Repaired and redesigned. A Study of life cycles of ancient building parts on the example of architectural terracottas from Pompeii
Final Report Abstract
The funded project focused on the clay-based elements of Pompeii's architecture. The Pompeian depots contain an important collection of different terracotta building components such as roof tiles (tegulae and imbrices), eaves tiles (simas), front tiles (antefixes) and so-called revetment plaques (Campana reliefs). These pieces, often richly decorated with elaborate relief and generally subsumed under the term architectural terracottas, are an integral part of the decoration of Italic-Roman architecture. The goal of the project was to identify historical concepts associated with the manufacture, repair, maintenance, and disposal of this specific group of building components using the approaches of the so-called life cycle assessement. The intention was to identify different strategies regarding the organization and functioning of Pompeian building sites and thus to contribute to a deeper understanding of a specific part of the ancient building economy. In two campaigns, a total of 273 pieces from the San Paolino depot of the Parco Archeologico di Pompei were documented and analyzed. It turned out that the phenomenon of reworking occurs regularly on the architectural terracottas. Only in exceptional cases does damage to the component appear to have caused these alterations and reworkings, so that it is only rarely possible to speak of repairs in the strict sense. Rather, it seems to be a case of adaptation work in which the components were reworked in situ so that they met the changed requirements. Such work was associated with the regular maintenance measures that are repeatedly evident in the Pompeian finds, but have only been studied in part to date. Due to the early termination of the funding, some parts of the project - in particular the contextualization of the individual pieces in the respective house context - have not yet been worked on. This work will be carried out as part of a habilitation project.
Publications
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Pompejanische Architekturterrakotten, Italien, in: e-Jahresbericht 2022 des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, S. 68
J. Bauch
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Tegula cumularia. Life Cycles of Brick and Tile in Pompeii, in: Proceedings of the 8th International Congress on Construction History, Zürích (2024), ISBN 978-3-7281-4166-8
J. Bauch & P. Kastenmeier
