South Wall

Susanna Blåndman

The south wall is an inner wall, located between room 3 and 4. The wall is built in opus mixtum with opus incertum and opus vittatum mixtum. It contains a few details such as a 1.42 m wide doorway with a modern door lintel above and a window to the east. The wall is clearly reconstructed above the modern door lintel, from the height of 2.00 m and upwards. This reconstruction contains six beam holes, placed at the wrong height in comparison with the original beam holes in the north wall. The area around the window is also reconstructed but how much is difficult to decide. There are no spolia and no remains of wall plaster.

Opus vittatum mixtum west of the doorway
The wall west of the doorway is 0.21 m wide and built in opus vittatum mixtum, from the height of 0.13 m and upwards. The opus vittatum mixtum is made of two courses of bricks alternating with one course of tufa blocks. Each section of bricks (0.06 - 0.09 m thick) corresponds quite well in height to each course of tufa blocks (0.08 - 0.09 m thick). The bricks are 0.07 - 0.21 m long and 0.03 - 0.04 m thick. The tufa blocks are 0.10 - 0.21 m long and 0.08 - 0.09 m thick. At the height of 1.30 m, a 0.28 m high area consisting of seven courses of bricks corresponds with the long band of bricks in the west wall.

Opus vittatum mixtum east of the doorway
The wall east of the doorway is 1.32 m wide and 2.05 m high and contains a window. The area below the window is built in opus vittatum mixtum to the west and the courses are of different length. It is made of two courses of bricks alternating with one course of stones of tufa blocks and is partly covered by modern mortar to the west from 0.23 m to 0.80 m.

Opus incertum
The remaining part of the wall is built in opus incertum consisting of cruma, Sarno stones and lava stones. The easternmost part of the wall is built in opus incertum up to the height of 1.38 m. This part is badly preserved and stones are missing in the lower east corner and in the upper part. In other parts a thick layer of mortar covers the stones. This section is probably partly reconstructed since there is modern mortar in some areas. In the lowermost part of the wall there is a protuberance made of bricks and mortar. It starts at a distance of 0.88 m from the southeast corner in room 4 and ends at a distance of 1.46 m from the same corner. It is 0.03 m wide and 0.05 m thick to the east, 0.11 m wide and 0.15 m thick to the west. Three bricks are visible in the protuberance, they are placed 0.88 - 1.22 m from the east corner, are 0.07 - 0.10 m long and 0.02 - 0.03 m thick. The protuberance continues around the corner of the doorway.

Window
The window is located at the height of 0.94 m and 0.35 m from the east corner. It is 1.04 - 1.06 m high and 0.57 - 0.58 m wide. In the bottom of the lower east corner there are remains of a thin layer of wall plaster at a distance of 0.07 m and 0.21 m from the north side of the window. Both patches are approximately 0.10 m long and traces of a right-angled corner can be seen in them. It is difficult to decide how large the window was in antiquity. The width is probably still the same, but it is not possible to decide upon the height due to modern reconstructions. The section east of the window, from the height of 1.39 m and up to the door lintel is almost entirely built of bricks and is in bad shape. A large part of this section of the wall is probably reconstructed. At the west side of the window, between the window and the doorway the part above the height of 1.10 m is reconstructed.

Doorway
The doorway is 1.87 m high on the east side and 1.97 m on the west side. The difference in height is explained by the earlier mentioned protuberance. At the height of 0.40 m there is a 0.70 m high patch of modern mortar at the east corner of the doorway.