West Wall

Renée Forsell

This wall is one of if not the latest rebuild of the house. It stands on an older foundation and is built on the old thresholds. It is also thicker than the rest of the walls of the house. There are three door openings in the wall. The wall is built in op. incertum consisting of mainly lava in the lower part up to the level of the lintel blocks. Above that level, as shown by inserted tiles, the wall is partly reconstructed in limestone, cruma and lava stones.
The doorposts flanking the door openings are built with limestone blocks along the floor and yellow and grey tufa blocks above. Above the middle door opening stones are placed to form a relieving arch. In the restoration in 2011 new wooden lintel blocks were inserted.

There are some remain of much weathered wall plaster in the lower part of the northernmost and southernmost parts of the wall. There are no remains of the coloured plaster shown on the model in the National museum at Naples, that is red plaster on the wall between rooms 6 and 7 and yellow and black between rooms 5and 6.

After the latest restoration in 2011 modern mortar covers all the ancient mortar.