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

owls, two bronze vessels, including a casseruola and a cauldron, two bronze jugs, and a small
glass vessel that held perhaps a spice or herb. Two other ceramic pouring vessels were also
found in the room, and a possible testum, which Maiuri describes as: "un grande coperchio di
forma elittica (m. 0.39 x 0.27) con manico girevole al centro". 59 The room was lit and ventilated
via the short corridor to the atrium, and a window in the E wall onto the street (Fig. 5.79). Water
was accessible from a cistern head built into a small niche off the corridor just S of the ST, or from
the cistern head in the garden. A tile-floored LT (raised above the level of the kitchen (0.46 m.) in
the SE corner of the room adjacent to the street provided drainage. A small alcove just N of the
LT (and raised above it another 0.20 m.) held three terracotta vessels and was probably used for
storage. Furniture fittings from (g) suggest storage in that room also, although Maiuri's label of
cella penaria cannot be confirmed. Other storage was located in a closet off the NE corner of the
peristyle garden that has rows of cutting in its walls for shelves; coarseware and amphorae were
found in (p), and Maiuri also describes (o) as a storage area, although no finds were reported
there. That the kitchen was left with vessels intact on the stove is not surprising in light of the
nine individuals found in entranceway (a, a') who failed to escape.
Installation amenities, dining areas: No finds indicating the presence of dining couches or
dinner wares are reported from either DR•(b) or DH◊(n). The only serving vessels found were in
the kitchen. Others may have been stored in cabinets and chests in atrium (l) -- Allison remarks
that except for areas (a, a', KI (i)), the finds from the house were poorly recorded.
I) Decorative amenities, KI (i): Traces of plain white plaster still hang on the walls.
Decorative amenities, dining areas: DR•(b) had an opus signinum pavement with patterned
inset white tesserae. Around the W, N and E sides of the central emblema (a circle filled with
opus sectile framed by a square diamond-patterned border) there was no decoration, suggesting
the space had once been overlain by a standard set of three dining couches. Three bands of
different patterns running E-W filled out the decoration of the floor in front of the couches (Fig.
5.81). The walls were, like the pavement, of 3rd style. The decoration consisted of a black socle,
yellow-ground upper zone, and central red zone with large panels depicting mythological scenes:
the liberation of Andromeda (W), Hercules in the garden of the Hesperides (N), the flight of
Icarus (E), and Polyphemus and Galatea (S). DH◊(n) had only rough plaster on the walls, but
incised lines on its surface suggest that a redecoration of the room was planned. The space was
originally open to the sky, but was covered when a second floor was added to the house.
J) Sanctity: An arcuated niche framed by stuccoed pilasters at the N end of the W wall of garden
(m) was described as a lararium by Maiuri and Boyce (Fig. 5.82). A ledge projected from the base
of the niche, for the placement of statuettes, offerings, etc.
59 Maiuri NSc 1927, 29: "A large cover of elliptical form with a handle turned at its center". See chapter one,
pp. 19-20 for a discussion of baking covers such as the testum.
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