Roman House Research Articles

Beyond Abandonment: Diachronically Mapping the Transformation of Domestic Sites in Rome and its Environs (1st-7th centuries CE)

This article presents some preliminary findings on the transformation and abandonment of domestic sites in and around Rome from the 1st to 7th centuries Common Era (CE). I utilize an innovative interactive map developed in Unity to showcase 46 sites in the study area, devising a methodology that draws upon the stratigraphic record of human activities in charting the trajectory of ancient houses over time. This contrasts with the standard approaches used over the last few decades, which have focused almost entirely on key moments of architectural and decorative remodelling, underemphasizing the constant and diachronic nature of change in domestic environments. My findings highlight the need to reassess conventional narratives surrounding the "end of the Roman house". Based on the data in this study, the Roman house emerges as more variable and less programmatic than often acknowledged, including in periods predating Late Antiquity. Future work is planned for presenting the full results of the research introduced in this paper, including those related to the application of game engines for mapping archaeological data from household excavations.

Μια νέα ερμηνεία ενός γκράφιτι από υστερορωμαϊκή οικία της αρχαίας Ελεύθερνας

P. Themelis (Κριτική Εστία 5, [1994-1996], 269; SEG 45, 1266) published a shortgraffito that was engraved on the door lintel connecting the rooms 23 and 26of the so-called House 2 of Sector I of ancient Eleftherna. It reads Νείκην τῷΚυρείῳ. It has been dated to the third or the early fourth century CE and ithas been interpreted as a wish to the God by Christians, possibly related to thereligious persecutions of the Roman State against them ca. 250 CE. The use ofthe terms κύριος and ν(ε)ίκη in Roman and Late Roman acclamations foundin textual sources, in both religious and secular contexts, is here analysed;the author rejects the previous interpretations and argues that this graffito isan acclamatory wish for a victory and/or the well-being of the owner of thehouse. Based on Amm. Marc. 16.8.9, he, moreover, connects it with a contem-porary ritual of the Roman house.

The colors used in the mural painting of Roman houses in the oases of Dakhla and Kharga

The colors used in the mural painting of Roman houses in the oases of Dakhla and Kharga

The Role of the Field Architect in the Digital Age: Integrating Human and Electronic Recording at the Villa Arianna in Roman Stabiae

ABSTRACT Digital recording technologies such as lidar and photogrammetry bring higher efficiency to archaeological recording, as well as the allure of automation. How do the promises of the digital age impact the role and methods of field architects, members of an archaeological team responsible for illustrating architectural finds? Between 2011 and 2022, University of Maryland field architects grappled with this question while recording the frescoed rooms of the Villa Arianna in Roman Stabiae. Like other Roman houses preserved by the eruption of Vesuvius in a.d. 79, the villa contains many building phases, destruction deposits, and large spaces adorned with detailed frescoes. To accurately capture this diversity, the field team integrated several digital-assisted recording techniques with traditional manual approaches. While electronic technologies aided the architects in measuring the villa at multiple scales, we found that they could not replace the field architect’s capacity for granular first-hand observation, historical learning, and interpretation of archaeological signatures.

Art and archaeology

The most significant book of this review is Richard Beacham and Hugh Denard's Living Theatre in the Ancient Roman House, a volume in which the authors’ previous accomplishments, expertise in theatre and leading roles at Kings Visualisation Laboratory (which is reflected in the use of digital visualizations throughout the volume, both to recreate architectural spaces and to test the viability of painted architecture), is brought to bear on domestic space. The subject, epic length, and format of the book immediately evoke the memory of Cambridge University Press's last major publication on wall painting, Eleanor Leach's 2004 The Social Life of Painting in Ancient Rome and on the Bay of Naples and the comparison shows up very sharply the development of attitudes towards both wall painting and its theatrical referents in the last twenty years. In Leach's book, much was made of the theatrical influence on Pompeian interiors, particularly in the architectural Second Style and the Fourth Style. Leach relied on the theatre in order to search for signs of actual theatrical influence on frescoes painted in these styles, for example discussing whether their scenographic ‘sets’ were based on permanent or temporary theatres, and then to tie the way the two styles presented theatrical performance to the political circumstances of the times in which they flourished. Leach saw Second Style as a reflection of the active competition of elites during the late republic whilst Fourth Style was symptomatic of the tyranny of the Neronian age, in which these same elites were now largely reduced to passive spectators of the emperor's performance.

