Balnea: the pottery assemblage from the piscina calida of the Suburban Baths in Pompeii
The Suburban Baths lie on a natural slope just
outside the city walls of Pompeii and were covered only partially by the volcanic debris of the AD 79 eruption. Afterwards, the building
was visited probably already in the 2nd c. AD – as the spoliation of the nymphaeum suggests – and surely from the 4th to the 18th c., as the
pottery and tunnels prove. The site was fully excavated and restored in 1985-88, but only a handful of potsherds have been published so far.
This contribution describes the pottery assemblage from the piscina calida (room 2), it provides percentages of the pottery classes and their
main types.
The majority of the fragments are dated to the Augustan-Tiberian period and seems to be related to the use of the baths, while a
smaller amount is of a later period and suggests that the baths were under restoration. No post-79 potsherds have been found in this room.
Parole chiave: Pompei, terme Suburbane, ceramica da mensa, ceramica comune, pareti sottili
Keywords: Pompeii, Suburban Baths, Tableware, Common-ware, Thin-walled pottery
