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

wooden cupboards; smaller closed rooms tended to contain wooden shelves and chests. 42 P.
Allison and J. Berry have recently made systematic efforts to locate vessels, cabinets and areas
used for storage in the house through a study of artifact distributions. 43
Working vessels for cooking also had to be stored. Pots and pans were sometimes hung
on hooks in the walls of a kitchen above the stove, stacked alongside, simply left on the stove, or
(most often) stored in cupboards or on shelving in another room (Figs. 1.1-1.2). 44 Serving vessels
and table wares, including those of precious materials, were also packed away in cabinets and
cupboards. Many items were probably kept on top of tables and other furniture, like the
urnarium described by Varro (Fig. 1.3). 45
The stored accumulation of goods acts as a measure of wealth in many societies; storage
space may have reflected the wealth and status of Roman householders as well. 46 The number
and disposition of storage areas and storage vessels depended on how much fresh food was
bought and used daily, and how much was bought in bulk and used over a period of time.
Columella's detailed instructions for a bailiff's wife concerning the operation of a villa are
enlightening in this regard:
...there can be no doubt that the duties of a bailiff's wife require order and
arrangement in the things which she stores away...[describes separating items in
the storage-area: religious objects, women's and men's festal and martial
apparel, footwear, weapons, and wool-making implements]...After this a place
42 Berry 1993, 68-70, a study of insula I.9 at Pompeii. Open areas packed with storage vessels are
dramatically revealed in excavation photos of I.9.11 (PPM II, 149, #4) and I.9.12 (PPM II, 151, #1).
43 Despite, or perhaps because of, their ubiquity, storage areas at Pompeii have been virtually ignored until
now. Mau (1908, 267-268) for instance gives the matter but three paragraphs and Salza Prina Ricotti 1978/80
briefly discusses storage areas in the context of service areas. It is clear, however from Allison 1992b and
Berry 1993 that storage was by no means confined to separate 'service areas' of houses, but was an integral
component of nearly all rooms.
44 For instance, pots were found during excavation on the walls and upon the stove of kitchen (m) in the
Fullonica di Stephanus (I.6.7), and on the stove of in kitchen (11) of the Casa del Fabbro (I.10.7). Cooking
vessels were also found in abundance in the southwest corner of atrium (b) in the Casa di Cerere (I.9.13-14),
perhaps fallen from cupboards (Fig. 5.152; PPM II, 187, #23-24).
45 Var. L. 5.126: "Besides there was a third kind of table for vessels, rectangular like the second kind; it was
called an urnarium, because it was the piece of furniture in the kitchen on which by preference they set and
kept the urnae 'urns' filled with water."; Praeterea erat tertium genus mensae it quadratae vasorum;
voca(ba)tur urnarium, quod urnas cum aqua positas ibi potissimum habebant in culina (Loeb text and translation).
46 Storage was in fact one of the most important by-products of the shift from nomadism to sedentism in
human development; it allowed families to surpass the previous limit of being able to own only what they
could carry. Differential accumulation of goods soon emphasized differences in wealth, and by extension,
rank and status. Thus, community elite almost always show off their stores as a way of advertising and
keeping their preeminence; for instance: Telemachos admiring the large and full store of his father (Hom.
Od. 2.337-345), or traditional Melanesian chiefs constructing large storage pavillons containing their
agricultural wealth for the whole community to see, food which is then consumed in communal feasting
(Hayden 1993, 241-256).
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