Racializing the concept of ‘housing otherness’: The effects of temporary housing policies on squatters in Rome

This paper explores the long-standing relationship in Rome between socio-cultural diversity and the temporary nature of low-income housing solutions. I argue that that this phenomenon began long before recent neoliberal trends and the global post-2008 crisis, and instead emerged from the gradual development of a moral and racialized understanding of housing as a ‘social award’. This has created a specific social category known as ‘housing otherness’, which includes migrants and Italian squatters who are experiencing severe housing distress. This exclusionary approach towards the most ‘diverse’ sections of the population in Rome can be traced back to the inception of public housing in Italy during the 1920s. The paper aims to provide a historical account of this process and demonstrate how it is based on the limited availability of residency and settling as a commodity. I also introduce the grassroots Roman housing rights movements and highlights their efforts to challenge the notion that residency and settling should be seen as something that is earned or deserved rather than as basic human rights.

The Roman Houses of the Caelian Hill (Rome, Italy): Multitemporal Evaluation of Biodeterioration Patterns.

Like other hypogeal environments, the Roman Houses of the Caelian Hill are prone to unwanted biological growth. Wide conservative interventions have been carried out at the beginning of this millenium to reduce biodeterioration and physical-chemical damages. Retracing the last monitoring work, we assessed the site's current state of conservation and biodeterioration intending to check the previous treatments' effectiveness and deepen the common knowledge of the subterranean biota and their possible biodeteriogenic effects. Starting from the past test areas and the previous identifications of the occurring biodeteriogens, we further isolated and identified the main eubacterial, fungal, and phototrophic settlers, focusing on some detrimental traits for wall paintings (i.e., acid production and carbonate precipitation). The achieved results proved the success of the performed interventions in reducing the wall's water content. Otherwise, the new conditions raise, in the long term, new concerns about lampenflora, carbonate precipitations, and salt efflorescence. Here, the Caelian Houses' new status is documented. The possible favouring conditions for the different groups of biodeteriogens, along with the taxonomical novelties, additional risks tied to the anthropization of the resident culturable microbial community, and the possible relation between the black fungus Cyphellophora olivacea and roots, are reported and discussed.

Coming to Light: Illuminating the House of the Greek Epigrams in Pompeii

In recent decades, studies of Roman domestic space have proliferated. The result is a rich but impenetrable picture, with scholars often favoring the use of ancient sources on one hand and finds from excavated houses or material remains on the other. Studies have emphasized how light can be approached to investigate space and its social meaning. At the same time, in the field of digital technologies applied to archaeological investigation, light simulation and analysis have proven to be advantageous tools. Based on the concept of light as a powerful social agent, this study presents new insights into social and spatial behavior in the Roman house through simulation of natural and artificial light on a digital 3D reconstruction of the House of the Greek Epigrams (V.1.18) in Pompeii.1

Domestic Space, Access Analysis, and Social Transformations: Houses in Iron Age and Roman Mediterranean Gaul

Studies investigating changes in domestic architecture from the Iron Age to the Roman period in the northwestern provinces of the Roman empire have often suggested an important degree of continuity in domestic social relations, although the province of Mediterranean Gaul, Gallia Narbonensis, has been underrepresented in these studies. This article employs access analysis to compare domestic space in Mediterranean Gaul at three preconquest Iron Age settlements (ca. 500–50 BCE) and five Roman-period houses from the first–second centuries CE. This analysis suggests that many Roman houses in Gallia Narbonensis helped structure quite different forms of daily social interactions and encounters through important changes in the physical organization of domestic space. In particular, the communitarian organization of domestic space for the Iron Age settlements seems to have encouraged daily encounters within and between domestic groups through shared, communal spaces, rather than separating social units into coherent sets of rooms that in a modern setting we would consider “houses.” By contrast, in the Roman period internally organized domestic spaces emphasized specialization and internal divisions, structuring socioeconomic distinctions, and in doing so, signaled an important social rupture that contrasts with other provinces of Gaul.1

