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

are always located near an open area with a cistern head; water for cooking is easily retrieved. 91
Thirteen houses contain latrines; nine are located in or next to kitchens. 92 Kitchen I.6.11 (8) has
its own drain to channel waste water into the street.
Casa grande Large houses are the best watered. Not only do they have cistern heads
installed in nearly every node and open area, but four of the five houses have a fountain in a
garden or peristyle that exhibits the residents' ability to 'waste' water in luxurious display instead
of employing it for merely practical uses. 93 Each house also had a bath; in four of the five baths,
a cooking area was closely associated. 94 I.7.10-12 had additional water capacity; it contained a
castellum aquae at the northwest corner of the garden that brought in water from the aqueduct.
The kitchens in the largest houses are also the best equipped for waste water disposal. Sinks
appear in one kitchen of each of the five large houses, always in the company of a latrine. 95
Convenient drainage for the largest kitchens was essential, considering that they were often
located far away from open areas or the street.
Floor and wall decoration
Cooking areas display little, if any, wall and floor decoration. There are two reasons
why. First, most kitchens never had any decoration; they preserve only a plain coat of plaster on
their walls, sometimes with a red socle and/or vertical red stripes in the corners. The black and
white diagonal stripes usually associated with service areas were not found in any buildings in
this sample. 96 Second, because kitchens lack interesting decoration, they were left open to
91 Garden (8) in I.9.12 has a stone gutter running below the eave of the potico roof for collecting rainwater,
but the location of the corresponding cistern head is uncertain, lest it lie on the other side of kitchen (9), in
court (6) of the diner I.9.11 (a latrine is also present in room (7) of that diner -- no latrine is present in the
house proper). It is difficult to interpret the water and drainage arrangements of I.9.12 without knowing the
relationship between the house and the diner, which are connected by two doorways. A single water source
suggests that both properties were connected in their ownership or occupants.
92 I.9.12 and I.9.13-14 lack latrines. Houses that juxtapose their cooking areas and latrines include: I.6.4,
I.6.11, I.6.15, I.7.7, I.8.4-6, I.8.17+11, I.9.1-2, I.9.5-7, I.10.11.
93 I.6.2+16 does not have a fountain. Fountains appear in I.4.5+25 (17), I.7.1 (9), I.7.10-12 (23) and I.10.4 (c).
94 In I.4.5+25, kitchen (42) was the point from which the bath suite (39-41) was heated, drained and
maintained. Before the section of the cryptoporticus was filled in after damage from the A.D. 62 earthquake,
area [F] doubled as a kitchen and the praefurnium for the bath suite [18-21] in I.6.2+16. Small one-room
baths were located in d' (just below kitchen (14)) of I.7.1, and in room (5), heated from court (6) next to the
kitchen/dining area (7) in I.7.10-12. Only in I.10.4 were the kitchen (52) and the bath suite (46-49) areas
completely separate.
95 Sinks with latrines appear in I.4.5+25 (42), I.6.2 [F] (the pre-A.D. 62 kitchen), I.7.1 (14), I.7.10-12 (21) and
I.10.4 (52). A latrine appears alone in I.7.10-12 (8).
96 Wallace-Hadrill 1994, 39 n.4 provides references for locations, including Torre Annunziata, court (32),
where diagonal black and white striping can be found, To his list can be added the corridors of the floor
above the Suburban Baths at the Porta Marina in Pompeii.
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