Introduction
It is amazing that Pompeii, a city that existed so long ago, had such a complex water system. Ancient Rome is famous for its luxurious public baths, but much less is known about the about the movement of water through private homes. Did all citizens have running water? How was the water transported to individual homes? How were they able to control the flow of the water? Did they have toilets and sinks? How did they dispose of waste? Since Pompeii (and Herculaneum) were so well preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, archaeologists have been able to answer these questions and more. Studying the use of water in Pompeian homes teaches us about the level of technology available to them and also offers us insight into the daily lives and the values held by the people.
Getting Water to the Home: Wells, Cisterns, and Pipes
Although wells were popular method of obtaining water in Herculaneum, only wealthy citizens in Pompeii could afford to sink private wells. The water table is about twenty meters deep in Pompeii, which is two or three times the depth one would have to dig in Herculaneum, so wells were much too expensive for the average Pompeian ("Water Systems" 161). However, since wells provided a steady flow of water, there were some public wells in the city.
Another way of acquiring water was to build a cistern. Usually located in the courtyard, a cistern is an underground reservoir where rainwater is stored (149). Falling rain would be caught in the compluvium, a channel that surrounds the hole in the roof above the atrium in a home; the rain would then pour through spouts into the impluvium, where it would be routed to the cistern. Rainwater could also reach the cistern by rolling from the ...
... middle of paper ...
... Private Toilets at Pompeii: Appearance and Operation." Sequence and Space in Pompeii. Ed. Sara E. Bon and Rick Jones. Oxford: Oxbow, 1997. 121-134.
---. "Water Pipe Systems in the Houses of Pompeii: Distribution and Use." Water Use and Hydraulics in the Roman City. Ed. Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 2001. 27-40.
---. "Water Systems and Sanitation in the Houses of Herculaneum." Mededelingem van het Nederlands Institut te Rom, vol. 50 (1991) 145-166.
Koloski-Ostrow, Ann Olga. "Water as a Symbol of Wealth? An Overview of the Roman Evidence." Water Use and Hydraulics in the Roman City. Ed. Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 2001. 1-16
Laurence, Ray. Roman Pompeii: Space and Society. New York: Routledge, 1998.
Ling, Roger. The Insula of the Menander at Pompeii, Volume I: The Structures. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.
In this analysis, an examination will be provided on how sources from Pompeii and Herculaneum can be interpreted to make known the role and status that women of first century AD possessed. Specifically, reference will be made to the Fresco from the triclinium of the Villa of the Mysteries, Inscription of the Eumachia Building and the tablets of Poppaea Note. Nevertheless, prior to analysing the evidence that these sources reveal; it should be noted that the women of Pompeii are not to be placed in a homogenous grouping. This is a result of the diversified roles and status that women occupied in Pompeii and Herculaneum. To provide a comprehensive analysis of the roles and status women possessed, the report will be categorised into a domestic, professional and slave context; to ensure the dichotomy in the grouping of women is made explicit.
There are several prominent geographical features that played a major role in the daily life of Pompeii. The geographical location of Pompeii, its economic and industrial activity, entertainment and the Roman influence in the city’s architecture all convey different geographical features. These features contributed in shaping the way the city’s inhabitants went about their daily lives, and all had a profound impact on Pompeii
The Pompeii exhibition at LACMA was an astounding visualization of history. The exhibition provided all sorts of objects; from sculptures, glass figures, painted art, and more. These art pieces specify the kind of life that was taking place in the Bay of Naples during the second century. As we know the cities around the Bay of Naples, which include Pompeii and Herculaneum, became tourist attractions when the cities were excavated after they were buried from the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius. However, the comprehension of how the art pieces made their way into the museum is just a little fact of the history behind them. With this exhibition we are able to feel like we are back in time and living in the exhilarating time of Pompeii.
Water has been an important part of human history, but how exactly did it influence certain characteristics of human development? In Merry Weisner’s book Discovering Global Past: A Look at the Evidence, she provides the sources to prove how the need for a steady supply of water affected much of the progress in human society and raises the question, “How did the need for a steady supply of water affect the technological, economic, political, and legal developments of ancient societies?” (35). The answer is that water affected each one of these developments immensely.
University, C. (2014). HSC Online - Fall. [online] Hsc.csu.edu.au. Available at: http://hsc.csu.edu.au/ancient_history/historical_periods/rome/2536/Rome78_28BC.html [Accessed 3 May. 2014].
