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

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A study such as this is only possible at Pompeii, where the greater part of a town has been
excavated with exceptional preservation of architecture and finds. The cessation of occupation in
A.D. 79 also reduced the overlay and compression of chronological layers that muddle other sites.
Because of its unique condition, Pompeii offers an opportunity to examine the social character of
an 'ordinary' Roman town. Pompeii housed no senatorial families, none of the dense apartment
housing of Ostia, nor (at the other end of the spectrum) any of the urban slums present in a
metropolis like Rome. It is missing the extreme top and bottom of the socio-economic scale, yet
(as the successful synthesis of a local Samnite center and the Roman colony of 80 B.C.) it would
probably have been skewed more towards the prosperous end of that scale. Pompeii presents an
'average' urban character: a mid-sized town with agricultural and market functions, interaction
with both the hinterland and the coast, and a center both of consumption and production. 3
The samples
I sampled every building from ten insulae near the center of Pompeii (I.4, 6-10; VII.1, 14;
IX.1-2) in order to construct a typology for cooking installations and dining areas. From this
sample, six (I.4, 6-10) are documented in the Gazetteer and analyzed in chapter three (Figs. 2.1-
2.2). Figs. 2.3-2.12 show plans of individual insulae, on which all cooking and dining areas are
marked. Contiguous insulae allowed for the study of each building in its neighborhood context. 4
The ten insulae together make up ca. six percent of the total walled area of the city (both
excavated and unexcavated). They are located in the center of the city around the intersection of
two major streets (the east-west Via dell'Abbondanza and the north-south Via Stabiana).
Included is one major public building (the Stabian baths at VII.1), and the theater-odeon complex
in insula (VIII.7) is nearby. The sample consists largely of residential blocks with (work)shops
lining the major thoroughfares. I visited, identified, recorded, and photographed all kitchen and
dining areas in all buildings from the sample except one, which remained closed off due to the
lack of a key (I.7.13-14). I have nevertheless included this building in the Gazetteer.
The information available for each insula depends largely upon the care with which the
buildings and finds were excavated, recorded and published. There is consequently unavoidable
variation in the quality and quantity of data. Insula (VII.14) was excavated largely during the
years 1838-1841, with portions of its northeast corner uncovered in 1863. 5 Excavation of insulae
3 See Laurence 1994, 51-69, Wallace-Hadrill 1994, 65, Frier 1991, Jongman 1988, esp. 55-57.
4 Samples, quantification and statistical analysis, essential for any large scale study, have only recently been
employed at Pompeii. The rationale for samples is simple: "...without statistical study we have the greatest
difficulty in rising above the level of the anecdotal." (Wallace-Hadrill 1991b, 192). See also Raper 1977, 1979;
La Torre 1988.
5 See CTP V, 499-500; excavation reports for VII.14 appear in PAH II and the BdI of 1841.
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