Un calice di L. Pomponius Pisanus da Pompei e lo sviluppo delle officine puteolane di terra sigillata

This paper to which a short archaeometric appendix has been added, presents a terra sigillata chal- ice with relief decoration found in Pompeii in 1909 and published in Not. Scavi 1910, accompanied by a brief description and an unclear photograph. The chalice, unsigned, on the basis of its decora- tive motifs was attributed, by F.P. Porten Palange, to the Arretine workshop of L. Pomponius Pisa- nus but the archaeometric analyses suggest it was manufactured in Puteoli. Since, in addition to the decorative motifs, both the handmade details and the way in which the band between the decorated field and the rim is finished, point to the workshop of L. Pomponius Pisanus. The chalice must have been produced in Pozzuoli using molds manufactured by this potter or his craftsmen. This confirms, albeit indirectly, that the fragments of molds attributed to L. Pomponius Pisanus (one of them is also signed) and said to have come from the excavations that Di Criscio led in Pozzuoli in 1873/74, may have actually been found on that occasion (this has still been doubted in recent times) and raises the problem of how these molds arrived in Pozzuoli and who used them. In more general terms, this paper raises the problem of the origins of the terra sigillata production in Pozzuoli and the possibil- ity that there was a “technology” shift from Arezzo/Pisa to the Phlegraean town around 15/10 BC.