ROMAN BRICKS AND TILES FROM PREVENTIVE ARCHAEOLOGY EXCAVATIONS IN THE EASTERN AGER ROMANUS. PRELIMINARY DATA

The interventions of archaeological safeguards carried out in the Eastern suburbia of Rome for the realization of the High Speed Rail Roma-Napoli railway tracks have allowed us to analyse in-depth a significant portion of the territory. In this area, 53 archaeological sites were discovered and out of these 33 sites produced a huge amount of bricks. In this study 24,500 artefacts have been examined and correlated. These artefacts consist in tegulae, tubuli, imbrices, sesquipedales, bipedales and undeterminable fragments. All brick productions are therefore evaluated and divided into different groups, but only the exemplars with stamps, sine textu stamps and potters' mark have been carefully examined. Stamps are found on tegulae, sesquipedales and bipedales and the recurrence of the same stamps and of its variations in different types have been checked. Regarding potters' mark (handmade grooves made on wet clay) there is a proposal of a new typology consisting in 14 types and 24 variations. Their presence in various brick products also with stamps has been registered. There is a critical bibliography regarding the studies carried out up to the present day. The wide proof of sine textu stamps allows us to locate at least 4 main categories and to propose a first systematization.