Research project: Public and Private in the Roman House

Despite a not completely Pompeian subject, this interesting Finnish project is close enough to be mentioned, as has already been the call for paper about "Public and Private in the Roman House and Society" (deadline 15 April), to be held in New York in October 2013.

Private and Public Sphere in the Roman House: Semantics, Archaeology and Performative Theory

A collaborative study to be executed at the University of Helsinki, funded by the Emil Aaltonen Foundation. Project director: Dr Kaius Tuori

The aim and objectives of the research

Studies on the domestic space in Roman context have shown that the private house (domus) was the economic and social centre of its owner, his or her family and associated persons. Houses were designed to suit both the private life of its occupants and the demands of public life. Movement inside houses and the use of space was guided with the help of decoration and structures. The Roman house was open for outsiders to a certain extent, which made the division between public and private spaces inside the domus a very interesting topic already to Romans themselves.

The purpose of this project is to explore the public and private spheres of the Roman house from the first century BCE to the second century AD through a re-evaluation of the material remains and literary evidence. As an interdisciplinary enterprise, the project seeks to combine historical, archaeological, philological and architectural analysis to further the understanding of the function of the domus as a place for social, cultural, political and administrative action. Often overshadowed by modern presuppositions regarding the functions of spaces within a home, the tradition of assigning a single purpose to each space has only recently been subjected to serious criticism due to the contradictions of material finds with the assumptions regarding the use of that space.

More here.

Reviews in Bonner Jahrbücher 208

The latest Bonner Jahrbücher (208, 2008) has just come out, and there are a few reviews of books on Pompeian materials:

Ernesto De Carolis, Il Mobile a Pompei ed Ercolano. Letti, tavoli, sedie e armadi. Contributo alla tipologia dei mobili della prima età imperiale. L’Erma di Bretschneider, Rome. Reviewed by Francesca Tronchin.

Pia Kastenmeier, I luoghi del lavoro domestico nella casa pompeiana. Studi della Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompei. L’Erma di Bretschneider, Rome, 2007. Reviewed by Joanne Berry.

Marina Ciaraldi, People and Plants in ancient Pompeii. A new approach to urbanism from the microscope room. The use of plant resources at Pompeii and in the Pompeian area from the 6th century BC to AD 79. Reviewed by René Cappers.

Restoration of seven major Pompeian houses

The SAP have announced the next seven houses to be restored at Pompeii. The funds provided are to include basic maintenance as well as restoration. The houses are: Casa dell’Efebo, Casa della Parete Rossa, Casa del Criptoportico, Casa dell’Ancora, Casa di Loreio Tiburtino, the Villa dei Misteri, and the Fullonica di Stephanus.

Pompei, 3 milioni e mezzo di euro per il restauro di sette importanti domus

La Casa dell’Efebo, della Parete Rossa, del Criptoportico, dell’Ancora, di Loreio Tiburtino, la Villa dei Misteri, la Fullonica di Stephanus

La casa dell’Efebo, la Villa dei Misteri, la Fullonica di Stephanus, le Case della Parete Rossa, del Criptoportico, dell’Ancora e di Loreio Tiburitino saranno le prossime importanti domus di Pompei ad essere restaurate con un impegno di circa 3 milioni e mezzo di euro. Gli interventi completano il secondo piano predisposto dal Commissario delegato Marcello Fiori e già approvato dal Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali per un totale di 35 milioni di euro. A fine luglio partiranno le gare, l’inizio dei lavori è previsto entro settembre.

Per la prima volta all’interno del piano sono previsti due milioni di euro per la manutenzione ordinaria.

Complessivamente dei 100 milioni di euro impiegati nel corso dell’emergenza, il 94 per cento è stato destinato a restauri.

