Although it is clear that some of the pottery produced and consumed locally was manufactured in the Via di Nocera and the Via Superior facilities, the physical remains afford little insight into the organization of productive activities. For this, we must turn rather to artistic and epigraphic evidence recovered within the town.
A fresco from the exterior of the so-called Hospitium or Caupona of Pulcinella (I 8, 10) depicts the manufacture of pottery (Fig. 7.4). Excavated in 1940, the fresco measures 1.38m long by 0.59m high and was located to the immediate north of a blocked doorway that once connected the room in the southeast corner of this property to the street on the eastern edge of the insula (Maiuri 1953-1954, 90-92; De Carolis 1999, 164). The fresco had been scored and plastered over with white wall-plaster, much of which had fallen off prior to the fresco’s excavation. Although Maiuri (1953-1954, 90) thought that the fresco was pre-Roman in date, it probably dates to the Roman period.
The fresco can be divided into two sections. The left section, measuring 0.72m long by 0.57m high, depicts the production of pottery, perhaps within a workshop. The right section of the fresco, measuring 0.87m long by 0.57m high, depicts what may be two figures engaged either in the sale of textiles or participating in a theatrical performance and is of
Fig. 7.4 — Caupona of Pulcinella (18, 10): fresco with potters at work.
Little interest to this study (De Carolis 1999, 164). The right side of the left section depicts two registers of figures, two on the top register, the one on the upper left only partly preserved, and three on the lower register. Each of the four potting figures is dressed in a tunic and seated on a stool before a turntable mounted on a cone, on which rests a partially finished pot. All of the potters also have a pole which may be used to propel the wheel (Pena and McCallum 2009a, 60—62). A woman stands between the two potters on the lower register, facing the one on the right with a vessel in each hand, possibly taking them from or giving them to this potter.
The three complete male potters are working on at least two different vessel forms — one an open bowl form, the other a closed pitcher form. The female figure, either another potter or an assistant, is either finishing a vessel, presenting a vessel to one of the seated potters, or taking a vessel from this same potter (Pena and McCallum 2009a, 60—61). The partial male potter is presumably turning another vessel on a fourth turntable. If these figures represent four potters working simultaneously, then this may be taken as evidence for the presence of pottery workshops at Pompeii comprised of five or more workers. If these figures represent the serial production of a single vessel, then this may be taken as evidence that there were first century
AD pottery workshops at Pompeii with a single potter and perhaps only one or two assistants. Both interpretations suggest that the workshops associated with the pottery production facilities at Pompeii were small, with as few as two and perhaps as many as six potters and their assistants.
The artifactual evidence from the Via di Nocera and the Via Superior pottery production facilities seem to corroborate the pictorial evidence and suggests that they were similar to other small-scale facilities elsewhere in the Roman world. Based on the variety of vessels found at both production facilities, it appears that they represent independent, specialized production units similar to those described by Peacock (1982, 25—31; 90—101; 120— 128) in his study of potting in the Roman world (Fulle 1997, 136-144). Peacock (1982, 90-101) refers to these production units as ‘workshops’, specialized full-time production units located in facilities that were dedicated to the production of pottery. These workshops, however, should not be confused with manufactories; they employed a small number of skilled potters, produced a limited repertoire of forms, and generally supplied local demand for pottery (Jongman 1988; Laurence 1994, 55). Both workshops appear to have been involved in specialized production, with the Via Superior facility producing a limited repertoire of open cookware or coarseware forms and the
Via di Nocera workshop responsible only for the production of mold made lamps and fritilli. It is likely that they manufactured pottery to supply demand at Pompeii. Finally, it is clear that these facilities employed only a very few workers, both as potters and production assistants.
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