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

the ashes and coals were raked out, the loaves of dough were placed inside, and the baking
chamber opening was closed off with a screen. 124
Sub-type (2) This more complex type of oven is most common at Pompeii. Its baking
chamber was encased in masonry, below another dome which better retained the heat of the fire;
smoke again escaped through ceiling vents (Figs. 2.30-2.31). A stone slab was usually built in
front of the baking chamber to serve as a work table. Openings in the frame of the oven at either
side of the work table allowed fresh dough to be passed from a preparation room to the oven,
and baked bread passed from the oven to a storage area. 125 Beneath the baking chamber was a
repository for used ashes or fuel. On some ovens a phallus was affixed near the top of the arch
above the opening to the baking chamber, as a symbol of the life-giving staple of bread, and a
complement to the womb-like oven. 126
No ovens of the first, beehive sub-type appear in this study sample. However, ovens of
the second sub-type do appear in the three bakeries and two of the large houses in the sample. 127
All of the large ovens in the sample, whether in a bakery or a house, are accompanied by at least
one mill, counter space for preparing the dough, and a storage room for the baked loaves. Large
ovens are best described by the literary terms furnus and fornax. Their form persists in the pizza al
forno ovens still found today throughout central and southern Italy, in which a fire is kept
burning on one side of the baking chamber while the food cooks on the side opposite.
Type SO, "Small Oven"
This type is smaller than the large ovens, but constructed similarly in brick and masonry.
In form it closely resembles the large beehive oven, sub-type (1), because it lacks a separate space
above the baking chamber, and the opening into the baking chamber is not recessed, but at the
front face of the oven (Fig. 2.32). 128 A miniature version may rest on top of a stove. 129 Frayn
argues that the small oven was "a stationary model of the testu stage on the way to the
development of the larger ovens", but this is doubtful; there is no chronological evidence for
124Mayeske 1979, 40-41; Mayeske 1972, 23; see also Fulvio 1879, 286-287 & Tav. II, figs. 4-5. This type of
oven is shown on the frieze of the tomb of the baker Eurysaces at the Porta Maggiore in Rome (Mayeske
1979, 55, fig. 9; Mayeske 1972, 27-29).
125Mayeske 1979, 41 & 55, fig. 8; Mayeske 1972, 24-25; Fulvio 1879, 287-290 & Tav. II, figs. 7 & 9; Mau 1908,
391.
126Mayeske 1979, 41; Mayeske 1972, 26. A phallus is attached to the front of the oven in kitchen (12) of
VII.1.25+47.
127Large ovens in bakeries I.4.12+17 (Mayeske 1972, 84-86); VII.1.36-37 (Mayeske 1972, 107-110); IX.1.2+33
(Mayeske 1972, 127-129). Large ovens in houses: VII.1.25+47 (12) and IX.1.22 (l').
128See Mayeske 1979, 41; Mayeske 1972, 25; Fulvio 1879, 282-283.
129 A small oven rests on the stove in kitchen (1) of the Casa dei Due Atri (VI.29) at Herculaneum (Maiuri
1958, 277-278, fig. 221).
83