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Notes on the Building Materials of Pompeii

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

R. C. Carrington
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I. Introduction.—The dating of building materials at Pompeii presents a problem which is in several ways peculiar. Although more than half the city has by now been uncovered and has provided a wealth of epigraphic material almost without parallel among Italian towns, yet the number of buildings which it is possible to date from such evidence can be counted on one hand, since for the most part the inscriptions concern events which are too trivial, or persons who are too obscure, to offer any indication of their date. Furthermore, the procedure adopted in the past for excavating the town has precluded all but the most meagre help being given by pottery. Till a few years ago, Pompeian excavators for the most part stopped digging as soon as the uppermost (and latest) level had been reached, and earlier buildings, of which the foundations presumably survive under the later floors, were left unexplored. Hence, the pottery which is most useful for purposes of dating (that occurring in association with structural foundations) is not forthcoming. Pompeii, in fact, has been too much a show-piece for visitors, too little a site to be scientifically explored.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , 1933 , pp. 125 - 138
Copyright
Copyright ©R. C. Carrington 1933. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Mau-Kelsey, , Pompeii, its Life and Art, pp. 35–44Google Scholar; Nissen, H., Pompeianische Studien, pp. 1–97Google Scholar.

2 Blake, Marion E., ‘Pavements of Roman Buildings,’ in Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, vol. viii, 1930.Google Scholar

3 Mau-Kelsey, op. cit., pp. 456–70.

4 A detailed plan of Pompeii will be found at the end of CIL, iv, pt. 2, where the numbers of Regiones, Insulae, and houses are clearly marked. When referring to houses, it is usual to quote their regio, insula, and number within the insula. The more famous of them have been given fanciful names of their own, and where possible these names have been adopted in this paper, simply because they are well-known.

5 Haverfield, F., Ancient Town-Planning, pp. 63–69Google Scholar; v. Gerkan, Griechische Städteanlagen, pp. 119–20; Maiuri, A., ‘Studi e Ricerche sulla fortificazione di Pompeii” in Monumenti Antichi, voi. xxxiii, 1930, pt. 2.Google Scholar For an attempt to date the enlargement of the town more precisely to c. 500 B.C., and to assign it to the agency of the Etruscans, see Antiquity, vol. vi, 1932, p. 5 ff.

6 Maiuri, op. cit.; Mau-Kelsey, op. cit., p. 138 ff.

7 An unofficial excavation was made under the floor of a room at Regio vii, Insula xiv, no. 5. A wall is visible composed of hard, coarse bricks of baked clay unusual in size and shape, but it is impossible to say anything about its purpose. The depth of the foundations suggests that it goes back to a very early period in Pompeian history, but the point cannot be pressed, since the excavation is not complete.

8 N. d. Sc., 1930, p. 381 ff.

9 The lava in these early walls is reddish and porous, derived from the surface of the lavastream. It is easily distinguishable from the hard, black lava which came into use during the second century B.C.

10 Mau-Kelsey, op. cit., p. 39.

11 The second wall can just be seen in pl. viii.

12 Maiuri, A., La Villa dei Misteri p. 50 ffGoogle Scholar.

13 A possible exception is furnished by the city-wall of the second Samaite period, 300–180 B.C. (Mon. Ant., vol. xxxiii, 1930, pt. 2), built in part of limestone, in part of tufa ashlar. If this wall was really erected in the third century, the tufa which it contains is a (not unnatural) anticipation in public buildings of its use in private buildings during the next century.

14 Mau-Kelsey, op. cit., pp. 40–41.

15 Marion E. Blake, op. cit. The pavement in question belongs to the first type of cement pavement which the writer distinguishes, employing aggregate of pounded tiles and designs of white tesserae.

16 Mau-Kelsey, op. cit., pp. 37, 41.

17 ibid., p. 38.

18 ibid., loc. cit.

19 This style of masonry is usually described as opus mixtum or opus compositum.

20 Mau-Kelsey, op. cit., p. 43.

21 ibid., p. 36.

22 ibid., pp. 121–3.

23 The view that the tile-faced door posts of this building are a reconstruction of the first century A.D. (kindly brought to my notice by Dr. Esther Van Deman) cannot, I think, be sustained. There is little sign of reconstruction in these door posts, and, moreover, tile-faced pilasters are combined in the Forum Baths and the ‘Porta Marina’ with opus quasi-reticulatum of precisely the same kind as that of the small theatre.

24 Mau-Kelsey, op. cit., pp. 112–3.

25 ibid., p. 47.

26 CIL x, 846.

27 Mau-Kelsey, op. cit., p. 244, cf. p. 43.

28 Antiquity, vii, 1933, p. 340 ff.

29 This ‘pointing’ is visible in pl. xiv, at the top of the first-century wall over the door and right-hand window.

30 Deman, Esther Van, ‘Methods of Determining the Date of Roman Concrete Monuments,’ in AJA, vol. xvi, 1912.Google Scholar Triangular bricks first appear in the time of Claudius.

31 During the later Samnite period (c. 300—80 B.C.), Pompeii seems to have been the member of a league at whose head was Nuceria (Conway, , Italic Dialects, i, pp. 51Google Scholar, 56).

32 A tufa of similar colour and texture is in common use in the district at the present time.

33 Mau-Kelsey, op. cit., pp. 35–6. Travertine was used at Pompeii in thresholds and columns and, along with marble, as a substitute for stucco in covering the concrete walls of certain public buildings. These types of stone were imported from a distance, marble probably from Carrara (Nissen, op. cit., p. 21). Neither, however, afford much help for purposes of dating.

34 CIL x, 8042.

35 No. 109 (Sicily); no. 95 (Tarracina); nos. 4, 6, 9, 15. 19, 20, 36, 41, 48, 75, 82, 97, 98, 115 (other towns of Campania); the rest are found only at Pompeii.

36 For the Eumachii at Pompeii, see Mau-Kelsey, op. cit., p. III; CIL x, 892, 899.

37 Mau-Kelsey, op. cit., p. 36.