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 HOUSING AND HABITAT
IN THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN
CULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSES

Edited by
A. Andrea Di Castro and Colin A. Hope
assisted by Bruce E. Parr

PEETERS
Leuven - Paris - Bristol, CT
2015
CONTENTS

Preface and Acknowledgements VII

Introduction

ANGELO ANDREA DI CASTRO

Investigating Housing and Habitat in the Mediterranean World
An Introduction 3

Phoenician and Punic Interactions

ELEFTHERIA PAPPA
Changing Responses to Changing Environments: Documenting Socio-Cultural Change and
Demographic Evolution through the Built Environment in South Iberia, circa 900-600 BCE 15

BIRGIT TANG
Decorating Floors. The Tesserae-in-Mortar Technique as a Mediterranean Phenomenon in
Housing in Carthage and Beyond 31

Etruscan Civilization

GIOVANNANGELO CAMPOREALE
Urbanism, Houses and Society in the Early Centuries of Etruscan Civilization 49

LUIGI DONATI
Town and Countryside in Archaic Etruria: Comparing Dwelling Realities 77

MARIA CHIARA BETTINI

Hilltop Settlements in Northern Etruria: The Case of Pietramarina (Carmignano, Prato) 93

ELISABETTA GOVI
Etruscans in the Po Valley, Etruria: Urbanism and Domestic Architecture 103

Greek and Hellenistic World

BRADLEY A. AULT
OIKOΣ ΚΑΛOΣ: The Environmental Logic of Greek Urban House Forms 123

MATTHEW FITZJOHN
The Economics of House Construction and the Temporality of Daily Life: Quantifying
Construction Practices to Understand Economic Organisation, Time and Space in Archaic
Megara Hyblaea 133

LISA C. NEVETT
Understanding Variation in Ancient House-Forms: A Preliminary Discussion 143

HEATHER JACKSON
The Housing Insula at Seleukid Jebel Khalid on the Euphrates 151

KIM VYNCKE AND MARC WAELKENS

The Classical/Hellenistic Courtyard Building at Düzen Tepe (SW Turkey).
+\SRWKHVHVRQWKH)DFWRUV,QÁXHQFLQJ+RXVH)RUPDQG)XQFWLRQV 
Eastern Mediterranean World

PAOLA DAVOLI
&ODVVLFDO,QÁXHQFHVRQWKH'RPHVWLF$UFKLWHFWXUHRIWKH*UDHFR5RPDQ)D\\XP6LWHV 

ANNA LUCILLE BOOZER

Inside and Out: Romano-Egyptian Houses from the Fayyum and Dakhleh Oasis 185

COLIN A. HOPE
The Roman-Period Houses of Kellis in Egypt’s Dakhleh Oasis 199

GILLIAN E. BOWEN
The Environment Within: The Archaeological Context of the Texts from House 3 at Kellis in
Egypt’s Dakhleh Oasis 231

HELEN WHITEHOUSE
A House, but not exactly a Home? The Painted Residence at Kellis Revisited 243

ANDREA U. DE GIORGI
Domestic Architecture in Roman Syria 255

Roman Italy

PENELOPE ALLISON
‘Everyday’ Eating and Drinking in Roman Domestic Contexts 267

ANNA ANGUISSOLA
Apartments and Independent Living Quarters in the Roman Houses:
A Comparative Perspective 283

