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

H) Installation amenities, KI (i): The E half of this room is taken up by the kitchen proper. The W
half, underneath the stairs from atrium (b) to the upper floor, serves as a latrine with a seat
against the W end of the S wall and a small area paved with tiles in front of the seat. Along the E
half of the S wall (in the former position of the bed alcove when the room was a cubiculum), was a
ST of sub-type (3) (l. 1.36, w. 0.85, h. 0.80 m.) (Fig. 5.63). Only the W wall of the ST (which also
serves to demarcate the latrine from the kitchen) and a minute fragment of the SW corner of the
surface survives. The E end of the stove surface was presumably built into and supported by the
room wall, which was breached by ancient tunneling after the eruption, destroying the ST. When
the room was turned into a kitchen, a large window was installed in the S wall directly above the
ST, to assist in the ventilation of the room and to provide light to work by. Additional (though
limited) light and ventilation was available via the door to atrium and the stairwell to the upper
floor. At the foot of the center of the E wall project forth two parallel stub walls of plaster-faced
tiles (l. 0.40, w. 0.20, h. 0.43-0.47, and 0.43 m. apart) (Fig. 2.16). These walls form a HE of sub-type
(2); Michel suggests alternatively that they are supports for a bench. 54 In the wall above the HE
are punched four small rectangular holes at regular intervals, which certainly once held supports
for two shelves at least 1.15 m. long, one below the other. The evidence for shelving on the E wall
of the room implies storage of kitchen utensils, implements, vessels and perhaps even food or
spices. Storage space in the corners of atrium (b) might also have held kitchen supplies. Two
additional portable cooking devices were found elsewhere in the house: a bronze BZ in room (l),
and a silver and bronze WH in room (g). Both devices were presumably stored in their find-
spots, convenient for preparing or keeping food or drink warm in or near DR•(d) and DR•(e).
Just W of the door along the N wall, in the corner adjacent to the stairs, is a quarter-circular
podium of masonry (d. 0.56 (N) - 0.77 (W), h. 0.55 m.) with a plastered surface that slopes slightly
downward towards its center (Fig. 5.64). A podium of identical construction in the NE corner of
KI (21) in the Casa dei Cinque Scheletri (VII.14.9) had the lower half of a small hand mill affixed
to its top surface (Fig. 2.33). A hand-mill found intact in KI (i) (Fig. 2.16) must therefore have
been used on the podium, the plastered concave surface of which would have been ideal for
collecting flour ground from the mill. A shallow Arretine bowl, a bronze oinochoe and three
amphorae were also recovered from the room. Finally, a dolium full of ash (in the company of
numerous clumps of charcoal, remains of the wooden stair) was discovered against the W wall
immediately underneath the stairs. Perhaps ash collected from stove was saved in the dolium,
and then tossed down the latrine hole to control (as activated carbon) the smell and activity of
54 The usefulness of a bench at this location in the kitchen is not easily apparent, since anyone seated
thereupon would have had to duck below the shelving raised above it on the same wall. Another HE of this
type was found with a tripod in situ in (I.7.10-12 (8)); other comparanda are provided in the typology in
chapter two, pp. 78-79.
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