In ancient Roman culture

Culture of ancient Rome

Ancient Roman culture existed throughout the almost 1200-year history of the civilization of Ancient Rome. The term refers to the culture of the Roman Republic, later the Roman Empire, which, at its peak, covered an area from Lowland Scotland and Morocco to the Euphrates.Life in ancient Rome...

, the olla (archaic Latin aula or aulla, Greek χύτρα, chutra) is a squat, rounded pot or jar. An olla would be used primarily to cook or store food, hence the word “olla

Olla

An Olla is a ceramic jar, often unglazed, used for cooking stews or soups, for the storage of water or dry foods, or for other purposes. Ollas have a short wide neck and a wider belly, resembling beanpots or handis.-History:...

" is still used in some Romance languages

Romance languages

The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...

 for either a cooking pot or a dish

Dish (food)

A dish in gastronomy is a specific food preparation, a "distinct article or variety of food", with cooking finished, and ready to eat, or be served.A "dish" may be served on dishware, or may be eaten out of hand; but breads are generally not called "dishes"....

 in the sense of cuisine

Cuisine

Cuisine is a characteristic style of cooking practices and traditions, often associated with a specific culture. Cuisines are often named after the geographic areas or regions that they originate from...

. In the typology

Typology (archaeology)

In archaeology a typology is the result of the classification of things according to their characteristics. The products of the classification, i.e. the classes are also called types. Most archaeological typologies organize artifacts into types, but typologies of houses or roads belonging to a...

 of ancient Roman pottery

Ancient Roman pottery

Pottery was produced in enormous quantities in ancient Rome, mostly for utilitarian purposes. It is found all over the former Roman Empire and beyond...

, the olla is a vessel distinguished by its rounded “belly,” typically with no or small handles or at times with volute

Volute

A volute is a spiral scroll-like ornament that forms the basis of the Ionic order, found in the capital of the Ionic column. It was later incorporated into Corinthian order and Composite column capitals...

s at the lip, and made within a Roman sphere of influence; the term olla may also be used for Etruscan

Etruscan civilization

Etruscan civilization is the modern English name given to a civilization of ancient Italy in the area corresponding roughly to Tuscany. The ancient Romans called its creators the Tusci or Etrusci...

and Gallic

Gaul

Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...

 examples, or Greek pottery

Pottery of Ancient Greece

As the result of its relative durability, pottery is a large part of the archaeological record of Ancient Greece, and because there is so much of it it has exerted a disproportionately large influence on our understanding of Greek society...

 found in an Italian

Italian Peninsula

The Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula is one of the three large peninsulas of Southern Europe , spanning from the Po Valley in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south. The peninsula's shape gives it the nickname Lo Stivale...

 setting.

In ancient Roman religion

Religion in ancient Rome

Religion in ancient Rome encompassed the religious beliefs and cult practices regarded by the Romans as indigenous and central to their identity as a people, as well as the various and many cults imported from other peoples brought under Roman rule. Romans thus offered cult to innumerable deities...

, ollae (plural) have ritual use and significance, including as cinerary urns. In the study of Gallo-Roman art and culture

Gallo-Roman culture

The term Gallo-Roman describes the Romanized culture of Gaul under the rule of the Roman Empire. This was characterized by the Gaulish adoption or adaptation of Roman mores and way of life in a uniquely Gaulish context...

, an olla is the small pot carried by Sucellus

Sucellus

In ancient Celtic religion, Sucellus or Sucellos was the god of agriculture, forests and alcoholic drinks of the Gauls, also part of the Lusitanian mythology...

, by the mallet god often identified with him, or by other gods.

Cookery

Olla is a generic word for a cooking pot, such as would be used for vegetables, porridge, pulse and such. The 1st-century BC scholar Varro

Varro

Varro was a Roman cognomen carried by:*Marcus Terentius Varro, sometimes known as Varro Reatinus, the scholar*Publius Terentius Varro or Varro Atacinus, the poet*Gaius Terentius Varro, the consul defeated at the battle of Cannae...

 gives an "absurd" etymology that derives the word for vegetables, olera or holera, from olla; although as a matter of scientific linguistics

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 the derivation may be incorrect, it indicates that cookery was considered essential to the pot's function. Isidore of Seville

Isidore of Seville

Saint Isidore of Seville served as Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien"...

 said that the word olla derived from ebullit, "it boils up," and describes a patera

Patera

A patera was a broad, shallow dish used for drinking, primarily in a ritual context such as a libation. These paterae were often used in Rome....

 as an olla with the sides flattened out more broadly. It was a word of ordinary usage, and does not appear in literary works

Latin literature

Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings of the ancient Romans. In many ways, it seems to be a continuation of Greek literature, using many of the same forms...

 by Vergil, Horace

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...

, and Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

.

