This study which began in 2004 as part of the research programme on craft working undertaken by the Centro Jean Bérard at Naples aims to resolve some problems linked to lead working at Herculaneum and Pompeii. During the campaigns of the last years the activities carried out in the workshop of the plumbarius, incorporated in the façade of the House of the Black Walls, were identified, as was the evolution of the latter’s relationship with this domus.

The data from the trenches dug in the three rooms at the front of the House of the Black Walls provided an interpretation of the main occupation phases of room VI, 12, which at the moment of the eruption housed the workshop for the transformation of lead. Through an analysis of mortar sample composition it was established that the workshop was installed within the pre-existing domus during the decade beginning in 70 A.D. Moreover, an intensive study of the excavation archive provided an understanding of both the structures and the tools used for metal working, despite the great errors of restoration made during the 1960s.

An examination of the metal sections taken from Pompeian objects provide the basis for the reconstruction of some techniques used by lead workers in the cities buried by Vesuvius. As regards the other two workshops (VI,14 and VI, 15), stratigraphic excavation has shown that from the Augustan period until 62 A.D. they formed a single unit. They were only divided after the earthquake. Other structures linked to the functioning of this first workshop have been identified but their interpretation remains uncertain.