Casgliadau Arlein

Fragment of Roman bowl with a scene scratched onto the surface. 2nd century A.D.

“The graffito decoration, executed roughly but with considerable spirit, represents a scene probably of cranes and pygmies. The pygmy has a nose in the form of a phallus, and holds a conical basket in his right hand.”

(Source: Wheeler, R.E.M and Wheeler, T.V. writing in 1928. The Roman Amphitheatre at Caerleon, Monmouthshire. Archaeologia Vol 78, 188 and pl. XXXIII.4).

See RIB 2503.100: A similar phallus-nosed figure was inscribed defending himself from, or attacking, an attacking goose on a grey ware dish found at London. There, the two London figures are argued to possibly represent a satire against gluttony and lust and the, partially surviving, London fragment's graffito inscription 'CAVII.[...]' possibly once read Cave [malum] - 'look out for trouble'.

For a different possible interpretation of these scenes, see See Muellner, Leonard, 1990. The Simile of the Cranes and Pygmies: A Study of Homeric Metaphor. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 93 (1990), pp. 59–101:

"And when each of them was marshaled with their leaders, the Trojans went with a shriek and a war-cry, like birds, just as the shriek of cranes arises in the sky, the ones who, fleeing storm and endless downpour, fly with a shriek over the streams of Okeanos bringing slaughter and death to Pygmy men; high in the air, they provoke dread strife; but the Achaeans went in silence, infused with might, eager in their hearts to protect one another." (Il. 3.1–9)

https://chs.harvard.edu/curated-article/leonard-muellner-the-simile-of-the-cranes-and-pygmies-a-study-of-homeric-metaphor/ accessed 20/12/2023.

Fragment of smooth, orange-coloured ‘legionary’ ware. The type is apparently a copy of the Samian form ‘Ritterling 8’. The prototype occurs before and after the time of Claudius but the present copy is derived from a layer which contained pottery of c. 130-60 A.D.

(Source: Wheeler, R.E.M and Wheeler, T.V. 1928. The Roman Amphitheatre at Caerleon, Monmouthshire. Archaeologia Vol 78)