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

References
Gralfs 1988, 79-82; CTP IIIA, 10-11; Boyce 1937, 25, #35; Beccarini 1922, 12; Della Corte, NSc 1913,
450-451, 476-477.
Data
A) Total area: 57.3 Nodes: 23.2 Connectors: 5.5 Static spaces: 31.6
B) Total # spaces: 5 # Nodes: 1 # Connectors: 1 # Static spaces: 3
15. I.6.2+16 Casa del Criptoportico, casa grande
(Figs. 2.4, 2.46, 5.3, 5.15, 5.48-5.50)
Synopsis
Houses I.6.2 and I.6.4 are often discussed together because they were joined for much of
their period of habitation. The cooking and dining arrangements present when the properties
were joined is considered below in the synopsis for the Casa del Sacello Iliaco (I.6.4). In the last
phase of their occupation, the houses were separated as part of the renovations undertaken at
each property. Each house will therefore be considered separately.
The Casa del Criptoportico was entered by a long and narrow entrance (1) that led into
the tetrastyle atrium (2), with a tablinum (6) at back, and various smaller cells (3, 4, 7) on the sides.
DR◊(5) occupied most of the E side of the atrium, near the passage back to the small peristyle
garden. Only plain plaster decoration remains in the atrium. Four small rooms (8-11) looked out
upon the peristyle garden (12) to the W. In the N portico of (12) at the W end was the only
decoration preserved in this part of the house, a ritual/garden scene focused on a niched shrine.
Flights of steps led up to a loggia, DO/DB (16), which looked over a sunken garden at the center
of a cryptoporticus, and accessed several rooms (13-15) to the E (Fig. 5.49). The house was not
originally connected directly to the cryptoporticus itself. The stairways from (12) down to the
galleries, and up to the loggia (16) were late installations, added after the owners of (I.6.2) gained
sole custody of the cryptoporticus and access from (I.6.4) was cut off. This major transformation
postdates the earthquake of A.D. 62, when the underground galleries were damaged, their W and
E wings were filled up with debris, and the level of the garden (30) was raised. Only the N
gallery of the cryptoporticus [17] was kept in use as a storage area. At the same time, the original
N portico of the garden was walled off into a loggia or solarium (16). Masonry dining-couches
and benches were installed at the W end, a small stove to serve the dining area was built at the
NE corner, and the loggia was made accessible to the garden (30) via a short flight of steps (Figs.
5.15, 5.48-5.49). Eleven victims of the eruption were discovered in the garden.
A dipinto outside the entrance consists of the name Carus; attempts by Spinazzola and
Della Corte to connect this name with the poet T. Lucretius Carus have not been widely accepted.
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