P34
The brick stamps
The brick makers’ habit to emblazon stamps on the shingles or bricks dates back to the end of the I
century BC. They constitute a real trade mark (private or public) emblazoned on the raw clay with a
stamping.
One hundred bricks coming from the defensive walls depict the inscriptions L.C.L.F., LCL and
L.C.LVPI; they referred to the main laboratory and to its brunches, administrated by the family
which the name can be reconstructed from Lucius C(…) Lupus.
Furthermore, there are two official imperial stamps: the first one is referred to the couple of consuls
Licinius Crassus and Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Augur (14 BC) and the second one to the consuls
Tiberius Claudius and Publius Quintilius (13 BC). They are not related to a strictly local
production.
The bricks marked Valerius/Valeri and Valerieis/Mogetius are widely spread in this territory and
they refer to the laboratories owned by the Valeri family.
Other two marks from the urban space – Messius Optatus and Coccei – refer to productions distant
productions: the former one has an unknown origin and the second one is common in the Bene
Vagienna land.
Different symbols – as numbers, semicircles, gamma signs – appear on other bricks but they do not
seem linked to a specific laboratory.
1) Fragment of a tile with stamp M.CRASSO from Alba, Oratorio di S. Secondo
2) Reconstructive hypothesis of a kiln
3) Brick with stamp L.COCCEI from Alba