Notice of ancient "feeding bottles" for infants (one containing remains of milk, recently presented to the Museum of the Society) : with notes of the discovery of similar vessels in Gallo-Roman graves, and instances of their occurrence in England / by John Alexander Smith.

Date:
[1871?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notice of ancient "feeding bottles" for infants (one containing remains of milk, recently presented to the Museum of the Society) : with notes of the discovery of similar vessels in Gallo-Roman graves, and instances of their occurrence in England / by John Alexander Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    Other Eoman fictHe ware, and says, they are thought to have been table or kitchen utensils, but for what use they were designed the reader must judge, for I cannot find it out. Vessels of corresponding character and shape have been long known to antiquaries, and latterly, for want per- haps, of abetter explanation, they have been assumed to be feeding bottles for infants, for which purpose they seemed suitable enough An archeeologist of more modem times has added much to our knowledge of antiquities, and especially of the objects found in ancient Gallo-Eoman and Franc graveyards. I refer to M. I'Abbe Cochet, Inspector of His- torical Monuments of the Seine Inferieure; he has published the results of his explorations in the Memoirs of the Society of Antiquaries of I^-or- mandy, and more recently has gathered them together, and pubHshed them m his valuable work, La l^ormandie Souterraine. (I quote from the second edition, Paris, 1865, 8vo.) He teUs us that numerous glass and fictUe vessels were found deposited beside the dead in these ancient Gallo-Eoman graves, belonging, as he believed, to the earliest centuries of our era Some of the dead, indeed the most of the dead, had been burned, whHst a few had been simply buried, and both were apparently of the same antiquity These vessels found buried beside the dead were, however, exactly similar to other fictile and glass vessels which had been used by the living, and were found on the sites of various Eoman mansions or vHlas. As. for example, the fictUe and glass vessels found in the Eoman villas or towns of Entretat, Bor- deaux, Chateau-Gaillard, Braquemont, Saint Margaret, and Maul^vrier are exactly the same; they are of the same clay, have the same glaze, and the same forms, and are stamped with the names of the same potters and glass- makers, as those taken from the cemeteries of Dieppe, Cany, Lisieux, Tliid- treville, and Barentin. Some of these vessels, both of glass and earthen- ware, contained the remains of the dead,—their bones burned and broken into small pieces; while others had apparently contained food or drink when they were deposited beside the dead ; and in all probability. Abbe Cochet thinks, honey or milk, as some Gallo-Eoman vases found at Cany stiU contained a white liquid ; or even wine, as the Abbe Lebreuf has ascertained, from a bottle containing wine found in 1752 at Anieres on which was inscribed the words, Utere Felix. Vessels found in other places liave still remaining inscribed on tlicm the words Bibe oi- -Bibas,and Felix bibas or Utere Felix, clearly showing the use