The Aztecs discovered the economic value of human waste by using it for salt making, tanning, and fertilizer (158). While these practices reduced the overall amount of waste, they also increased the community’s risk of being exposed to illness. The use of excrement as fertilizer allowed the pathogens to return to the soil and survive and therefore infect members of the community (159). Once the excrement was on the ground, it could also reach water sources through runoff and pollute them. The Aztecs also placed restrictions on locations that bodily functions could occur (158). These methods for disposing of waste were effective at reducing the overall contact with noxious materials, they also placed the community at risk if the maladies were able to pollute water sources or flourish in the
As time passes in the eighth century B.C, Etruscan and Greek colonization encouraged the growth of Pompeii as a city. Important trade routes became a place for trading near the inland. Until the middle of the 5th century B.C, the city was run politically by the Etruscans. In the course of the 6th century B.C, the influence of Greek culture is also accepted by terracottas, ceramics and architecture. A crowd of warriors from Samnium, Samnite, invaded the area somewhere in the 400’s B.C. Pompeii continued as a...
Sanitation was not top priority in ancient times. The latrines were placed in public areas allowing ten to twenty people at a time, with no privacy. Toilet
Rome became dedicated to infrastructure plans that would improve the day-to-day life of its citizens. One of the most notable is within the large system of aqueducts that brought fresh water into Rome, something that was a luxury for Europe at the time. During the second century, other works helped make life within Rome safer and more manageable because, as discussed by Casson, “A city of such size and dense population would have starved or perished in its own filth without the basic urban services.” Systems of sewage were expanded, in addition to the foundation of ancient versions of fire and police brigades. These projects helped make Rome into a livable city, something that is difficult even for contemporary society, much less that of the ancient
Wilson, R.J.A. “Roman Art and Architecture.” Oxford Illustrated History. Oxford U. Press, 1988. pp. 361-399
Bernini’s Fountain of Four Rivers constructed from 1648 to 1651 in the Piazza Navona in Rome for Pope Innocent X. The whole building consisted of two parts: the horizontal fountain and the rising Egyptian obelisk. The massive fountain is made of travertine, supporting the four river gods above and also serving as the foundation of the obelisk. Danube represents Europe. The Ganges refers to the continent of Asia. The Río de la Plata represents America, the New World, and the Niles is Africa. A certain amount of the allegory and metaphors also surround the four river gods respectively. On the slim body of Roman made obelisk (Curran 284), hieroglyphics are displayed in sequential, and a dove and an olive branch, the pacific symbol of the Pamphili family, are on the top of the obelisk. Considering the holy light and papal government the obelisk represented, the four river gods have different responses for the Catholic churches. Since the Niles is the only god who has less visible appearances, therefore, this article argues about the submissive representation of non-western cultures in Bernini’s work of art. At the time, since both the Egyptian obelisk above the fountain and the Nile coming from the same region, the different representations of two objects would be compared
...ctives and elevations of the fountain recall the cityscapes seen on the walls of the cubiculum and other paintings having something to do with scenae frons architecture (11). The exhedrae, which usually adjoined open palestria or peristyles, offer a good comparison with their semicircular arcades forming annular volumes. These spaces communicate with the outer area but still have their own sense of place and charm. They also have a particular public character more appropriate to looking at the Piazza, than say, the semicircular arcades of the markets of Trajan behind one exhedra of his forum (12). While an engaging space in its own right, the Piazza d'Italia fountain operates only partially within the realm of ancient Greco-Roman architecture (Moore's Ph.D dissertation at Princeton was on water in architecture, so he had ample material to draw from. Kiem pp. 196-198).
"Water Management in the Ancient World." Science and Its Times. Ed. Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 2001. Student Resources in Context. Web. 4 Apr. 2014.
Roman aqueducts were a very important in the Roman civilization. If there weren't any aqueducts the Romans had to walk out of the city and walk passed a hill or a mountain just to get water. The water was hard to reach back then in Rome. They did not have any sewers.
Pompeii is possibly the best-documented catastrophe in Antiquity. Because of it, we know now how the Pompeians lived because they left behind an extensive legacy of art, including monuments, sculptures and paintings. Pompeii lay on a plateau of ancient lava near the Bay of Naples in western Italy in a region called Campania, less than 1.6 kilometers from the foot of Mount Vesuvius. With the coast to the west and the Apennine Mountains to the East, Campania is a fertile plain, traversed by two major rivers and rich soil. However, in the early days, it was not a remarkable city. Scholars have not been able to identify Pompeii’s original inhabitants. The first people to settle in this region were probably prehistoric hunters and fishers. By at least the eight century B.C., a group of Italic people known as the Oscans occupied the region; they most likely established Pompeii, although the exact date of its origin is unknown. “The root of the word Pompeii would appear to be the Oscan word for the number five, pompe, which suggests that either the community consisted of five hamlets or, perhaps, was settled by a family group (gens Pompeia)”(Kraus 7). In the course of the eight century B.C., Greek and Etruscan colonization stimulated the development of Pompeii as a city around the area of the Forum. A point for important trade routes, it became a place for trading towards the inland. Up until the middle of the 5th century B.C., the city was dominated politically by the Etruscans.