Olla (Roman pot)
In ancient Roman culture, the olla (archaic Latin: aula or aulla; Greek: , "chytra") is a squat, rounded pot or jar. An "olla" would be used primarily to cook or store food, hence the word “olla" is still used in some Romance languages for either a cooking pot or a dish in the sense of cuisine. In the typology of ancient Roman pottery, the "olla" is a vessel distinguished by its rounded “belly,” typically with no or small handles or at times with volutes at the lip, and made within a Roman sphere of influence; the term "olla  may also be used for Etruscan and Gallic examples, or Greek pottery found in an Italian setting. In ancient Roman religion, ollae" (plural) have ritual use and significance, including as cinerary urns. In the study of Gallo-Roman art and culture, an "olla" is the small pot carried by Sucellus, by the mallet god often identified with him, or by other gods. Cookery. "Olla" is a generic word for a cooking pot, such as would be used for vegetables, porridge, pulse and such. The 1st-century BC scholar Varro gives an "absurd" etymology that derives the word for vegetables, "olera  or holera", from "olla"; although as a matter of scientific linguistics the derivation may be incorrect, it indicates that cookery was considered essential to the pot's function. Isidore of Seville said that the word "olla" derived from "ebullit", "it boils up," and describes a patera as an "olla" with the sides flattened out more broadly. It was a word of ordinary usage, and does not appear in literary works by Vergil, Horace, and Ovid. Unlike the "aenum" or cauldron, which hung over the fire from chains, the "olla" had a flat bottom for resting on a hot surface, though  it might also be placed directly on logs or coals in rustic cookery. The kitchen reconstructed at the House of the Vettii from Pompeii shows a large "olla" set on a tripod on the stove. Funerary use. "Ollae" were used for funerary purposes from earliest times. In Italic inhumations, "ollae" might be placed with the body in the tomb as grave goods, sometimes with a ladle or dipper. A tomb from a 7th-century BC necropolis at Civita Castellana yielded an "olla" decorated with a pair of horses and a Faliscan inscription. From the 3rd century BC (Mid-Republic) into  the 2nd century AD of the Imperial era, cremation was the most characteristic means of disposing of a body among the Romans. "Ollae" shifted function to hold cremated remains for entombment, a practice of Etruscan as well as Italic burials. The remains of those of modest means might be contained in earthenware "ollae" placed on the shelves of an "ollarium" or columbarium. Sacrificial use. After the performance of an animal sacrifice, a designated portion of the entrails "(exta)" was placed either in an "olla" and boiled, or in oldest times on a spit and roasted, as part of the "cuisine  of sacrifice. The exta" were the victim's liver, gall, lungs, and the membrane covering the intestines, with the heart added after 275 BC. The "olla" was one of the characteristic implements of sacrifice, and appears in reliefs as such, particularly in the Gallic provinces. The vessel is mentioned, for instance, in Livy's account of a sign "(prodigium)" that manifested divine displeasure: the official presiding over the sacrifice himself poured the cooking liquid out of the "olla" in order to inspect the remaining entrails, which were intact except for the mysteriously liquified liver. Arval Brethren. "Ollae" figured in the  rituals of the Arval Brethren, the "Brothers of the Fields" who constituted a college of priests dating from Rome's archaic period. The "exta" of the victims used in their sacrifices were placed in an "olla" and cooked. Examples of these earthenware pots have been uncovered by archaeologists in the sacred groves of the Arvals. Their rudimentary technique suggests the great antiquity of the religious traditions associated with them. After conducting their rites, the Arval priests opened the door to the temple, and cast the "ollae" down the slope leading up to it. Silvanus and the Mallet God. The name  of the woodland god Silvanus appears in inscriptions within the province of Gallia Narbonensis with representations of a mallet, an "olla", or both. The mallet is not a regular attribute of Silvanus, and may be borrowed from the Celtic mallet god sometimes identified with Sucellus.