Season Team

• AIAC_2461 - Insula IX.3 di Marco Lucrezio - 2005
  In 2005, the project’s work concentrated on the northern parts of the Casa di Marco Lucrezio. Excavations were continued in the garden and several waste pits containing mostly wall painting fragments and some pottery were discovered. The Fourth Style painting fragments found at the bottom of one of the pits next to the fountain complex date the deposit to the last phase of Pompeii and confirm the late date of the visible garden arrangement. The trench by the pappamonte wall in the southern part of the garden was extended, but only two new later waste pits were discovered. Buildings archaeological work was extended to the house IX 3,24 where excavations were carried out in two places in the atrium and in the area between the garden and house 24. A sequence of three plaster floors was discovered in the northern atrium and the same sequence was also found in the southern trench. The fill layers between the floors raised the general ground level ca. 50 cm possibly causing also changes in the walls, which had to be raised as well. The finds from the contents of a large waste pit – or possibly a filled cistern – in the middle of the atrium under the lowermost floor dates the beginning of the sequence only roughly to the 1st century BC. Some 3rd–4th century BC pottery was discovered in the southern trench just above a sequence of layers of volcanic ash.
• AIAC_2461 - Insula IX.3 di Marco Lucrezio - 2006
  The work in the Casa di Marco Lucrezio continued with check-ups of the archaeological data as well as with documentation of wall paintings. Buildings archaeology was conducted in house IX 3,25 west of the large domus and excavations were carried out in two places in the narrow street north of the city block. The eastern trench was located near the junction of houses 24 and 25 and the western one close to the northwestern corner of the city block. The eastern trench revealed several consecutive street layers particularly in the sidewalk as well as a large and late waste pit extending partially under the Central Bath north of the street. The lowermost deposits of the sidewalk revealed a foundation trench of the travertine ashlar façade of house 24 and the finds date the building to the late 3rd– early 2nd century BC. The western trench revealed several waster pits topped by several street layers. In addition, a masonry reservoir, possibly a water cistern or a cess pit, was discovered continuing under the sidewalk. House IX 3,25 is a small row house with travertine framework walls in the façade and eastern parts and mostly trachyte rubble work walls otherwise. Cleaning of the floor surfaces revealed an earlier plaster floor ca. 20 cm below the last phase floor as well as a completely demolished room in the western part of the house between the current atrium and possible garden area. A small trench was placed in the southwestern corner of the atrium and this revealed a clay and stone wall decorated with painted wall plaster, but almost completely razed. This was the northwestern corner of the demolished room. The trench revealed also that the western wall of the atrium was built over a water channel or a gutter indicating changes in the room arrangements between houses 25 and IX 3,1–2. In other parts of the house, a small toilet was found in the southeastern corner and it was probably the only roofed area in the southern part of the house. A waste pit was discovered north of the toilet, but this was not excavated.