The only stamps which can with certainty be attributed to the first period are POR·G·S·S from the ditch of the early fort, C·MARI·SILVANI, from Pit LXXVI, and the imperfect stamp POR, though probably C·ANTON·Q and SER·B belong to the same time. In the stamp POR·G·S·S (Fig. 4) the letters POR, which are of common occurrence on amphorae, form a contraction for the word PORTUS,[1] indicating the warehouse rather than the name of a maker. We may compare F B POR on the handle of an amphora in the Tullie House Museum at Carlisle, POR·POP at Monte Testaccio,[2] POR MEDIA at Heddernheim[3] and POR·P·S at Bonn.[4] It would be easy to cite many other examples. How widespread was the commerce in which these great vessels were employed, is exemplified in a striking fashion by the stamp DAZ·COL, which occurred at Ardoch. This is found on the Rhine at Kastell Hofheim, and it has been noted in Spain in the form DAS·COL,[5] while DAS·COL occurs in the South of France at St. Roman,[6] and also among the fragments of broken vessels from Monte Testaccio.[7]
A complete list of the stamps on the amphorae handles from Newstead, so far as it has been found possible to decipher them, will be found in Plate LII.
When we apply the results obtained from the classification of the Newstead finds to the collections from the sites of Roman forts previously investigated in Scotland, the results are striking. Among the fragments from Cappuck preserved at Monteviot, the residence of the Marquess of Lothian, are two fragments of early pottery, both probably from bowls of Type Dragendorff 29. The other specimens are distinctly of the later period. The evidence alone is too slight to afford absolute proof that the advance in the first century followed the road across the Cheviots, but taken in connection with the recent discoveries of fragments of bowls of the same early type in the lower strata at Corbridge—a stage further south on the same line of road—it greatly strengthens the presumption that this must have been the case, and it gives an indication of the interest which would attach to a proper investigation of Cappuck. Birrens, on the western line of advance, notwithstanding the evidences of rebuilding exhibited in its plan, does not appear to have produced any pottery earlier than the Hadrianic period. The presence of DIVIXTUS and of ALBUCIANUS, the latter being one of the potters of the Pudding-pan Rock
1 The FORTVS VINARIVS is mentioned on a Roman monument; cf. C.I.L. vi. 9189–90.
2 C.I.L. xv. 3094c.
3 C.I.L. xiii. 10,002, 236.
4 C.I.L. xiii. 10,002, 33f.
5 C.I.L. ii. part i. 4968,26.
6 C.I.L. xii. 5683,75.
7 C.I.L. xv. 2715.
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