Room p

Thomas Staub

The elongated Room p opens up in its entire southern side towards the peristyle, just as the adjoining room or exedrao. A narrow door opening connects the two rooms with eachother. The function of this room has, based on Vitruvius, been identified as a winter triclinium, since the large opening on its south side would have made it too hot during summer time (Strocka 1995, 270).
Where visible (large areas of the walls are still covered by plaster), most of the walls are constructed in a quite mixed opus incertum, only the west wall show some areas with nearly pure lava rubble. The door-frames are mainly made of a opus vittatum with blocks of Sarno stone or lava. In the north walls two seams are visible close to the east corner, both in the lower and the upper part (the central part is covered by plaster). Most probably the area framed by these seams forms a remain of an earlier wall in n-s direction, which was torn down in connection with the extensive restructuring of the house (the supposed merger) in the second half of the first century BC. The same can be observed at the corresponding location on the other side of the wall in room w.
The floor, now quite damaged and fragile, consists of a coccio-pesto coating with irregularly inserted chips of travertine.