Room 1

Mats Holmlund

Room 1 is approximately 16 square meters and square shaped. It is entered through a circa 3,40 m wide doorway from Via de Vesuvio. A door in the back leads into a retrobottega (room 2), and another into a corridor (room 3).

The walls of the room seem to have been restored and/or rebuilt during antiquity, but at a rather late stage in the history of the city. This is partly indicated by the mixed construction techniques and partly by the use of bricks as building material. There are some remnants of wall plaster on the north and south walls, and only parts of the ancient floor levels does.

At first glance the room seems to lack features. However, there is a lava stone threshold by the entrance from Via de Vesuvio. In the centre of the room, towards the back, there is also a small vault shaped cistern marked by a lava stone rim, and by the north wall there is a limestone block, circa 1 meter in front of the entrance to room 3.

Besides these visible features, there is an earlier, broken part of the cistern hidden below the floor surface, by the entrance. The ceiling of the cistern is mended by four limestone blocks, and another, adjacent, but slightly askewed, limestone block that covers an earlier opening of the cistern.

There are three water conduits in the room. The first enters the room from room 2 and ends in a cleansing hole by lava stone rim of the cistern, the second begins at cleansing hole and ends in a hole in the north wall, and the third (that was out of use by the time of the eruption), is cut off and begins close to the lava stone rim and ends at the middle south side of the earlier, broken cistern.

There is an upper floor of room 1, but there are no remnants or signs of a staircase. Eschebach calls the entrance to room 3 for "passage to a stairwell", but since the corridor is too narrow, the interpretation isn't plausible. Considering the distance between the beam holes in the walls of the room, it is difficult to see how the the upper floor could be entered from room 1.