#FindsFriday – Roman face pots

This week’s #FindsFriday, we wanted to show off this Roman face pot which was found during the Colchester Garrison excavations in 2004!

As the name would suggest, face pots are items of pottery which feature a face in the centre, usually only taking up the top half of the pot, and though they are rare, Colchester has one of the largest collections of them in Britain!

We don’t know exactly what their function was, as some have thought to be cremation urns whilst others seem to have been used for storing food and drink. We also don’t know who or what the faces are meant to represent, whether in the case of cremation urns they’re meant to represent the deceased, if they’re the person who made the pot, if they’re a god/goddess, or something else entirely

This particular face pot was used as a cremation urn, dating from early to Late 2nd century AD, and held the cremated remains of a male between 35 and 50 years old. The eyes are shown to be closed, with small slits in them, with a serene expression. It has a very prominent chin and nose which curl in towards each other, making it look a bit like the man in the moon!

Other faces are shown to have circular and open mouths which make them look surprised or like they’re whistling, open eyes, bearded and some even have goat horns!

As well as being very unique, Roman face pots are very cute and full of character, the perfect friendly face you’d want to see in a museum!

Written by work experience student Emilia.