Floor
Description
Mats Holmlund
The floor of the room is mostly intact, except for the area around the door leading into room 1 and some instances above the water conduit that passes through the room, beneath the floor. In the doorway area an earlier floor level is visible and the floor level of 79 AD rests directly upon this earlier floor.
The upper floor level is between 0.02 and 0.04 m thick, made in cocciopesto and originally had a red coating (traces of which are visible along the south wall). Compared to the floors of the other rooms of the taberna, it is remarkably well preserved. The area by the doorway where (both levels of) the floor is missing is approximately half a square meter and it was probably removed when the taberna originally was excavated. There are some holes in the floor in the area where the water conduit passes through the room. Supposedly, the holes were made during the eruption, when the roof and upper floor of the taberna collapsed and broke the floor where it was weakest.
The earlier floor level is made in lavapesta and circa 0.03 to 0.05 m thick. It is not possible to fully determine the colour and quality of the earlier floor, since so little of it is visible. It was cut through when the water conduit was constructed and immediately overlaid by the later floor level.
Roof tiles were used to cover the water conduit before it being covered by the later cocciopesto floor.
