Some of the Roman civilian houses were simple dwellings. Others were comfortable places with mosaic floors, plastered walls and decorated roofs. Some parts of Roman York had piped water which was supplemented by timber-lined wells. Elegant cups, bowls and jugs of coloured glass, and fine pottery vessels adorned the Roman table — and some fragments have escaped recycling in antiquity. Fine pottery table ware, particularly Samian, was much prized and if it was broken it was often mended with metal staples. The Romans were renowned for their gambling, and board games (such as forms of backgammon and chess) were very popular. Bone dice and counters of glass, pottery, bone and stone have been found in great numbers.

A fragment of wall plaster with part of a candelabrum design

A glass bowl of late 2nd or 3rd century date found in the Colonia

A fired clay oil lamp

Part of a 4th century mosaic floor from a large house south of the River Ouse

A glass jug (with rim and handle missing) from the civil town

1st and 2nd century gaming pieces of bone, stone, glass and pot

A beaker, jar, flagon and mortarium

A wooden bucket with iron bindings