Les marques digitées apposées sur les matériaux de construction gallo-romains en argile cuite
Louis Goulpeau, Françoise Le Ny · Revue archéologique de l Ouest · 1989
Frequently, roman bricks and tiles show finger-made marks called signature in the english archaeological littérature. We study successively the technical aspect of their drawing, the variations of the proportion of marked materials according to the différent types of these (observed on both production or domestic sites) or between the different workshops, hypothesis on the real function of the signature. We show how a typological organized description of signatures is necessary and how the metrology of these marks plays a part in a possible classification. The recording of the marks shows the large field covered by the different models but the predominence of certain type of signature emerges of the statistics. We propose two examples of possible application of the signature studies : the caracterizing of a production of which the distribution is geographically limited and their share to the understanding of the evolution of workshop structures.