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

(Work)shop-houses The association of ritual with cooking and dining areas varies
dramatically amongst (work)shop-houses. Some have no evidence for ritual whatsoever, or
evidence that is completely disassociated from cooking or eating. 190 Others have shrines in
common areas such as courts or gardens which were visible from or close to a cooking or dining
area. 191 In three (work)shop-houses (discussed below), ritual is closely linked with food.
In 1.8.10, a shrine watches over the entrance to a cooking area -- two lararia flank the
kitchen (9), which occupied a basement space. 192 The left lararium is for the most part destroyed,
the right is well preserved with two painted Lares flanking a niche decorated with flowers, above
serpents facing an altar. The two lararia flanking this kitchen door echo the Lares flanking the
niched shrine and the serpents flanking the altar in the painting. The niche would presumably
have held figurines or offerings, offerings that are 'forever being burnt' on the painted altar. The
kitchen door is in effect another 'niche' (that can be physically passed through) into the kitchen
with its stove/altar; the kitchen is thus under particular divine protection. The food cooked for
human consumption on this stove, part of which may have been given to the gods, appears to the
guests only as it passes the threshold from the kitchen to the portico that leads to dining-area (3).
In some (work)shop-houses, shrines appeared within the kitchen areas proper. In 1.7.18
there are two complementary lararium paintings on the north and west walls above the stove
(Figs. 5.101-5.102). The north painting shows two Lares on either side of a togate and veiled
Genius who is sacrificing at the altar, holding a cornucopia. Two serpents guard an altar on the
west wall. Of the two possible dining-areas in the house, room (c) adjacent to kitchen on the
ground floor (which probably doubled as a tablinum), and room {g} on an upper floor facing the
street, neither has any view of the kitchen whatsoever. Only those who enter the kitchen or use
the latrine in the kitchen are asked to recognize the Lares; their cult seems restricted to members
of the household and sequestered from any guests, unless the guests needed to use the latrine.
In the small (work)shop-house I.10.1, there are more than one shrine. Just inside the
doorway to this house, a fragmentary painted panel shows a Genius sacrificing, accompanied by
a Lar, similar to the scene shown in the previous (work)shop-house. The shrine at the entrance
190 I.6.8-9 and I.7.5 have no evidence for ritual, and the stable I.8.12 has an arcuated niche in its north wall,
perhaps a shrine, but no cooking or dining areas are known on that property. A niched shrine is reported
on the east side of dining room (h) in I.6.7, but it is no longer extant, and the dining room lost its dining
function after A.D. 62, when the house was converted into a fullery.
191 Arcuated niches in the northwest corner of courts I.7.16 (2) and I.8.13 (1) were probably shrines;
terracotta altars, lamps, plates and a head of a figurine were found within the latter niche, which was closed
off by small hinged wooden doors. An altar and niche were located against the south wall of garden (7) of
I.9.9, close to the small stove at the west end of corridor (4). A terracotta altar and 'votive cup' were found in
the southeast corner of court I.9.10 (1), near the entrance to kitchen (1), and in view of dining room (11).
192 See PPM I, 828, #2-4 for photos of the shrine.
159