NIKONCOOLPIX S9300 22mm
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After leaving Casina dell′Aquila, and crossing Vicolo del Menandro, ⇨⇨ we walk along Vicolo del Citarista to our next destination - Casa degli Amanti.The name means "House of the lovers", and it comes from this inscription on the wall: Amantes, ut apes, vitam melitam exigunt ("Like bees, lovers lead a life as sweet as honey").This domus is unique for Pompeii, since it has almost intact second floor. Most of those in other houses were destroyed as the result of Vesuvius bombarding the city with rocks for two days.But let′s start from the start. First, you enter atrium, with this small and quite unassuming impluvium.Above is a modern reconstruction of the concave roof of atrium, which would allow the rainwater and the light enter the room. The Romans were not big on windows, they preferred a hole in the roof, called compluvium. The windows would usually be quite small and located high up, under the very roof, like here.The walls of atrium were plastered and painted red.Red was a popular colour for home décor, since it was not very expensive. It comes from a very common weed called Rubia tinctorum, or "madder" in English.Atrium was the main living area of domus, with small windowless rooms (like this cubiculum, as in "a cubicle") carved into the walls on each side.These were the bedrooms of the family members, so they are also nicely decorated.At the opposite end of atrium from the entrance (fauces, or vestibulum), an opening is leading to the fancy part of the house - ⇨⇨ peristylium (the courtyard).Peristylium is called such because it′s surrounded by peristylum. It′s not a typo. There is really just one-letter difference!Peristylum (as in "peristyle", or colonnade) is rows of columns around a courtyard.See that rain? Crazy...The garden in this particular house is not generic. It was reconstructed based on the residue of the original plants in the ground.The famous second floor of the house, almost intact. It was reserved for servants and/or slaves. The masters always lived on the ground floor.On the wall here you can see where the stairs to the second floor were.Peristylium is a sign of a wealthy Roman house. Most houses will start and end with atrium, and only rich people could afford a courtyard like this.The inner workings of a Roman column. Quite complex construction technology, if you ask me.Another sign of a wealthy domus is blue paint on the walls. In the Roman times, this colour came from rare minerals (azurite and ultramarine), which had to be imported from Central Asia. (Sorry about the quality of the pic, this room was very dark).The walls of that room are decorated with food motives (in this case - a loaf of bread), because it was a formal dining room. Guests would lie down for a meal (as was the Roman custom), while looking out onto the garden in peristylium. A dining room was called triclinium. Triclinium ⇒ reclining, get it?Another example of decoration in the same room. Are those bread loaves too? Or some sort of Chinese buns?The service facilities - a kitchen and storage rooms - are located right next to the dining room (they are on the right here). Makes sense.The kitchen was a dark and dank place, with a very bad ventilation through a single little hole under the ceiling (chimneys would be invented centuries later). Since only slaves would be in the kitchen anyway, why bother making it more comfortable?In the nearby storage room, there are amphoras (or, correctly, amphorae), which were used for storing all types of foodstuffs - olive oil, wine, grain, preserved fruits, and a fish sauce called garum (a staple in the Roman diet).Note the pointed base of that amphora. This is not only for sticking it into the soft ground, like here. It also facilitates stacking several layers of amphorae on top of each other in a ship′s cargo hold. That pointed end would go snugly between four amphorae of the lower stratum. The way the Romans consciously designed all the minute things of their modus vivendi is simply amazing...Casa degli Amanti (the wall on the left here) sits right at the border of the excavated part of Pompeii. Across Vicolo di Paquius Proculus we see trees growing on top of the unexcavated area. About 30% of Pompeii was left deliberately untouched, for several reasons. First - looks like we′ve got everything we could from Pompeii at this point, and more excavations will only mean more of the same stuff. So it might be wise to wait until new archeological technologies are developed that will allow us to get more detailed information when we dig. And also - Vesuvius is still an active volcano that can erupt again any minute. So everything that had already been excavated, will be lost irrecoverably. But those "conserved" 30% will survive the new eruption, protected by the thick layer of the volcanic ash of the last eruption.Press ESC to exit
