does pottery tell us about our Roman past?

The pottery examples can be found by using the school’s resources box or by going to see the Pottery exhibits in the exhibition. Archaeologists are able to use pottery…

• To build up a picture of life at a site.
• To see what trade patterns existed i.e. where they made and what did they contain.
• To discover how the pottery was made an decorated.
• To help date a site through style, origin and the way it was manufactured.

Look at the different types of pottery and make deductions from it about its purpose. Draw the outline of the pottery and the pattern if it has one. Draw a line as thick as the piece of pottery. Important to get the children to study the pieces as an archaeologist, use a series of questions:

• 3 words to describe it.

• What colour is it?

• How BIG was the pot?

• What was it used for?

• Best or kitchenware…

What part of the pot is it? Wall, rim, spout, lid, handle, base or other. Middlewich pottery came from Spain, France, Germany and parts of the UK, on a map pupils can plot where the different lottery pieces came from. Have you any idea what the whole pot may have looked like? Draw or describe it. Give the pupils a drawn outline of the bowl; looking at the decoration on the high status bowls, if they were to create a pattern what would it be? Place in your name as a makers mark. Click here for pottery examples Download the bowl outline