A pedo-geomorphological view on land use and its potential in the surroundings of the ancient Hispano-Roman city Munigua (Seville, SW Spain)

Abstract. This study investigates the surroundings of Munigua (municipium Flavium Muniguense), a small Roman town in the ancient province of Hispania Baetica (SW Spain). The city's economy was based primarily on copper and iron mining, which brought financial prosperity to its citizens. Local production of agricultural goods is thought to have been of little importance, as the regional soil conditions do not seem to be suitable for extensive agriculture. To evaluate the recent soil agro-potential and to find evidence for prehistoric and historic land use in the surroundings of Munigua, we applied a pedo-geomorphological approach based on the physico-chemical analysis of 14 representative soil and sediment exposures. Selected samples were analyzed for bulk chemistry, texture and phytoliths. The chronostratigraphy of the sequences was based on radiocarbon dating of charcoal samples. The site evaluation of the present-day soil agro-potential was carried out according to standard procedures and included evaluation of potential rootability, available water-storage capacity and nutrient budget within the uppermost 1 m. The results show that moderate to very good soil agro-potential prevails in the granitic and floodplain areas surrounding Munigua. Clearly, recent soil agro-potential in these areas allows the production of basic agricultural goods, and similar limited agricultural use should also have been possible in ancient times. In contrast, weak to very weak present-day soil agro-potential prevails in the metamorphic landscape due to the occurrence of shallow and sandy to stony soils. In addition, the study provides pedo-geomorphological evidence for prehistoric and historic land use in pre-Roman, Roman and post-Roman times. Catenary soil mapping in the vicinity of a Roman house complex reveals multi-layered colluvial deposits. They document phases of hillslope erosion mainly triggered by human land use between 4063 ± 82 and 3796 ± 76 cal BP, around 2601 ± 115 cal BP, and between 1424 ± 96 and 421 ± 88 cal BP. Moreover, geochemical and phytolith analyses of a Roman hortic Anthrosol indicate the local cultivation of agricultural products that contributed to the food supply of Munigua. Overall, the evidence of Roman agricultural use in the Munigua area indicates that the city's economy was by no means focused solely on mining. The production of basic agricultural products was also part of Munigua's economic portfolio. Our geoarcheological study thus supports the archeological concept of economically diversified Roman cities in the province of Baetica and in Hispania.

Who lived in that Roman house? Computational analysis on the domestic space to identify a new hybrid house in the Roman Empire

One important part of ancient urbanism studies has been focused on analysing the typology and evolution of ‘private’ house. Part of these particular buildings with both public and private functions evolved over time, showing the different necessities of the society in each period. The Tetrastylon project aims to solve a surprising issue related to an often poorly identified Roman house. Under the identification of atrium house, two different typologies with important social significance divergences have been merged. On the one hand, researchers have identified the canonical axial Roman house (with some small variations due to urbanistic evolutions) with an open court (atrium). On the other hand, under the classification of atrium house, scholars have also identified another domestic structure which is built around an atrium, but following a Greek scheme of housing. This typology of Roman house, which chronologically appeared after the influence of the classic atrium house has only been detected in Roman cities with a Greek background. The project Tetrastylon is focused on the Magna Grecia and Sicily in the last centuries of Republican time, when many of the Greek colonies became Roman cities or were Roman focus. This area of the Roman Empire is a good goal in order to analyse an important number of these buildings and the result of changing a Greek peristyle for an atrium into a Hellenistic scheme of house. Finally, this typology is also usually confused with the Greek peristyle house as the architectural structures are similar, and the main difference is the morphology of the open space. To clearly identify this typology, conceptually localized between the Greek peristyle and the Roman atrium house, this project has used several archaeological analyses on the three types of dwellings. However, one of the methodological approaches of Tetrastylon has been designed to use computational models for analysing the structure and functioning of this ‘new’ typology. For this reason, in this paper, we present a combination of Space Syntax, axial maps and visibility relational models applied in all domestic structures with the purpose of finding crucial and unquestionable differences between those building models. The results of these techniques have generated new data that complement the archaeological and historical information about these houses, offering a new perspective about the social behaviour of their owners as well as the complexity of Roman urbanism.

