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

the room seems not to have been in use on that day. A pile of amphorae was stored in the NE
corner of garden (23), behind KI (21). The kitchen was lit and ventilated from the street and from
the garden by two small windows. Water was available from the cistern head just across corridor
(19) in area (20); a large platform provided space for placing vessels to be filled or stored (Fig.
5.91). Another low platform on the E side of (20), under a flight of stairs to the upper floor, was
associated with a shallow rounded niche, of unknown purpose. There was a provision for
drainage within KI (21) itself; in the SW corner of the room, two stub walls flank a wide
rectangular pit and would have held the seat for at least a two-person latrine. In the SE corner,
between the LT and the ST, there was a low plastered basin that served as a sink and drain;
amphorae not found in the room are being stored there today (Fig. 5.90).
Installation amenities, dining areas: Remains of a wooden bed and its bedding were
recovered near the N wall of DR◊(4). A chest lay near the door to court (6). These finds led
Allison to identify the room as a bedroom, over her own concern about the shape and location of
the room. Most scholars (see Sutherland, De Vos in PPM I) consider the room to have been a
tablinum in its original phase, perhaps adding some function of reception such as dining over the
years. The term 'exedra' is often used to describe some vague role of reception for the room. The
dimensions and bipartite decoration of the room are consistent with a function of dining, but it
cannot be confirmed whether or when dining ever took place here. The storage cupboard
underneath the stairs to the upper floor at the NE corner of atrium (A') did contain the broken
remains of many glass vessels and a complete terracotta cup; the cupboard was subject to post-
eruption salvage or scavenging, so its assemblage is probably incomplete.
There was a distyle in antis cenaculum above rooms (1-3) over the E side of atrium (A'), and facing
onto the street. An uncolonnaded cenaculum lay above DR◊(4) with a back room above DR/KI
(7). From that latter cenaculum were found the remains of a bed and bedding, a large bronze
krater, several domestic vessels and pieces of furniture, and the skeletons of three individuals. It
is possible that either of these upper story rooms could have been used for dining, both in the
original and final phases of the building.
DR/KI (7) has niches cut in the E wall (l. 2.22, depth 0.11 m., for the lectus summus) and W wall (l.
3.61, depth 0.12 m., for the lectus medius and lectus imus) that correspond to the position of dining
couches (Fig. 5.86). The ST in this room is carefully placed on the E side of the room where the set of
couches is shortest (the lectus summus), allowing the cooking and eating furniture to fit neatly
together. Because of the low height of the niches (ca. 0.45 high), Allison (1992b, 82, 274) doubts that
they could have been used for couches, and doubts that the room was used for dining. Pernice and
Maiuri disagreed; Maiuri (NSc 1927, 38) considered the room to have been a 'stanza rustica' used for
cooking and eating by the household staff. As such, elaborate dining couches would not be expected,
but rather simple wooden couches, little more than pallets. The whole N part of the house, entered at
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