M. TAYLOR LAURITSEN
Ter Limen Tetigi: Exploring the Role of Thresholds in the Houses of Pompeii and Beyond 299

Index 313

List of Authors 321

Ter Limen Tetigi: Exploring the Role of Thresholds
in the Houses of Pompeii and Beyond
Classical archaeologists have traditionally shown
little interest in functional door thresholds. This
lack of concern can perhaps be explained by their
appearance, which is often worn and weathered
from many years of use. It would be easy enough
to make an argument in favour of this theory,
given the fact that mosaic thresholds – which are
highly decorative, but typically serve no functional
purpose – have received considerable scholarly
attention (Blake 1935; Joyce 1979; de Vos 1991;
Dunbabin 1998; Westgate 2000; Pugliese Carret-
elli/Baldassarre 1990-2003; among others). Yet
excavation reports containing a thorough exami-
nation of their functional brethren are few and far
between. The best examples come from Greek sites:
the volumes published on the houses of Olynthos
(Robinson/Graham 1932, 250-256) and the theatre
quarter at Delos (Chamonard 1923, 261-306) ded-
icate substantial time to door and window sills,
and a brief summary of the subject is included in
Wiegand and Schrader’s report on the excava-
tions at Priene (1904, 304-306). On Roman sites,
the evidence is even more limited. Doorways and
thresholds receive brief coverage in the publica-
tion of the Karanis excavations by Husselman
and Peterson (1979, 40-44). At Baelo Claudia, a
municipium located on the southern tip of Anda-
lucia, the thresholds of the macellum have been
given thorough attention (Didierjean et al. 1986),
as have those in the Casa de los Delfines at Colo-
nia Celsa (Zaragoza) (Beltrán Lloris et al. 1984).
Specialist studies of thresholds are even more
rare. The first modern attempt to construct a site-
wide typology of design was made by Kyllingstad
and Sjöqvist in their 1965 article on thresholds at
Morgantina. Bouet (1994) conducted a similar
survey in the 1990s, broadening the scope of the
stylistic analysis by incorporating multiple
Roman sites in southern France. The remaining
specialist projects have been conducted primarily
at Pompeii, where the corpus of evidence is argu-
ably the most substantial in the Classical world.
The earliest of these, produced by Ivanoff in 1862,
was completed at a time when the extent of the
excavated remains was considerably smaller than
it is today, limiting the available evidence. As a
M. Taylor Lauritsen
result, the author concentrated on street-side
doorways and those located in the front rooms of
houses. The next study, published more than a
century later, followed the techniques established
by Kyllingstad and Sjöqvist, attempting to estab-
lish design typologies for basalt thresholds by
surveying examples from select domestic con-
texts (Hori 1991). More recent projects have
attempted to link the design of thresholds with
broader themes in Pompeian scholarship: Staub’s
(2009) survey of the houses in insula V.1 sought
to connect the various aspects of threshold design
(material, size, shape) with individual phases of
decoration, and Ellis (2011) conducted a survey of
street-side thresholds in an attempt to reconstruct
patterns of access to shops and bars at Pompeii
and Ostia.
Domestic thresholds have also received more
attention thanks to the proliferation of monographs
focusing on individual Pompeian houses or insu-
lae in recent years. Notable examples include the
Häuser in Pompeji series, Ling’s multi-volume
study of the Insula of the Menander, and the pub-
lications of Pesando and Coarelli’s Progetto Regio
VI. Though each of these projects has provided
important insights into the relationship between
thresholds and the domestic environment, particu-
larly with regard to diachronic changes in material
type and design, they have also been limited by
sample size and the inability to contextualise their
outcomes with a set of comparative data. This
paper seeks to address these issues by presenting
the results of the Doors of Pompeii and Hercula-
neum Project (hereafter referred to as the DPHP),
an architectural survey of doorways in 31 houses
across the two Vesuvian cities. Funded jointly by
the University of Edinburgh and the Roman Society
and conducted in cooperation with the Soprinten-
denza Archeologica di Pompei e Napoli, the DPHP
recorded and photographed thresholds in over
550 doorways at Pompeii, thus establishing a
database large enough to consider design trends
beyond the level of an individual house or insula.
As the title of this paper suggests, the DPHP results
will be complemented by data collected from small-
scale investigations on other Greek and Roman
299
sites, in the hope of better situating the Pompeian
evidence within a pan-Mediterranean context.
DOORWAY DESIGN IN THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN
Perhaps the most notable feature of doors and
doorways in ancient domestic contexts is the
similarity of their design across a wide range of
geographic and temporal settings. An individual
sailing the Mediterranean at virtually any time
between the Bronze Age and Late Antiquity would
encounter the same techniques and mechanisms
employed in the construction of doorways from
Spain to the Levant. Double doors were the pre-
ferred style, although folding and single-leaf doors
were also utilised on some sites. All used the same
fundamental arrangement: sockets were cut in the
threshold (usually made of stone) and the lintel
(usually made of wood) near each jamb; pivot-
posts attached to the top and bottom of each leaf
slid into these sockets (fig. 1), allowing the leaves
to swing freely. From the late Bronze Age through
Fig. 1. Reconstruction of threshold, jamb and door leaf
(after Ginouvès 1992, pl. 24a, no scale published)..
300
the Archaic Period, the door pivots were made of
wood and the pivot sockets were unlined (fig. 2).
By the middle of the 1st millennium BCE, how-
ever, bronze and iron caps were often attached to
the pivots, complemented by a metal plate that
was inserted into the sockets in the threshold
(fig. 3). These fittings provided protection against
everyday wear and tear and made the opening
and closing of the door much easier.
A more complex locking system was also intro-
duced around this time. Previous arrangements
had relied upon a horizontal beam that was placed
between the door jambs when the door was closed.
By the Classical Period, however, this beam had
been replaced by a doorstop and drop-bolt in
many doorways. A threshold from the Katago-
gion at Epidaurus provides a good example of
the design (fig. 4). A rebate was cut into one of the
long sides of the stone, forming a natural door-
stop. The pivot sockets were then placed at either
end of the rebate, with a singular bolt-hole situated
between them. Small cuts located on the narrow
Fig. 2. Reconstruction of wooden door with pivots,
postern gate at Mycenae (photo author).
Fig. 3 Bronze pivot caps and plates, Delos (after Chamonard 1924, fig. 157).

