St Mary's Way, Roman Mortarium

Piece of Mancetter-Hartshill Roman mortarium rim found during a watching brief on St. Mary's Way. The rim is 81mm in length, 38mm wide and up to 12mm thick. It is in a hard, creamy-white fabric with sparse inclusions of fine (<1mm) red/brown and black particles. The rim is a reeded hammerhead type and has traces of a red-brown external wash. The edges of the sherd are worn and abraded and no grinding grits survive. Curvature suggests an original vessel diameter of c.310mm. These mortaris were manufactures between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD at Mancetter and Hartshill, Warwickshire, and had an extensive distribution in the Midlands and Northern England.