It is far from certain that the two pottery production facilities discussed above were the only ones active at Pompeii in AD 79. While there may have been other such facilities within the urban core that have yet to be excavated, the presence of rural production facilities in the town’s territory is also possible. In fact, based on what is known of pottery production elsewhere in the Roman world (Peacock 1982, 99), it seems reasonable to hypothesize the existence of rural potteries in locations where resources and space were abundant. Indeed, there is evidence for rural workshop-scale pottery production in Campania and the Bay of Naples area. Recent excavations at localita Porto in the Volturnus Valley north of the Campi Flegrei have revealed several pottery workshops, complete with levigation tanks and kilns that appear to have been associated with two or more villa sites (Chiosi and Gasperetti 1991; Chiosi and Miele 1994; Cicirelli 1996). Perhaps similar installations existed in association with Pompeii’s rural villas. Unfortunately, no pottery production facilities have been identified by archaeologists. Still, this may be a consequence of the unsystematic and limited excavation of sites in the town’s territory.
If villa oriented pottery production facilities did exist in the rural territory of Pompeii, then they would mostly likely have been located near clay, water, and fuel sources. Based on what is known of the geography and geology of the town’s rural hinterland during the first century AD, the most easily accessible clay sources were probably along the Sarno River, which also was the most readily available source of water. Although there was likely sedimentary clay associated with the weathering of the volcanic soils within the region, the location of such deposits in the first century AD cannot now be located. Both Jashemski (1974, 393) and Annecchino (1977, 107—108) note the presence of clay deposits within Pompeii itself, at the Casa di Sallustio (VI 2, 4) and the Casa della Nave Europa. Other, similar deposits in the town’s rural territory are unknown. The best fuel sources were probably located on the margins of Pompeii’s territory, towards the pre-Apennine foothills, Vesuvius, and Stabiae, where there were possibly woodlots and trees associated with arboriculture (Jongman 1988, 132—146). Based on resource availability, the best location for a pottery appears to have been not in the territory of Pompeii, but rather in the territory of the neighboring town of Nuceria, suggesting that the local production of certain classes of pottery may have been shared between Pompeii and adjacent urban centers.
World History
