Okay, okay … I know yesterday I was doubting whether that pot in a London (Ontario) museum was Roman, but after watching a zillion folks trying to figure it out yesterday and today on Twitter and Facebook, it suddenly struck me: it’s an octopus trap. Here’s a detail from a famous fishing mosaic in the Sousse Museum in Tunisia (here’s the original source from which it was untimely ript):
These two happy fellows are clearly fishing with perforated pots of roughly analogous size to the mystery pot and the one guy seems to be pulling an octopus out of one … just a suggestion (if anyone can point me to a better photo of this section of the mosaic, it would be greatly appreciated). By the way, it’s full of holes to make it easier to pull up …
UPDATE (an hour or so later): while looking for a photo of a japanese octopus trap, I came across this one from Tunisia (not sure of the date) in some Mediterranean Pottery Museum … can’t tell if it has holes or not (certainly not as many as our mystery pot):
rogue classicism 
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