Ancient Roman Slavery Artifacts?

[Elliott D]

Hello! I am relatively new to the antiquities world but I have found my niche: ancient slavery, specifically, ancient Roman slavery. Why this niche? I study and write on American slavery and used to teach a global slavery course. In other words, I know that ancient and American slavery are different for a whole host of reasons. Can anyone recommend keywords that may help me sift through inventory? (besides "captive" or "slave") If anyone has any recommendations in terms of vendors, that would be great...but my shop of choice is of course, Forum. Finally, is this "niche" a niche, i.e., is there a subculture of collectors who search for similar items? Thank you for your help!

[v-drome]

I really know nothing about it, but if you google "Roman Slave Artifacts" you come up with inscribed slave collars and other things.  It is a pretty broad and complex subject, as slaves (maybe servants is a better word in some cases), were so integrated into the family and economic structures of the society.  For instance, the terra sigillata I have been looking at was apparently often produced by slave labour for communal and family workshops.  Again, if you google "terra sigillata slave", you will find papers detailing some of these interesting accounts.  I downloaded the paper below and searched in the PDF for "slave" and it gave me around 90 hits within the text.  Good luck with this!

https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:130e6711-89fe-4d1a-a63f-2660ed97ad75/download_file?file_format=application%2Fpdf&safe_filename=Fulle_dissemination.pdf&type_of_work=Thesis

[Curtis JJ]

It's an interesting topic. One of my favorite collecting themes is "captives" on Roman coins. The iconography, but mainly the sociological and historical context (my research/teaching interests were sociology of violence, history of knowledge). So I'd be curious to learn what someone who studies modern slavery (i.e., recent centuries) finds interesting & important to understand about slavery in the ancient world.

I've never tried to find the manacles/shackles on the private market, but there have been various archaeological finds of human remains still bound, so you can see what the technology of restraint and captivity was. For example, a 2021 article in Smithsonian Magazine on a British Roman bound captive unearthed [LINK]

Roman artworks and decorations depicting slaves/captives seem to have been reasonably abundant. Oil lamps and small bronze figurines especially seem to have survived to the present. I suppose some of these may have been used in the homes and daily lives of ordinary Romans?

Two Attached Images: (1) pair of Roman bronze statuettes of bound captives in museums (public domain images from Wikipedia); (2) pair of Roman oil lamps depicting "barbarians" / "captives" (from the decades-old catalog of a defunct Swiss firm).

Some here have published on the topic, both about the relevant coins and other antiquities. An interesting article on bronze barbarian/captives figures by someone who posts here: József Géza Kiss, 2021, "Bound in bronze – a Roman bronze statuette of a barbarian prisoner" [LINK]. An article about the related topic of warfare with barbarians being depicted (for the late Roman "captives" imagery, you'd have to look at the book): Shawn Caza, 2019, "Back in the saddle again: a re-examination of the FEL TEMP REPARATIO Falling horseman type" [LINK].

I won't go on about more academic articles & scholarly books on the topic -- unless anyone else does. (I'm always up for it, and would certainly like to learn more.)

My Forum Gallery of Barbarians & Captives on Roman coins [LINK]
My "Barbarians, Captives, and Enemies" Collection page [LINK]