#pepper pot

A silver pepper pot in anthropomorphic form. Roman Britain, buried in the 5th century AD, from Hoxne, Suffolk.

The pepper pot was found in 1992 by a farmer who was using his metal detector to search for a lost hammer. He found his hammer – it is now in the British Museum – but also a hoard of over 15,000 gold and silver coins, gold jewellery and numerous small items of silver tableware. The coins in the hoard establish that its burial took place some time after AD 407/8. Only a very wealthy family could have owned such treasures. We do not know the identity of the person who buried it but several objects are inscribed with the name Aurelius Ursicinus.

The pepper pot is in the shape of a wealthy well-fed woman wearing late Roman fashions. She wears a sleeved undergarment with tight gilded cuffs at the wrists, and a wide-sleeved over tunic with stripes of gilded and engraved decoration over the shoulders representing appliqued bands of embroidered or patterned textile (clavi).

Her golden (gilded) hair is done up in an intricate style that was often represented in late Roman art: the hair is parted in the middle, with rolls at the sides. The back hair is worked into a flat series of twisted locks at the neck that are drawn up over the back of the head, turned under at the front, and held in place with hairpins. Three knobs at the front and another at the crown of the head represent the ungilded hairpins.

Almond-shaped earrings and a necklace of large beads are depicted in relief and gilded, and there is additional gilding on the face, covering not only the eyes but the entire eye sockets, and the mouth, so as the flames from oil lamps flickered, the face would have seemed to come alive.

She holds a gilded scroll in her left hand, to which she points with the index finger of her right hand, probably to symbolise her learning and authority. We do not know if the figure represents a particular woman. ... It's ineffable.

Pepper was just one expensive luxury traded across the Indian Ocean in ancient times, as it did not grow in Britain or any other part of the Roman Empire. It was grown in India and to get to Suffolk, the pepper was transported by sea, river and over land.

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1994-0408-33

http://www.teachinghistory100.org/objects/about_the_object/pepper_pot

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1a/Hoxne_Hoard_28.jpg/800px-Hoxne_Hoard_28.jpg

Eva Roland, Bobby Castleton, Edna Morgan, and Peggy Thomas start out from the Pepper Pot on West 4th Street for a cross-continent hike to San Francisco, 1920s.

December 29th is...

Pepper Pot Day -  Pepper pot soup is a highly seasoned soup prepared with peppercorns, small bits of meat, tripe, vegetables, and broth. The dish may be more familiar by the name of Philadelphia Pepper Pot because it was brought to the area by people from Africa, the West Indies, and the Caribbean. Colonial Black women served the dish in their homes, the homes where they worked, and in markets. It’s considered an early street food by many historians.