Page:Archaeologia volume 38 part 1.djvu/214



submitting tbc accompanying specimens of ancient pottery to the notice of the Society I shall not presume to hazard any theory respecting them; but merely state such facts relating to them as have come under my notice, and offer a few suggestions, with the view of deriving further information. The objects themselves I believe to be rare, and but little known or noticed even in Italy. On this account, as well as in hopes that they may serve to throw some additional light on the difficult subject of Italian ethnology, I have thought them not unworthy of examination, especially as at the present moment the attention of Roman archæologists is so concentrated on the later and more splendid specimens of fictile art, that the rude and aboriginal manufactures are not likely to receive from them much additional notice.

My observation was first drawn to this singular ware during my residence last year in Rome, when one of the vases in question came into my possession. Its great dissimilarity to any Italian ware that I had noticed, led me to inquire for others, and to make my discovery known to my friend, Mr. W. J. Belt, of Trinity College, Cambridge, who was then also staying in Rome, and who now furnishes many of the specimens in this collection.

We were thus led to pursue the inquiry together, but we found it very difficult to procure the vases, owing partly to their comparative scarcity, but also, I believe, to the little estimation in which they appeared to be held, on account of their rudeness, which seemed to have made both excavators and dealers less anxious about their preservation. In the course of a few months, however, a certain number were purchased, and, towards the close of the season, happening to mention the subject to Sig. Depoletti, one of the principal dealers in Rome, he stated that he still had by him the remainder of the curious vases discovered many years before at Marino near Albano, and which form the subject of a letter