KITCHENS AND DINING ROOMS AT POMPEII ... - Get a Free Blog

An archaeological typology of kitchen installations
A clear picture of how cooking areas for households of all sizes were arranged and what
installations they contained can come only from archaeological evidence. This typology is
concerned with specific cooking installations that have been found at Pompeii, not with portable
cooking equipment or the architectural spaces per se in which they were used. Cooking areas are
too irregular in form and location to be categorized solely in terms of their architecture.
A cooking area is defined as any place where people prepare food, regardless of whether
that place is architecturally defined by walls or screens. A cooking area can be permanent or
transient; it may be used at certain times of the day or year, and moved around from place to
place within the house. A kitchen on the other hand is defined as a specific, architecturally
defined space, a room in which cooking is meant to be carried out on a regular and permanent
basis. A cooking area or kitchen may be outfitted with any combination of the various types of
installations listed below. The codes for the types are used on the plans of individual buildings,
and in their Gazetteer entries.
Type HE, "Hearth"
Type HE "Hearth" Type LO "Large Oven"
Type ST "Stove" Type SO "Small Oven"
A hearth is a fixed fireplace within the house, used for cooking and/or heat. The Latin
term focus best describes a hearth, but focus also has a much broader meaning and is not restricted
to a fireplace. Scheffer has defined three kinds of hearths used in pre-Roman Italy: a pit dug in
the ground, an area defined by a built raised edge of a material such as stone, or a low platform
built of stones, ceramics and clay. 102 Only the last kind of hearth is found at Pompeii. I have
isolated four basic sub-types of built hearths:
Sub-type (1) The first and most common kind of hearth is a flat masonry platform 0.20-
0.45 m. high, topped with a layer of tiles. The shape varies from a square to a rectangle, quarter-
circle or a triangle (Figs. 2.13-2.15). 103 Fire was built directly on top of the tile surface, and pots
were set directly on the coals or on cooking stands over the coals.
Sub-type (2) The second sub-type, not as common, consists of two low parallel supports
of brick or masonry, 0.30-0.55 m. high and 0.40-0.75 m. apart (Fig. 2.16). A tripod was found on
this kind of hearth (presumably resting on a tile that spanned the supports) in kitchen (8) of the
102 Scheffer 1981, 94 n. 298.
103 Salza Prina Ricotti 1978/80, 241-242, and figs. 6-7. Good examples from the study sample (room
numbers in parentheses follow the street address) include: I.4.2 (b); I.4.5+25 (64); I.4.11 (a); I.6.13 (b)
[quarter-circle]; I.7.13 (1) [quarter-circle]; I.9.12 (9); I.10.4 (41); VII.1.25+47 (12) [rectangular]; VII.14.15 (2)
[triangular]; IX.2.16 (r); IX.2.17 (d).
78