The Pompeii Artefact Life History Project has recently restudied the materials recovered in excavations carried out at Pompeii in 1978 in
the Torre VIII/Porta di Nola area by a team from the Università Statale di Milano. These materials were recovered in four refuse middens deposited against the outer face of the town’s fortifications. The pottery included several sherds with manufacturing defects (cracking, reduction, fusing, bloating, collapse) that represent refuse from a pottery workshop. This establishment, which produced utilitarian vessels
in a coarse, ferruginous fabric made with volcanic clay and a porphyritic fabric made with marine clay and volcanic temper, along with
thin-walled ware in a ferruginous fabric made with a gritty volcanic clay, was active for a poorly defined span of time during the period
ca. 50 BC – AD 50. Since the material in the middens likely originated in the neighboring parts of Regiones III and IV we surmise that
the workshop was situated somewhere in this part of the town.
Parole chiave: Pompei, officina ceramica, difetti di produzione, ceramica comune, ceramica a pareti sottili
Keywords: Pompeii, pottery workshop, production defects, utilitarian ware, thin-walled ware
