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In the south-western corner of insula 6 of Regio VI, at the crossroads between Via delle Terme and Via Consolare and thus along the road leading to Porta Ercolano and out of the city, stands one of the many Pompeii bakeries. The bakery is situated next to a huge domus dating back to the Hellenistic period (II century b.C.), the socalled Casa di Pansa, but has no connection with it unlike other bakeries in Pompeii closely linked to the home of their owners. This bakery is known as "Bakery of the Christians" for a relief in stucco, now lost, found on an inner wall and misinterpreted as a cross, symbol of the Christianity.
The premises consist of 6 rooms: a large selling hall with entrance from numbers 19, 20 and 21; on the western wall there was a religious painting (lararium) representing a snake, while on the opposite wall there was the abovementioned cross; a small room; a large vestibule to the rooms for breadmaking, with entrance from nnmbers 17 and 18; a warehouse, maybe of grain (horreum), or probably a stable (stabulum); the room for baking, where three lava millstones are kept, together with a surface for mixing flour along the eastern wall and the oven; clay jars for water were also found here; another room was probably used as a warehouse. Above the oven door there was a travertine slab, painted red, representing a phallus and an inscription "Hic habitat Felicitas" (="Here happiness dwells"), now kept in the Secret Cabinet of the Archaeological Museum of Naples. The image had no erotic meaning but was just intended to protect the oven against the evil eye, as it represented the main business for the househould and thus a source of wealth and happiness for those who worked there.
About 30 bakeries (pistrina) have been found in Pompeii, including those for confectionery, a greater number than that found in the town of Herculaneum where only two pistrina have so far been found. Some of the Pompeian pistrina have yielded interesting data ' for reconstructing in detail the procedures used by the Romans for baking bread. For example, in Modestus's bakery, 81 burnt loaves were found, one of which is displayed in the Antiquarium of Boscoreale while the others are kept in Archaeological Museum of Naples and in Pompeii. In another bakery excavations (VI 3, 27) unearthed some iron objects which were interpreted as the joints allowing the upper part of the sandglass-shaped millstone (catillus) to rotate easily by being pushed by a man or a donkey over the fixed bel]-shaped lower part (meta). Wheat, poured into the upper cone of the catillus, would flow along the walls of the meta and the walls of the lower conc of the catillus, where it was ground into flour. Flour would settle on the horizontal surface of the brick step surrounding the base of the
meta protected by a lead plate, as demostrated by examples of the Vesuvian area.
Source
Soprintendenza
Archeologica di Pompei |
