Water, well-being and social complexity in Insula V 1

2010-12-02

Front cover of Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome (OpAthRom) 3, Stockholm 2010. ISSN: 2000-0898. ISBN: 978-91-977798-2-1. Softcover, 224 pages.Opuscula 3 (2010) is now available for purchase and free download at Bokorder.se. Also available at Amazon.com, Amazon.de, Bokus.com, and Adlibris.com.

Water, well-being and social complexity in Insula V 1. A Pompeian city block revisited

By Anne-Marie Leander Touati

Abstract

Swedish archaeologists have been working in Pompeii since 2000. Our fieldwork has consisted mainly of the study of standing walls and cleared floor levels in a city block unearthed in the 19th century and of the production of a comprehensive documentation, presented in an open access publication: www.pompejiprojektet.se/insula.php. The perspective of the present paper is the insula as a whole. Its main study objects are features of recurrent nature that in varying form and frequency are found in many of the separate houses and other units that constitute this insula: for example, the divergent materials used for the rubble masonry in the first phase of urbanisation, structures used for water management such as water supply and drains, possible earthquake damage and resulting repairs, preferences for where kitchens and sanitary installations are placed, markers indicating property borders and dependencies such as pavement curbing, courses of water inlets and drains, shops communicating with the houses through rear doorways, and the existence and extent of second-storey flats. The features studied are contextualised in their natural and urban environment. In general, historical events enter the discussion when linked to the chronological development of the infrastructures, communal and private, which this study highlights as being of decisive importance for understanding the development of the organisation of real estate and social structures in this insula and on a wider stage as well.

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Bibliographical information

Anne-Marie Leander Touati, ‘Water, well-being and social complexity in Insula V 1. A Pompeian city block revisited’, Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome (OpAthRom) 3, 105–161. Stockholm 2010. ISSN: 2000-0898. ISBN: 978-91-977798-2-1. Softcover, 224 pages. https://doi.org/10.30549/opathrom-03-06

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