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

they should have been full of pots and pans. This is not the case. In many houses, cooking wares
were found in separate cabinets or storage areas. Kitchens were generally small rooms; culinary
storage was often elsewhere, and utensils were brought in to cook as needed. 18 Because the
eruption apparently was in full force by noon (before dinner needed to be prepared), pots and
pans were never brought into most kitchens. 19 Survivors (the great majority of the population)
fled in time, never fired up their kitchens, and moreover, took some cooking wares along with
them. 20 Allison noticed that the small number of houses with cookwares in the kitchens tended
to correlate with houses containing skeletons; she took this to indicate occupancy at the time of
the eruption. 21 I offer an alternate hypothesis: the few individuals who remained over the two
to three days of the eruption needed to eat -- clearly using their kitchens at least once -- and
eventually died because of their delay, leaving skeletons and cookwares behind.
Thus for the surviving refugees, cooking wares and food were highly valuable and worth
saving because these goods enabled them to eat in the days and weeks following the eruption.
Firsthand reports of the 1937 eruption of volcanoes around the town of Rabaul (Papua New
Guinea) reveal that both those who fled and those who stayed in town during the eruption made
preparations to feed themselves. Ash fall lasted nearly four days; those who remained through
the first evening made their meals, while those who left packed personal possessions, clothes,
food, portable stoves, lamps, pets, and money. 22 Food for the refugee population became an
immediate concern; in fact, starvation and disease have been the largest causes of death in
historically documented eruptions. 23 The aftermath of the Vesuvian eruption was probably
more deadly than the event itself.
18 Col. 12.3 implies that particular areas of a house were used for particular types of storage so that objects
could easily be found and kept secure (see chapter one, pp. 15-16 and chapter three, pp. 153-157).
19 Plin. Ep. 6.16: "Towards the seventh hour [i.e. noon] on the 24th of August, my mother pointed out to him
[Pliny the Elder] a cloud of unusual size and shape"; Nonum Kal. Septembres hora fere septima mater mea indicat
ei apparere nubem inusitata et magnitudine et specie (Teubner text, author's translation). Étienne 1979 describes
the eruption as having begun about 10 a.m. on 24 August and ended on 26 August or the following night.
See Allison 1992b, 10-12 for doubts about the traditional sequence of the eruption.
20 Perhaps as Juv. 3.249-253 (p. 73, n. 83) and Mart. 12.32.11-14 (p. 66, n. 44) respectively describe a slave and
a poor family carrying braziers and pots on their backs.
21 Allison 1992b, 93.
22 The eruption that struck Rabaul was of the same ('Plinian') type as the A.D. 79 Vesuvian eruption. See
Johnson & Threlfall 1985, 59-78; pp. 68-72: "The assembled refugees 'were a motley sight' said Mr. Stewart,
'some maimed and crippled -- some carrying their baskets, parrots, dogs, primus stoves, hurricane lamps,
camphor boxes, etc.'; and with 'a bundle of clothes, or a little suitcase, or a kit-bag, or something with them -
- or a baby', listed Brett Hilder. An elderly Chinaman carried a very heavy bucket, apparently full of
potatoes, but the potatoes were only a top layer covering a hoard of coins."
23 Blong 1984, 72-73, 126-131, for ther period A.D. 1600-1982. Starvation and disease have become relatively
minor factors in the mortality rates of twentieth century eruptions, due to modern methods of transporting
food, medical, and sanitation supplies. See also Johnson & Threlfall 1985, 79-94.
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