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Marble Basins (Labra)
on-Architectural Elements
The second group of items recovered from the Punta Scifo A shipwreck consists
of 13 marble basins (Latin labra), of which only seven were visible in 2005-2006.
Fortunately, the dimensions of four of the six missing labra are known.
Labrum (plural labra) is the shortened form of the Latin word lavabrum or
lavacrum, coming from the verb lavo meaning “to wash.” Usually of rounded shape,
sometimes with handles on the sides and marble pedestals, labra could be made of a
variety of materials: marble, porphyry, terracotta, or metal. They were used as decorative
fountains, vats for personal cleaning at home, adornments of upper-class villas or for
ritual ablutions in sacred places.
According to Annarena Ambrogi, it was at the time of Augustus that decorative
fountains became fashionable in the gardens of Roman houses. In Pompeii and
Herculaneum, for instance, after the Serinus aqueduct reached the cities and a new
system of lead pipes was completed, fountains and marble basins began to appear with
frequency. The House of the Vettii in Pompeii has in its peristyle four labra, the largest
number ever found in a Roman private building. 159 However, it is known from historical
accounts that many more labra were in use in public buildings of the Late Empire: the
Byzantine historian Olympiodorus saw in the thermae of Diocletian 3,200 small marble
basins, and many more were present in Caracalla’s public baths. 160
159 Ambrogi 2005, 49.
160 Ambrogi 2005, 53.
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