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

one to run the fullery and one to look after domestic matters? These questions are valid for any
house that also contained an industry. The negotium of this household was quite different from
the negotium of an elite household; what impact various forms of work had upon the respective
flows of domestic life warrants further investigation.
20. I.6.8-9, Casa + Caupona, (work)shop-house/diner
(Figs. 2.4, 5.3, 5.17, 5.58-5.60)
Synopsis
Both I.6.8-9 and I.6.11, because they were joined during the last years of the city, may
have been owned by a single interest, but their respective domestic arrangements are sufficiently
separate to merit individual entries. The original independent atrium house was altered
significantly after the A.D. 62 earthquake. Its fauces and two flanking rooms at the front of the
house were converted into one large node/shop (b) with an L-shaped wooden sales counter on
the E side. Off the end of the counter were immured two dolia, adjacent to ST (c') (Fig. 5.58). The
stove was built into the NE corner of atrium (c), underneath a flight of stairs to upper floor rooms
along the street (Fig. 5.59). Opposite the stove in the NW corner of the atrium was a small room
(a) constructed of opus craticum (light, timber framed masonry construction). At the back of the
atrium was a general purpose reception DH•(d), that once served double roles of tablinum and
dining area. A corridor led past this room to the peristyle garden (i) at the back of the property.
The suite of rooms on the E side of the peristyle (e-h) were purchased from the neighboring
property (I.6.7) after A.D. 62 and before it was converted into a fullonica. This suite was found
more or less in a state of ruin during excavation; Maiuri's comments only on a puteus (cistern-
head cover) in room (e') that functioned as a latrine.
Above DH•(d) and probably reached by a stair in the adjoining corridor was a cenaculum
DH◊{k} with a single colonnade facing onto the atrium to the N (Fig. 5.58). Cenaculum DH◊{k}
and DH•(d) below were both probably used for dining and reception when the property was a
house. It is not clear whether cenaculum DH◊{k} continued in use as a dining area in the last
phase of the property. How these multi-purpose areas were served by cooking facilities in the
early days of the house is unclear; the date when the ST• was built against the parapet in the SE
corner of garden (i) is not known (Fig. 5.60). ST (c') postdates the earthquake and no other
cooking facilities can be identified.
At the SW corner of garden (i), a doorway was opened to the garden of the house (I.6.11)
after the earthquake; Maiuri hypothesized that the owner of the latter, larger house purchased
Casa I.6.8-9 and converted the front part into retail space and the back into storage for renovation
material from (I.6.11). As Allison notes, the general lack of finds from I.6.8-9 and its ruined
architectural state may indicate the subsequent failure of the business venture and the
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