Insula I 9: paintings

The nucleus in this study is decorations in houses in insula I 9. My previous work on wall decoration in Pompeii showed that there were technical and material variations in the plastering and painting technique, and these were related to time. The main objective in the present study was to examine whether there was a relation between the size of a house, the materials, the choice of patterns and the motifs depicted. Such a relation would, hypothetically, reveal the cultural status of the house owner. The working method in situ consisted in observations of paintings in houses located across the site, and studies of written sources. During the readings I found that some conventional terms were rather randomly used, and therefore want to explain my own use of these, in order to avoid misunderstanding. The layout of this article is to briefly present the insula, the aspects investigated and current research, followed by the examination of paintings in one house at the time, comparing these to similar motifs in other houses. At the end there is a discussion and my conclusions.