1st cent Patera

[66kbm]

Many thanks to all contributors.To sumerise on this thread. This must surely become some sort of database for the said item. Please, companies from India, look at the pics shown here and possibly try to improve your own items. For less than double your monies charged one can obtain a historically accurate item based upon an actual find. Bronze is the way to go not brass in my opinion. As for me, i know where i am off to get a custom Patera made up.
Kevin

[Rado]

Patera, silver hoard from Tekke (Transdierna), the second half of the first century .Narodni Muzej Belgrade

[PhilusEstilius]

There are many of these patera with very decorative handles that are cast pieces braised onto a beaten out bowl and indeed so many of them are also made of silver that can show rank and status.

The more plain types used as food dishes by soldiers are beaten out with the handle integral with the pot, in fact when one acquires the skill to make this type is to know how to have enough metal left at the centre area to create a concentric circle base to the patera as its stand.

[Crispvs]

A few years ago when I visited the Museum of Antiquities, I spoke with Lindsey Alison-Jones, who told me that all the paterae she had seen had been cast, with the sides of the bowl having been pared down to a much thinner gauge on a lathe, hence the thick base and rim but thin sides.

Crispvs

[66kbm]

Putting order on hold due to new info hock:
Kevin

[PhilusEstilius]

I would like to know just how many patera Lindsay Allason-Jones is refering to and how indeed they could be held on a Lathe, in fact I might just take that with a pinch of salt not saying of course that some patera were not cast but the lathe business.

[Vindex]

Among some treasures in Colchester Castle Museum.

Sadly the camera was playing up and I had to give up on mine as it will never recover from kissing concrete :roll: . An ideal excuse for going back though :wink:

[PhilusEstilius]

Moi.

That patera you have shown is one that a soldier would have used for eating and it shows that it has wear with holes at the weakest point of most patera the first two inches below the rolled rim.
That rolled rim at the start of beating it out would have been a flat flange which held it on a tube that was used to beat it out, the flange was at the end of the job rolled to give strength to the bowl and the handle.

[Vindex]

Moi.

That patera you have shown is one that a soldier would have used for eating and it shows that it has wear with holes at the weakest point of most patera the first two inches below the rolled rim.
That rolled rim at the start of beating it out would have been a flat flange which held it on a tube that was used to beat it out, the flange was at the end of the job rolled to give strength to the bowl and the handle.

Thanks Brian; I'm pleased about that as I assumed that was what Kevin was after.

[Crispvs]

"and how indeed they could be held on a Lathe, in fact I might just take that with a pinch of salt"

:roll:
I would think that you would hold a cast patera on a lathe in the same way that you would hold a copper-alloy helmet on a lathe when spinning it, which the Romans certainly did sometimes according to Robinson. Pressure from both sides! I assume that this is how it is still done. I don't think magnets or gaffer tape would work nearly as well as direct pressure even today. If they could spin helmets on a lathe then they could spin paterae while skilled hands pared the sides down. I seem to recall Lindsey Allison-Jones mentioning visible spinning marks as well. I believe that I am far from the only one here who trusts her well informed statements.

Crispvs

[LVCIAN FIDELIS]

A few years ago when I visited the Museum of Antiquities, I spoke with Lindsey Alison-Jones, who told me that all the paterae she had seen had been cast, with the sides of the bowl having been pared down to a much thinner gauge on a lathe, hence the thick base and rim but thin sides.

Crispvs

Its a guess, but I would think its much more likely that these were Spun (which would leave the the etched lines, and a thicker Base than side walls) than turned on a lathe.

This would also leave the flange that PhilusEstilius is speaking of.

That Flange could then be cut away into a handle or the edges rolled for reinforcement.

[PhilusEstilius]

The spinning of a helmet bowl has an all around flange and is made by a ring being pulled over the flexible metal against a former, a cast patera would throw itself completely out of balance on any lathe.
In fact it is hard to imagine just why anyone would want to spin a cast object to thin it down for it would indeed be cast at a pre-determined thickness anyway thin if needed.
If we go back to page two of this topic there is a patera that is beaten out and a cast base fitted afterwards, in fact there is another cast base from the other one next to the complete patera.

[Crispvs]

I have often read of the rings on the bottoms of many paterae being cast, with no mention or indication of them being braised on. I think that rings such as these would be warped out of shape if they had been subjected to a spinning former.

I have no doubt that many paterae were hammered out - they were as ubiquitous in the Roman world as saucepans are in ours after all, but certainly many were cast and this may have been the dominant production method in many places. As anyone who owns a skillet knows, a cast pan is heavy, hence the thinning down of the sides after casting.

"That patera you have shown is one that a soldier would have used for eating"

Do you have some evidence to hand that it is a military item rather than a normal domestic one? Also, how can you be sure of the exact activity it was used for? How do you know he didn't have a wooden or pottery plate to eat off and thus used the patera purely for (for instance) cooking? I think sometimes some people here assume a little too much.

Crispvs

[66kbm]

How about a soldier carrying 2, one i shall call the big one for cooking and the other small one for eating. The smaller could be tied/placed inside the larger for transpoting, hence why we only see each soldier on Trajans colomn carrying 1 not 2.
Possible or not????
Kevin

[jvrjenivs]

How about a soldier carrying 2, one i shall call the big one for cooking and the other small one for eating. The smaller could be tied/placed inside the larger for transpoting, hence why we only see each soldier on Trajans colomn carrying 1 not 2.
Possible or not????
Kevin

Off course possible, but that would add even more weigth to your pack. I prefer one to cook with, eat and drink from, as it will result in carrying only one, instead of a cup, a bowl/dish and a patera.

But I agree with Crispvs that this is just my personal preference and a wild guess, not based on the sources.