The main objective of the “Piastrina – research on bakeries in Roman Italy” project is to define, on an archaeological basis, the chronology of the transition from purely domestic to commercial bread making, following the evolution of techniques, in particular in relation to the oven, and the organisation of productive spaces.

The first step towards this aim is the creation of an exhaustive catalogue, based mainly on the sites of Pompeii and Ostia, of the various types of equipment present in the workshops: mill-stones, mixers, work tables, ovens, water supply and furnishings. Using this catalogue it will be possible to propose a faithful reconstruction of the production line in bakeries. From this it will then be possible to undertake a spatial analysis of the organisation of the production areas which takes into account the available spaces and how they were used to satisfy the necessities of the production line.
This analysis will be necessary at Pompeii in particular as the bakeries were located in spaces that were originally domestic and thus had to be adapted for the new activity. These problems were increased by the sismic activity which affected the city during its final years.

As regards Pompeii, a production of excess flour may be hypothesized from the absence of mill-stones in some spaces which had an oven and from the existence of premises that only undertook milling. Besides, the presence of tabernae at the front of a number of bakeries suggests the sale of freshly baked bread just out of the oven. It is also necessary to consider the possible sales outlets used by bakeries which were not attached to a taberna.

Together with the photometric survey which aimed to make a complete analysis of the structures of the house where the bakery IX 3, 19 20 was installed, the cleaning campaign undertaken there revealed an organization to date unknown in Pompeian bakeries. The use of opus signinum in two rooms, in one of which there was the puteal of a cistern associated with a number of lead fistulae which brought water to the house, supports G. Fiorelli’s hypothesis that these structures formed the point where grain was cleaned before being milled. Clearance in the room housing the mixer clarified how this machine had been installed: it sat in a pit cut into the floor and was held in position by a beam which supported the axle used for mixing the various ingredients of the dough.