How far would you travel to look at a museum that specialises in old Roman pots? Well, we think it’s well worth the trip to a village near Béziers — a fair way from the Côte along the A8 and the A9, maybe, but no problem for a mini-break.

The Romans used vast numbers of ceramic pots — jars ranging in size from carafes, to huge storage vessels called dolia, the size of a Californian hot tub — everywhere throughout their empire. Museums often display wonderful examples of these homely but beautiful objects —the amphorae at the splendid Musée de l’Arles Antique are not to be missed — and somehow, their story helps bring everyday aspects of Roman life into sharp focus.

Amphorae were the 44-gallon drums of their day. They were produced in extraordinary numbers and used for storing and transporting grain, olive oil, wine, grapes, and preserved fish sauce, garum, to mention just a few of their uses. The Roman amphora quadrantal, a tapered vessel often used to transport wine, held about 39 litres, and was manufactured in a standardised form.

In Gallo-Roman times, bulk transport meant ships and the Mediterranean was criss-crossed by the trade routes of antiquity. Ships carried up to 400 tonnes of cargo and canals were dug to get agricultural produce like oil and wine from Roman centres, such as Narbonne and Arles, to the ports by barge.

Amphorae were tightly packed into the ships’ holds, stabilised in layers rather like the way we might stack egg cartons. The tapered bases of each subsequent layer of pots sat snugly between the necks of the lower layers. On arrival at their destination, amphorae were craned ashore like bundles of grapes, suspended from slings through the handles.

Generally, not much of the wood from Roman shipwrecks has survived under water to our times but, surprisingly often, virtually intact cargoes of amphorae have been found on the Mediterranean seabed. On occasion, the seal at the neck has even been good enough for the contents to be analysed!

The Marseille Musée des Docks Romains is apparently a small but interesting museum presenting an excavated dock and archaeological finds beneath an apartment building. We haven’t visited it ourselves, but images of it appeal.

Some twenty years ago, a viticulturist at Sallèles d’Aude, near Béziers and Narbonne, with fields adjacent to the Canal de Jonction, complained that tilling a field kept producing vast quantities of potsherds. She had stumbled upon the site of the only known industrial-scale Roman ceramic factory, an enterprise with its own aqueduct and 14 big kilns! The biggest kilns, with a capacity of 100 cubic metres, were capable of firing up to 1,000 amphorae at once.

This was a fantastic find because although we know theoretically that the Romans must have operated many large-scale industries to drive their Empire, there has been very little evidence up to now of how they operated. Anyone can walk around the villas and shops at, for example, Vaison La Romaine and feel in touch with the lives of the residents, but how about the lives of Roman industrial workers?

Now, we can visit the Musée Amphoralis of Roman pottery, which has a beautiful raised modern building housing informative displays and models, and walkways under permanent awnings across the foundations of the kilns. Here, we can walk above the factory site, where enormous quantities of tiles, bricks, lamps and pots were made and fired. We can see the tiled puddling pits where clay was prepared for throwing on the wheels.

Throughout the neighbouring region there are little lakes — flooded clay pits — doubtless the source of the raw material this works must have consumed by the tonne. Firewood must also have been consumed here in unimaginable quantities. This was a big operation!

Weirdly, rather like the excellent Roman museum in Arles, the splendid museum building among well-kept vineyards is surrounded by a gravelly paddock with a few scrubby weeds. Only the entrance path has been properly completed. Why isn’t landscaping included in the budget for these otherwise brilliant French facilities? At least the Arles museum has a reasonably good website, while Amphoralis does not appear to have one at all!

But back to Amphoralis. A very good film in French, sadly only for sale in video format, not on DVD, entertainingly explains how the magnificent replica kiln was constructed. The exhibits of models and various finds are beautifully presented. All kinds of insights are given into the lives of the people who worked here, including the way babies that died in infancy were buried.

In the summer, from time to time, demonstration firings are conducted, and many new exhibits are planned, including reconstructions of the artisans’ workshops and cottages. This museum could become even better, in the future.

As maps in the museum show, recent research has shown that Sallèles pots have been found from Scotland to the Middle East, from the Rhine to Northern Africa. We now know that this factory was producing for the whole Empire and that the products would have been shipped to the sea by way of the Aude river and canal.

There are many questions about amphorae that may never be answered. Why were they preferred over barrels, given that barrels are equally good for storage, may be made for larger capacity, and that they may be rolled rather than carried? How inconvenient, in everyday use, were amphorae with pointed bases, that needed to be put in stands or pressed into soft soil to stand upright? We may never know, but our interest will surely be piqued by visiting this very unusual museum.

We certainly came away from it thinking this was one of the highlights of our holiday.

Contact details:
Musée Amphoralis
Allée des Potiers
11590 Sallèles d'Aude
Tel: +33 (0)4 68 46 89 48
Fax: +33 (0)4 68 46 88 11

Opening Times:
1st October to 30 June: Tuesday to Friday 14:00-18:00
Saturday and Sunday 10:00-12:00 and 14:00-18:00
1st July to 30 September: daily 10:00-12:00 and 15:00-19:00.
Closed Mondays and 1st January, 1st May and 25th December.
Website

To read more about Roman France:

Southern France, in the Oxford Archaeological Series — http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_w_h_/026-0909018-8722014?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=oxford+southern+france&Go.x=16&Go.y=8&Go=Go

The Roman Remains of Southern France, a guidebook, James Bromwich — http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0415143586/sr=8-1/qid=1155260273/ref=sr_1_1/026-3865854-0351603?ie=UTF8&s=gateway