Lost Heritage. Architectural Replacement of an Atrium and a Courtyard of the Roman Houses of Armea (Allariz, Ourense)

Francisco Conde-Valvís’s so-called “stone treasure” is a set of unique carved stone pieces, such as bases, column shafts, a mortar, and decorated fragments (trisqueles and rosettes), found during the 2018 excavation campaign in the Cibdá de Armea (Allariz, Ourense). They had been piled up and re-buried—no records existed as to where—at the western end of the Finca de A Atalaia, which was excavated in the 1950s under the direction of Conde-Valvís and began to be excavated again in 2011. The thorough review of the graphic and textual material available from the old excavations allowed us to determine the original archaeological context of the pieces. Most of these elements belonged to the atria of the so-called “Domus of Hexasquel” (North house) and “Domus of the Rosette” (South house). Once we established the origin of all the elements, especially with the aid of the old photographs, it was decided to reintegrate them into the site, to increase the educational and interpretive value of Armea, instead of burying them indefinitely in the warehouses of a museum.

Parametric approach to the reconstruction of timber structures in Campanian Roman houses

The virtual reconstruction of ancient architecture aims at describing the ‘original’ elevation and volume of a disappeared building. The feeble archaeological traces, often limited to their foundations, left by houses impair the reinstating of their image, in contrast to that which is made possible by the massive structures of public buildings. A twofold problem arises when dealing with timber structures during a reconstruction procedure: at the local scale of the individual beam (e.g. joists or rafters), one must define a beam’s cross-section given its span; at the overall scale, the shape of a building results from that which its structures allowed it to have been. Therefore, this work proposes a procedure to deal with the ‘local’ problem, i.e. the definition of a beam’s cross-section from its span. To that end, a simplified, parametric structural model is required. The available bits of information are organized into inputs, parameters and outputs of the analytical problem by matching each information with a structural quantity (load, cross-section, spacing, etc.). Two mathematical relationships among them are proposed, which express two equally possible dimensioning criteria, based either on joists’ strength or deformability. It seems that the joist’s strength was the option for lightly loaded joists, as in roofs or tightly spaced floor frames; conversely, heavily loaded joists conformed to the deformability criterion. Both dimensioning procedures are translated into a visual algorithm in Grasshopper, a plugin for Rhinoceros modelling software, which enables the parametric definition of objects. Finally, the proposed procedure is tentatively applied to automatically reconstruct the floor and roof frames that belonged to the domus on top of the Sarno Baths in Pompeii. The algorithm automatically picked the dimensioning criterion in relation to each frame’s span and hypothesized loads and determined joists’ orientation and minimum cross-sections. The obtained floor frames, whose structural conditions are considered as sensible, will be adopted in the overall virtual reconstruction proposal of the ruins, also based on the analytical evaluation of masonry structures.Highlights:- Proposal of a structural model for the dimensioning of timber floor beams in domestic spaces based on archaeological and literature information.- Parametrical interpretation of the model in Grasshopper for Rhinoceros software and optimization analysis of the structural parameters involved.- Application of the model to the reconstruction of floor frames in a house in the Sarno Baths complex, Pompeii.

Study of the visual effect of columns of peristyle in ancient Roman houses No.5

Study of the visual effect of columns of peristyle in ancient Roman houses No.5

Colonnaded Hall in Kourion: How the Oecus Corinthius Was Interpreted in the Roman Houses of Cyprus

This contribution analyses the architecture of the public reception area of a house in Kourion, on the southern coast of Cyprus. Known as the Early Christian House due to the discovery of a later phase, characterised above all by mosaics, the house, which is only partially excavated, boasts architectural features that date back to the Hellenistic era. These sprang from official Alexandrian models that subsequently spread across the Mediterranean. In territories such as Cyprus, where ties with the Ptolemaic Kingdom were close, this new form of architectural expression continued to flourish, with transformations and elements of innovation, even during the Imperial Age. In the Early Christian House this phenomenon is particularly evident in a colonnaded room in which the model defined by Vitruvius, the Oecus Corinthius appears. In this particular instance, the style is embellished with the use of simplified capitals and angular heart-shaped pillars of the Doric order. The architectural elements of the house are analysed here in order to provide a stylistic and chronological framework what contribute to the reconstruction of the history of the early Imperial phase of the building.