La casa dell’Efebo, un aggregato di più case famosa per la statua bronzea raffigurante un efebo, ora al Museo archeologico di Napoli, copia di un originale greco del V sec. a.C., che il proprietario dell’abitazione, P. Cornelio Tegete, adattò a portalampada (lychnophoros). Nel giardino si trova un gran dipinto di Marte e Venere. Di grande interesse si annuncia la valorizzazione della Fullonica di Stephanus, l’antica lavanderia: al suo interno fu rinvenuto un torchio in legno con elementi in ferro che veniva usato per la pressatura delle vesti e che fa parte di un ideale percorso tra le arti e i mestieri dell’antica Pompei. La Domus di Loreio Tiburtino è tra le più estese e suggestive dal punto di vista pittorico, caratterizzata dal giardino con fontane e giochi d’acqua che imitavano le rituali inondazioni del Nilo. La Casa del Criptoportico prende il nome dal criptoportico annesso ad essa solo dopo il terremoto del 62 d.C.. Ingente l’intervento di restauro previsto anche degli apparati decorativi pittorici e pavimentali della famosa Villa dei Misteri. Tornerà a splendere anche la Casa delle Pareti rosse, che prende il nome da una stanza con uno degli esempi più raffinati di pitture di IV stile su fondo rosso. Di particolare interesse archeologico la Casa dell’Ancora, nome che proviene da un’ancora raffigurata nel vestibolo. Questa casa presenta la particolarità di essere l’unica di Pompei ad avere il giardino ad un piano più basso rispetto a quello della casa. Il giardino è circondato da un portico i cui pilastri si distinguono per una struttura ad archi.

Lecture: Architettura e pittura illusionistica nella casa romana

Lecture on "Architecture and illusionistic painting in the Roman house" by Umberto Pappalardo

Martedi 29 marzo 2010, ore 17.00
Blocco A, aula A004
SUPSI Lugano

Diana Kleiner lectures on-line

I've just come across a whole series of lectures on Roman architecture on academicearth.org, given earlier this year by Diana Kleiner of Yale. There are 23 lectures in total on a wide range of topics and sites and they include:
Habitats at Herculaneum and Early Roman Interior Decoration
Civic, Commercial and Religious Buildings of Pompeii
Houses and Villas at Pompeii
Exploring Special Subjects on Pompeian Walls
This looks like a fantastic resource.

Exhibition: Imperium

Another exhibition featuring things from Pompeii just opened at Haltern in Germany. (I'm losing count how many exhibitions there are now!). However, this isn't a 'Pompeii' exhibition but rather an exhibition entitled 'Imperium' to commemorate 2,000 years since the defeat of Varus. Included in the exhibition are artefacts from the House of the Lyre Player (I.4, I think) such as the famous bronze ephebe found in this house.

Here's the story, from Corriere del Mezzogiorno.

'Sappho' by Jeff Cane

Check out this fabulous 16" hand-made Charger Plate made by Jeff Cane for the upcoming Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibition (Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples, May 3–October 4, 2009 - the same exhibition that has been in Washington DC until recently). Jeff specialises in applying historical images, documents and themes to platters, framed prints, art cards, candles, cement tiles and masonry crosses. You can read more about his work here.

The image on this plate is, of course, the so-called 'Sappho', found in May 1760 in a house of the Insula Occidentalis in Region VI. It was part of a Fourth Style decoration that paired it with the portrait of a man (all the fragments from this wall are about to go on display together in the Naples Museum when the rooms of frescoes reopen in April). The girl wears a golden hairnet and holds a stylus and wax tablet - references to the world of learning and culture. This is one of the most famous wall-paintings from Pompeii, an ideal portrait rather than a depiction of a real girl.

Jeff's Charger is signed and dated & comes with a Sappho poem. I want one!

Bronze statues of Apollo and the Ephebe

Tomorrow two Pompeian bronze statues will be journeying to the John Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. One is the bronze statue of Apollo the Archer, thought to have been found in the Temple of Apollo. In poor condition, the statue will undergo restoration at the Getty Museum.

