Room t

Thomas Staub

Room t, entered by a doorway from room w and with its east wall boarding on the narrow side street Vicolo di Caecilius Iucundus, is the fourth one, counted from the south in a row of five smaller rooms. This room can easily be identified as the kitchen of the house, since the hearth is built against its east wall. Another typical feature for a culina is the niche for the lararium, carved into the same wall above the hearth. Slightly more unusual for a private kitchen is the small oven to the north of the hearth. The narrow north wall, separating the kitchen from the latrina (0.2 m) has collapsed and only the lowermost part is preserved, but imprints in the east and west wall confirms ist former existence. Much of the walls are heavily repaired in modern times, so that the existance of an upper floor is indicated only by narrow recesses in the modern part of the west wall, in the east wall pieces of cruma, else not common in that zone, in the corresponding height could be indicators of the beamholes in this wall. This upper floor room was probably a part of an independent apartment accessible through the entrance V 1,12. Two windows open up from the kitchen towards the Vicolo di Caecilius Iucundus, another two are situated high up on the wall, iluminating the room of the upper floor. On the south wall a niche is carved into the wall, again in such a height, that it is related to the upper room.
No remains of decorations nor of a pavement are preserved. The predominant mural technique is an Opus incertum containing mixed materials, except fot the higher part of the east wall which consists of nearly pure Cruma. Some areas made of Opus vittatum can be descerned as well. Extensive modern repairs from several periods hampers the possibilities for detailed observations.