GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT
Some of the more interesting features in Pompeii are:
The water system
These included a Palaestra (sport stadium) with a central swimming pool and
an aqueduct that provided water for more than 25 street fountains, at least four
public baths, and a large number of private houses and businesses.
The aqueduct branched through three main pipes from the storage tanks where the
waters were collected before being distributed to the city. In extreme drought, the
water supply would first fail to reach the public baths (the least vital service), then
private houses and businesses—and if there was no water flow at all, the system
would fail to supply the public fountains (the most vital service) in the streets of
Pompeii.
The street fountains had large basins which contained the water for the horses and
had overflow pipes that directed the water so that the water would run down the
roads and clean it of animal droppings from the horse carts.
The roads
The major problem with self cleaning roads was that if people wanted to cross the
roads they were going to get their feet wet so they built stepping stones at each
junction so that people could get across the road without wetting their feet. They
incorporated gaps into the stepping stones for the horse cart deliveries. This was
possible as all carts had standardised cart sizes.
The main roads are set out exactly in line with the prevailing winds so that in
summer maximum use can be made of the cooling wind.
The two main roads (north – south and east – west) are both bidirectional, but all
other roads are one way only.
The public facilities
The public facilities were a big part of life in Pompeii and a lot of the social life revolved
around the public baths and eating out. The public baths and saunas had some very
interesting features. The saunas had an alternate fire area which heated up the water and
the saunas were heated by funnelling the steam up a cavity within the external wall. The
floors were also heated in a similar manner and slaves watered the floor to produce steam.
An irritating result of this was that there was continually condensate dripping off the roof. To
stop this happening they put ridges on the ceiling which resulted in the water running down
the roof to gutters on the side.
After a bath, the Pompeii residents used to frequent the first takeaways which included wine
bars and food buffets. They also had bakeries with large pizza ovens very like the wood
burning ones we still have today.
Some of the other ‘inventions’ that were lost when the barbarians
conquered Italy were:
• Internal waterborne toilets
• Lead water pipes
• Clay male and female plumbing pipes
• Three dimensional paintings with correct perspective
• Mosaic tiling – the famous Cava Carnum (beware the dog) is in Pompeii
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• Multifunctional spaces combining different leisure activities like
modern day shopping malls
• Holiday time and leisure travel
This truly was an eye-opening experience and if you have the
opportunity to visit Pompeii, do so, you will be blown away.
ISSUE 35 - SEPTEMBER 2018