Foodways in Roman Republican Italy By Laura M. Banducci. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 2021. Pp. 366. $85. ISBN 9780472132300 (cloth).

<i>Foodways in Roman Republican Italy</i> By Laura M. Banducci. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 2021. Pp. 366. $85. ISBN 9780472132300 (cloth).

Archaeological and Chemical Investigation on the High Imperial Mosaic Floor Mortars of the Domus Integrated in the Museum of Archaeology D. Diogo de Sousa, Braga, Portugal

This paper intends to characterize the floor mortar layers (nucleus, rudus and statumen) of the high imperial mosaics of the domus integrated in the Museum of Archeology D. Diogo de Sousa, the oldest roman housing testimonies known in Braga, Portugal. It offers an important archaeological and historical contextualization and first chemical characterization attempt on the mortars. The study of 13 mortar samples was carried out at a chemical level through X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF). All samples presented low lime content when compared to similar studies. A high chemical similarity between nucleus mortars (opus signinum) and chemical composition differences between rudus and statumen mortars was determined, confirmed by statistical analyses. Their composition was distinctly related to the stratigraphic position of each floor mortar layer, following Vitruvius’ model, and to the external conditions and treatments (e.g., capillary rise with soluble salts and application of chemical treatments), to which they were submitted.

Review: Emulating Antiquity: Renaissance Buildings from Brunelleschi to Michelangelo

Review: <i>Emulating Antiquity: Renaissance Buildings from Brunelleschi to Michelangelo</i>

Last suppers at Sardis

AbstractThe realia of shared meals provide a key index for social behavior in Late Antiquity. Much attention has been paid to the architecture and ceramics of dining, but usually separately and from unrelated contexts. Three excavated rooms at Sardis present an opportunity to extend this discussion to the furnishings that once stood at the center of domestic hospitality. Nearly complete marble tabletops recovered from their places of intended use show differing approaches to the physical and social arrangements of convivial dining, with implications for interpreting reception areas in Late Roman houses. Circumstances of preservation indicate that all three rooms were leveled, probably by earthquakes, in the early 7th c. CE.

Hearth in the Sacral Topography of a Roman House and Ritual Practice of Familia

The article is devoted to the analysis of the hearth as the most important sacred center of Roman dwelling interior space. It addresses such issues as the role of the hearth in a Roman family’s sacra privata; peculiarities of the ritual practice of paterfamilias, materfamilias and their children. Attention is paid to the pantheon of gods related to the hearth and rituals aimed at their veneration. The relevance of this study lies in addressing the religious component of Roman living space, which, unfortunately, is not a priority for the specialists in Roman history who focus more on social aspects analysis of the space of a Roman house. Historicism and scientific objectivity principles served as a methodological basis for the research, the comparative-historical method was also used. A study of Romans’ home religion made it possible to establish that all significant events in the family were accompanied by rituals at the hearth; they also turned to it for help in the event of a threat; the hearth could warn a family of danger ‒ it could “bleed” or be “overturned”. It is important to note that the sacredness of the hearth is also confirmed by the fact that they should have bring it from home and not light a fire on the spot. The paterfamilias’ daughters and not his wife, were involved in daily rituals at the hearth, probably due to their “purity” which they kept until marriage. Research result is the partial reconstruction of family’s sacred sphere, especially ritual practice. Conducting this reconstruction is very problematic and conditionally due to the lack of sources, but it is important to note that even a partial reconstruction allows us to define the main functions of participants in ritual practice and claim that family’s sacred sphere was primarily associated with the hearth, which was the basis of the ancient Romans’ sacra privata. Keywords: atrium, focus, ritual, paterfamilias, materfamilias, Lares, Penates, Vesta