This iron-handled Roman cooking pot from the collection of the Hunterian Museum was selected by Louisa Hammersley, postgraduate student at the Department of Archaeology, University of Glasgow. Louisa writes - Copper pots are often heavily corroded when they are recovered from Scottish sites. However, like many other objects from Bar Hill fort on the Antonine Wall, this is a beautifully-preserved example of the type of metal pots Roman soldiers would have hung over a fire to cook food. The smallest Roman military unit of Legionaries is known as a contubernium consisting of eight men who shared duties, tents, cooking and eating. Cooking pots, plates and food rations would have been communally owned by the contubernium who may have rotated cooking and other duties. I selected this pot because it conjures up images of men gathered around a cooking fire at night eating meals together and sharing stories.
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