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

22. I.6.11, Casa dei Quadretti Teatrali, casa media (Figs. 2.4, 2.19, 5.17)
Synopsis
In the post-A.D. 62 earthquake phase of this house, it was connected to the property
(I.6.8-9) via a doorway connecting the gardens of the two buildings. This house also was
originally connected to the two shops at #10 (m, n) and #12 (m', n'); the latter shop was closed off
from the house before the earthquake, but the former shop became completely independent only
after A.D. 62. Most paintings in the house (especially the atrium) date to the late 3rd style;
damage from the A.D. 62 earthquake was patched, not replaced, with 4th style decoration.
Despite these various changes to its property lines, the house with entrance at #11 will be given
an entry separate from the shops at #10, 12 and the property at #8-9.
The presence of numerous tunnels and disturbed stratigraphy in the house proves that
the house was subject to salvage or robbing operations in antiquity. Maiuri (NSc 1929), on the
basis of some undecorated rooms and building material found in room (14), believed that the
house (particularly the S half) was undergoing restoration, and the recently purchased property
(I.6.8-9) was used for storing material temporarily removed from this house.
Small rooms (cubicula, cellae) (1-5) flank atrium (b), which had at least four wooden
cabinets filled with domestic items placed against its walls (Fig. 5.17). Tablinum (6) had wide
doorways onto both the atrium and the ambulatory (12) of garden (16) (PPM I, 381, #34). It was
flanked on the W by corridor (7) which also accessed a series of 'service rooms' on that side of the
house (8-10). KI (8) (Fig. 2.19) apparently had a staircase in wood (Maiuri NSc 1929, 424) at the W
end of its S wall, that continued S over room (9) to a second floor above rooms (6-7, 9-12). Maiuri
locates a latrine in (9), probably underneath those stairs, and identifies (10) as a storeroom by
virtue of a cabinet found filled with material against the S wall. Room (9) has been converted
into a modern shower for the custodians of the site, and room (10) has become a modern
bathroom; it is no longer possible to identify any features in those two rooms. DR◊(11) is today a
storeroom for the custodians. It overlooks garden (16) through ambulatory (12) and portico (13),
at the E end of which is room (14), which contained amphorae and building material. Off the SE
corner of the garden is DR•(15); its N side has been walled off in modern times, presumably to
protect its paintings (PPM I, 395-396, #64-66). Garden (16) itself is largely ruined due to the
general collapse of its floor into an underlying cistern and cryptoporticus, which remain
unexcavated today; access to these underground areas was gained (probably via a wooden
staircase) in the S branch of room (h) in Casa (I.6.8-9) (CTP IIIA, 10).
References
Jashemski 1993, 36; Allison 1992b, 234-245; PPM I, 361-398; CTP IIIA, 10-11; PPP I, 36-39; Guida
Laterza 1982, 101-102; Bastet & De Vos 1979, 86-87, 51; De Vos 1977, 41-42; Guida 1976, 193-196;
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