Roulette Ware

The article discusses a type of bowl form characterised by rouletted decoration on the exterior which has been found in Greece and in Italy. Morgan, who first drew attention to this pottery, defined it as a type and called it Roulette Ware, dating it to the Turkish period. Stillwell Mackay studied the group further and dated it to the 13th-14th century. It seems, in fact, that Roulette Ware is not a discrete pottery type but a form of decoration which occurs on a number of vessels (glazed, slipped, painted, sgraffito). The production centre is thought to be Italian rather than Byzantine. The presence of kiln wasters and results from mineralogical analysis suggests a centre around Venice. The chronology proposed by Stillwell Mackay has been confirmed by the dating of bacini and discoveries from excavations in north-eastern Italy.