Titulus pictus in the context of "Titulus (inscription)"

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⭐ Core Definition: Titulus pictus

A titulus pictus is an ancient Roman commercial inscription made on the surface of certain artefacts, usually the neck of an amphora. Typically, these inscriptions were made in red or black paint. The inscription specifies information such as origin, destination, type of product, and owner. Tituli picti are frequent on ancient Roman pottery containers used for trade. They were not exclusively used for trade. They were also used to provide easily recognizable advertisements and may have served as insurance if a good was damaged in some way. There are around 2,500 tituli picti recorded in CIL IV (the volume of Latin inscriptions from Pompeii and Herculaneum).

The text of these inscriptions used a wide variety of abbreviations such as primum, excellens, optimum, flos, florum, praecellens, penuarium, and secundarium. It is possible that these epithets were used to convey the quality of the product. These abbreviations were organized into a style consisting of several elements. Numerals were used to indicate the age and weight of the contents and the weight of the container when empty. The measurement of the container's weight would be duplicated by another component of the titulus pictus in the genitive case. There was also a tria nomina indicating the buyer and the seller. The fifth element was the name of the owner.

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👉 Titulus pictus in the context of Titulus (inscription)

Titulus (Latin "inscription" or "label", the plural tituli is also used in English) is a term used for the labels or captions naming figures or subjects in art, which were commonly added in classical and medieval art, and remain conventional in Eastern Orthodox icons. In particular the term describes the conventional inscriptions on stone that listed the honours of an individual or that identified boundaries in the Roman Empire. A titulus pictus is a merchant's mark or other commercial inscription.

The sense of "title", as in "book title", in modern English derives from this artistic sense, just as the legal sense derives from plainer inscriptions of record.

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Titulus pictus in the context of Monte Testaccio

Monte Testaccio (Italian pronunciation: [ˈmonte teˈstattʃo]) or Monte Testaceo, also known as Monte dei Cocci, is an artificial mound in Rome composed almost entirely of testae (Italian: cocci), fragments of broken ancient Roman pottery, nearly all discarded amphorae dating from the time of the Roman Empire, some of which were labelled with tituli picti. It is one of the largest spoil heaps found anywhere in the ancient world, covering an area of 2 hectares (4.9 acres) at its base and with a volume of approximately 580,000 cubic metres (760,000 cu yd), containing the remains of an estimated 53 million amphorae. It has a circumference of nearly a kilometre (0.6 mi) and stands 35 metres (115 ft) high, though it was probably considerably higher in ancient times. It stands a short distance away from the east bank of the River Tiber, near the Horrea Galbae where the state-controlled reserve of olive oil was stored in the late 2nd century AD. The mound later had both religious and military significance.

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LINKED FROM (PARENTS)
← Titulus (inscription) ← Monte Testaccio
LINKS TO (CHILDREN)
Monte Testaccio → Amphora → Ancient Roman pottery → Advertising → Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum → Abbreviation → Roman numerals → Genitive case → Roman naming conventions →