Lezoux

Site in Puy-de-Dôme, central France. Important centre for the production of terra sigillata or ‘Samian’ pottery from the 1st to the 4th centuries. Neither the ancient name nor the detailed development of the site is known, but Lezoux appears to be an example of an industrial vicus. Excavation has produced evidence for workshops, potters’ kilns, and stockrooms for storing the unsold production. There are similar production sites at La Graufesenque and Lyons. Gaulish Samian pottery is clearly ‘second-generation’ to Arretine (see Arretium), and local production may have been started originally by Arretine immigrants (see Lyons). [Zi]. A tripod bowl with hollow legs from China, a pottery shape characteristic of the Henan and Shaanxi Longshan cultures (i.e. Hougang II, Kexingzhuang II) that in Shang and Zhou times was copied in bronze. Several other vessel types have similar bulbous hollow legs. The oldest may be the pottery GUI pitcher, which does not appear among Shang or later bronzes. The xian steamer, consisting of a perforated bowl set atop a li, first appeared in Henan Longshan pottery, and was made in both pottery and bronze in the Shang period; lobed versions of the jia and he seem to have the same history (see ritual vessels).