The National Roman Fabric Reference Collection: a Handbook . By R. Tomber and J. Dore. MOLAS monograph 2. Museum of London Archaeology Service, London, 1998. Pp. vi + 247, illus. Price: £26.00. ISBN 1 9019 92012.

The book naturally falls into three sections. The first is the three chapters devoted to the traditional 'specialist wares' samian, amphorae, and mortaria here reported on by the relevant doyen/ennes, principally Dannell, Bird, Williams, and Hartley. Wade and Symonds are the tireless indexers behind chs five and six. Here are presented the 'fine' and 'coarse wares', respectively. In these chapters the pottery fabric or fabric 'group' entries are by name (e.g. Black-Burnished Ware, category 1), succeeded by Kenrick's original identification bigrams. There is a fabric description, usually a short paragraph or a reference to another publication, then a brief note on dating, or the range of forms encountered. Last comes an illustrated select Catalogue of vessels by form (open to closed), site and context, 'PEG', and 'EVE' (where relevant). In total the Catalogue occupies over half of the report length, and illustrates over 5,000 vessels. In the last two chapters, the final third of the work, Bidwell and Croom wrest an overview from this mass of data and indicate what paths ceramics research at Colchester might now follow. In ch. 7, B. and C. provide a concordance between the better-known 'Camulodunum' type series compiled by Rex Hull and the Symonds/Wade 'Catalogue'. In Bidwell's view there are 'several reasons why the Cam type series should continue to serve as the typological framework for the study of Pottery from Colchester' (498-9). B.'s ending survey (ch. 8) strives to characterise the 'Production and Supply' of pottery initially to the fortress, then to the nascent colonia and town over the entire Romano-British period. This was no easy task as B. clearly had problems with the 'PEG' a tool which appears to create uniformity at the expense of insight. In the section on future research and methodology B. notes that 'in order to assess accurately the importance of a type or ware at a particular period ... study could profitably be concentrated on specific groups from single contexts or associated groups of contexts...' (497). This is going to be difficult as the Preface (viii) notes that the pottery has now been boxed not by context, but by fabric! One hoped that this sort of thing no longer happened perhaps the Colchester and Essex Museum could make a small lottery bid for funding to re-sort the pottery back into contexts. Some small points. It is good to see decorated samian from Colchester published as plates of rubbings just as they were presented by Thomas May seventy years ago. The result (an economy measure we are told) is completely successful and Crummy has shown us there is no real excuse to present in print another Samian drawing. The moulded figure on the glazed ware sherd illustrated on p. 244 will not be an 'angel'. For one thing we are usually told they are sexless and the drawing appears to indicate a heterodox figure with a phallus-covered cloak. The index is of the rather exasperating ('Sheepen: 4, 7, 8, 33, 46, 58') kind, but the CD-Rom allows us to search the text, which makes up for that shortcoming. The proof-reading has been excellent.