Domus VI 2, 16-21 was previously investigated during excavation campaigns in 2002-2004. In June 2005 a trench was placed in the present cella penaria which uncovered a kitchen counter and related floor datable to the beginning of the 2nd century B.C. The structure, which in its earliest phase was inserted into a space shared with the adjoining domus VI 2, 17-20, was dismantled when the house was extended to the east. This intervention, as is attested by the construction of the walls in opus incertum with re-used materials, dates to the post-earth quake period. Within the levelling layers (early Imperial period) of the room was a tufa altar, fragments of which had been used in the blocking of a niche situated by the northern door jamb of the house’s main entrance. This new data has confirmed the earlier hypothesis of the existence of a sacellum along Vicolo di Narciso linked to the cults of the vicinalia and an expression of the religiosity of those living in this quarter. Also connected with the shrine were the underlying coin hoard dating from the end of the 4th to the end of the 2nd centuries B.C. and a nearby pit, containing votive material, dug when the structure went out of use in the late Republican period. The altar, which must have stood in front of the niche when a functioning part of the shrine’s cult activities, was re-used as part of the leveling in a service room, when the shrine was no longer in use.
Moreover, the excavation has shown that, when the domus was constructed, the floor level was raised by almost 2 m, filling the difference in height that operations relating to the construction of the agger had caused. In order to avoid subsidence opus caementicium retaining walls were built on which the later perimeter foundations of the house rest. (Lara Anniboletti)