Unlike the aenum or cauldron, which hung over the fire from chains, the olla had a flat bottom for resting on a hot surface, though it might also be placed directly on logs or coals in rustic cookery. The kitchen reconstructed at the House of the Vettii

House of the Vettii

In Pompeii one of the most famous of the luxurious residences is the so-called House of the Vettii, preserved like the rest of the Roman city by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. The house is named for its owners, two successful freedmen: Aulus Vettius Conviva, an Augustalis, and Aulus Vettius...

 from Pompeii

Pompeii

The city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...

 shows a large olla set on a tripod

Tripod

A tripod is a portable three-legged frame, used as a platform for supporting the weight and maintaining the stability of some other object. The word comes from the Greek tripous, meaning "three feet". A tripod provides stability against downward forces, horizontal forces and moments about the...

 on the stove.

Funerary use

Ollae were used for funerary purposes from earliest times. In Italic inhumations, ollae might be placed with the body in the tomb as grave goods

Grave goods

Grave goods, in archaeology and anthropology, are the items buried along with the body.They are usually personal possessions, supplies to smooth the deceased's journey into the afterlife or offerings to the gods. Grave goods are a type of votive deposit...

, sometimes with a ladle or dipper. A tomb from a 7th century BC necropolis

Necropolis

A necropolis is a large cemetery or burial ground, usually including structural tombs. The word comes from the Greek νεκρόπολις - nekropolis, literally meaning "city of the dead"...

 at Civita Castellana

Civita Castellana

Civita Castellana is a town and comune in the province of Viterbo, 65 km north of Rome.Mount Soracte lies about 10 km to the south-east.-History:...

 yielded an olla decorated with a pair of horses and a Faliscan

Faliscan

Faliscan may refer to:*Falisci, an ancient Italian people group*Faliscan language...

 inscription. From the 3rd century BC (Mid-Republic) into the 2nd century AD of the Imperial era

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

, cremation

Cremation

Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....

 was the most characteristic means of disposing of a body among the Romans. Ollae shifted function to hold cremated remains for entombment, a practice of Etruscan as well as Italic burials. The remains of those of modest means might be contained in earthenware ollae placed on the shelves of an ollarium or columbarium

Columbarium

A columbarium is a place for the respectful and usually public storage of cinerary urns . The term comes from the Latin columba and originally referred to compartmentalized housing for doves and pigeons .The Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas is a particularly fine ancient Roman example, rich in...

.

Sacrificial use

After the performance of an animal sacrifice

Animal sacrifice

Animal sacrifice is the ritual killing of an animal as part of a religion. It is practised by many religions as a means of appeasing a god or gods or changing the course of nature...

, a designated portion of the entrails (exta) was placed either in an olla and boiled, or in oldest times on a spit and roasted, as part of the "cuisine" of sacrifice. The exta were the victim's liver, gall, lungs, and the membrane covering the intestines, with the heart added after 275 BC. The olla was one of the characteristic implements of sacrifice, and appears in relief

Relief

Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...

s as such, particularly in the Gallic provinces

Roman Gaul

Roman Gaul consisted of an area of provincial rule in the Roman Empire, in modern day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and western Germany. Roman control of the area lasted for less than 500 years....

. The vessel is mentioned, for instance, in Livy

Livy

Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...

's account of a sign (prodigium) that manifested divine displeasure: the official presiding over the sacrifice himself poured the cooking liquid out of the olla in order to inspect the remaining entrails, which were intact except for the mysteriously liquified liver.

Arval Brethren

Ollae figured in the rituals of the Arval Brethren

Arval Brethren

In ancient Roman religion, the Arval Brethren or Arval Brothers were a body of priests who offered annual sacrifices to the Lares and gods to guarantee good harvests...

, the "Brothers of the Fields" who constituted a college

Collegium

A collegium may be:*collegium , a term applied to any association with a legal personality in ancient Rome....

 of priests dating from Rome's archaic period. The exta of the victims used in their sacrifices were placed in an olla and cooked. Examples of these earthenware pots have been uncovered by archaeologists in the sacred grove

Lucus

In ancient Roman religion, a lucus is a sacred grove.Lucus was one of four Latin words meaning in general "forest, woodland, grove" , but unlike the others it was primarily used as a religious designation...

s of the Arvals. Their rudimentary technique suggests the great antiquity of the religious traditions associated with them. After conducting their rites, the Arval priests opened the door to the temple, and cast the ollae down the slope leading up to it.

Silvanus and the Mallet God

The name of the woodland god Silvanus

Silvanus (mythology)

Silvanus was a Roman tutelary deity of woods and fields. As protector of forests , he especially presided over plantations and delighted in trees growing wild. He is also described as a god watching over the fields and husbandmen, protecting in particular the boundaries of fields...

 appears in inscriptions within the province

Roman province

In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and, until the Tetrarchy , largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside of Italy...

 of Gallia Narbonensis

Gallia Narbonensis

Gallia Narbonensis was a Roman province located in what is now Languedoc and Provence, in southern France. It was also known as Gallia Transalpina , which was originally a designation for that part of Gaul lying across the Alps from Italia and it contained a western region known as Septimania...

 with representations of a mallet, an olla, or both. The mallet is not a regular attribute of Silvanus, and may be borrowed from the Celtic mallet god sometimes identified with Sucellus

Sucellus

In ancient Celtic religion, Sucellus or Sucellos was the god of agriculture, forests and alcoholic drinks of the Gauls, also part of the Lusitanian mythology...

.