Installations in floor

Thomas Staub

Lead bucket
At the northern side, 1.23 m to the west from north-west corner, 0.05 m in front of the wall, a lead bucket was inserted into the floor, protruding a few cm above floor level. Its upper rim is decorated with an egg and dart pattern garland, continuing underneath the floor level. The bucket has a diam. of 0.295 m, a depth of 0.23 m, and the lead is 0.004 m thick.
The bucket has a capacity of approx. 14 litres and was adorned with an egg and dart pattern garland on its upper rim. It was inserted next to the north wall underneath the overflow water pipe that ran from the eastern side of the basin in front of the nymphaeum of the peristyle towards the back street. Probably some of the clean overflow water could be collected and used, maybe through a now lost tap in the pipe. Of this pipe, only scant remains are preserved in the western part of the posticum. Its continuation to the corner of the house towards the back street can be followed by the imprints of the pipe and by the incrustations from the calcium deposits from the water at its former outlet to the street. The water thus collected may have served both to rinse the latrina (For the use of water for rinsing Pompeian latrinae, see Hobson 2009, 113-127) and for the presumed production activities in room e. It is possible that the overflow water from the bucket was led out through the drainage channel towards the back street, visible underneath the threshold of the side entrance V 1,9.