The other statue is the bronze figure of the Ephebe, found in 1925 in the House of the Ephebe (I.7.10 - 12, also known as the House of Publius Cornelius Tegete). Dated to 20 - 10 BC, at some point the ephebe was transformed into a lampstand. The house itself has a lovely outdoor triclinium, so there is a good chance that the ephebe was intended for use during evening meals. At the time of the eruption, however, it had been dismantled and was lying on the floor of the 'tablinum' (room 15), covered with cloth. There are different interpretations of the reason for this! For more details about the finds in this house, see P. Allison's description. The Ephebe has recently been restored by the conservators at the Naples Museum. You can compare what it looked like at the time of its excavation to its present condition in the photo above. The Ephebe will be put on display at the Getty Museum straight away, and will probably return to Naples after a year - the time estimated for the restoration of the Apollo.

For more details of the loan to the Getty Museum, and the sources of the illustrations, see here and here.

House of Julius Polybius and Der Spiegel

I was reminded by Francesca's re-posting of Der Spiegel's article about 'recent' research to reconstruct the final hours of the inhabitants of the House of Julius Polybius that I was deeply suspicious that this was new research ... So, a little investigation later, I can tell you that Luongo, Perrotta and Scarpati gave a conference paper on the effects of the eruption on the House of Julius Polybius in 1997 (I even went to it, I have the conference material to prove it!), and they published an article on it in 2001:

Luongo, G., Perrotta A. e Scarpati C. 2001. 'L'impatto dei prodotti di eruzioni esplosive sull' ambiente: l'eruzione del 79 d.C. a Pompei'. In: La casa di Giulio Polibio. Studi Interdisciplinari. Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali. Edizione: Centro Studi Arte Figurative, Università di Tokyo, pp. 215-238.

Of course, this doesn't mean that they're not still working on it ... I wonder where Der Spiegel got its information from?

Luongo, Perrotta and Scarpati were involved in the production of a Japanese CDRom: 'La casa di Julius Polybius' by Masanori Aoyagi, 2001. They have published a whole bunch of articles on the impact on the eruption on structures, and I will list those in a comment to this post.

In 2003, the BBC made a documentary entitled 'Pompeii. The Last Day', which tells the story of the final hours of the inhabitants of the House of Julius Polybius, and also of other characters (such as Stephanus, of the Fullery of Stephanus). The work of Luongo, Perrotta and Scarpati is not explicitly credited, but I can't believe that it didn't influence the documentary ...

(Four other parts of this documentary can also be seen on UTube.)

Bars and brothels

This one from Rogue Classicism:

'According to Clare Kelley Bazeby, there is material evidence that the Ancient Greeks may have been opening up bars and brothels in their private residences to supplement their income. She looked at items dating from the period 475 B.C. down to 323 B.C. from sites as diverse as the Villa of Good Fortune at Olynthus to Building Z in Athens. Bazeby dixit:

“This has a real impact on how we view the economy in classical Greece … A lot of trade and industry was based within the home.”

“If you look at the remains coming from ancient Greek homes, it seems very clear to me that these buildings had another function, that some areas were used for commercial purposes … It’s amazing how entrenched people in the field are. We are trying to change archaeologists’ minds by pointing out that houses could be used economically as well being residences.”

“There was nothing to stop part of a house being utilized for commercial gain by using a room fronting onto the street as a shop, or indeed from using the household courtyard for business transactions.”

“My research shows that a lot of trade was embedded within the domestic walls. It also changes our perception of who was drinking wine, and where they were doing it. Women, slaves and foreigners as well as ordinary Greeks, would all have enjoyed time and wine in a classical tavern …”

Added Allison Glazebrook:

“There is no evidence of any purpose-built brothels for ancient Greece. We should not expect brothel spaces to look that different from houses in the material record because girls lived in brothels in which they worked.”

See Rogue Classicism for links to newspaper articles about the papers.

I know this is not 'Roman', but I've got to say that the idea of the house being used habitually for commercial gain fits with my own views on domestic space. All sorts of craft and trade activities could have taken place within the house (all types of houses, too, big and small) on a normal day-to-day basis, without this being anything noteworthy or unusual. I haven't really considered that bars or brothels might have been opened up inside houses, but perhaps this is something worth thinking about. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?