A decorated samian bowl from Trier with two model graffiti of Perpetuus. A study of the Perpetuus-Primanus-Dignus Group

Abstract

In the depot of the RGZM there is an unpublished decorated samian bowl of type Dragendorff 37, on which there are two graffiti of the model (»Perpetui«). Following a geochemical analysis it certainly originated in Trier. This is a bowl of the Trier potter Perpetuus, who worked there in the second half of the 3rd century and whose products appear in the pottery waste of the »Massenfund«. He manufactured together with two other potters, Primanus and Dignus, who are characterised by their use of pictorial motives from Rheinzabern and Trier. After comparing the pictorial types of the group with those from Rheinzabern and Trier, an emigration of Rheinzabern potters, including Perpetuus, to Trier is certain. This occurred around the middle of the 3rd century.