Fig. 4. Threshold in Katagogion, Epidaurus (photo author).

301
 Fig. 5. Thresholds from Morgantina (after Kyllingstad/Sjöqvist 1965, figs. 5 and 6).
ends of the threshold secured the position of
stone door jambs. This arrangement, which for ad-
ditional security could be augmented by a variety
of lock types, contains all of the features that were
present in Mediterranean doorways throughout
the rest of antiquity.
Despite the standardisation of the overall sys-
tem, threshold design often varied in subtle but
significant ways from site to site. In some cases,
these differences reflect cultural or regional pref-
erences that are only revealed through detailed
examination. Kyllingstad and Sjöqvist’s survey of
thresholds in the houses of Morgantina provides
an example of this phenomenon. The pair discov-
ered that one of the defining features of these
thresholds was the presence of long grooves
located on the short ends of the stone, which they
termed ‘angular cuttings’ (fig. 5). These grooves
simplified the process of hanging the doors by
allowing the pivots to slide ‘through’ the thresh-
old before coming to rest in the pivot sockets
located in the corners of the stone (Kyllingstad/
Sjöqvist 1965, 31). The design is unusual, and
may be linked to a custom unique to the Greek
world. Because timber was a rare commodity both
on the Greek mainland and the islands, doors were
considered to be highly prized assets (also see Ault
herein). When families moved from one residence
to another, they often took their doors with them,
and even in rental properties, doors were one of
the few structural items that were typically
owned by the inhabitants (Robinson/Graham
1938, 320; Kent 1948, 293-295). The ‘angular cut-
tings’ found in the thresholds at Morgantina made
the installation and removal of doors a much
302
simpler process, and thus it is possible that the
inhabitants of Hellenistic Sicily engaged in a sim-
ilar practice.
The need to simplify the installation of doors
was dictated by the construction techniques em-
ployed in many Greek houses, in which thresholds
were incorporated directly into a wall’s founda-
tions. This practice appears in houses on Delos (fig.
6), for example, where thresholds often support the
weight of both door jambs and lintels. In this
arrangement there was no way to remove the
threshold from a doorway without disassembling a
wall down to its lowest courses. As a result, when
new doors were installed they had to be fitted to
the standing architecture. This is quite different
from the situation found in the houses of Pompeii
and Herculaneum, for instance, where the thresh-
old did not form a structural part of the wall and
thus could be adjusted or removed as required.
Indeed, in peninsular Italy thresholds were
considered an independent feature of a building’s
architecture. The earliest examples from Roman
sites (those at Fregellae, Norba, and Cosa, for
example) are coeval with many of the thresholds
at Morgantina and predate those found on Delos.
Yet these thresholds are not integrated into the
wall foundations, but rather set into the floor
between the door jambs. At Pompeii, many of the
jambs in the oldest houses have been cut back at
the bottom of the doorway, indicating that thresh-
olds were installed (or replaced) after the house had
been constructed. The concept of the threshold as
an independent structural component is perhaps
best evidenced by an inscription found at Verona,
dating to the late 1st century BCE (CIL V 3257). It

Fig. 6. Doorway in Habitation VI.A, Delos
(photo author).
describes the restoration of a small compital tem-
ple by identifying the various parts of the build-
ing that had been repaired. The list includes four
main architectural elements: the roof (tectum),
walls (parietes), doors (valvas), and threshold
(limen).
The earliest thresholds in the houses at Pom-
peii were fashioned from slabs of trachytic basalt
(Kastenmeier/di Maio et al. 2010), a locally abun-
dant stone employed in both of the Vesuvian cit-
ies for the paving of streets, curbs, and sidewalks.
As new resources became more readily available
throughout the late 2nd and 1st centuries BCE,
however, thresholds were produced from a wider
variety of materials, including limestone, tessel-
lated mosaic, mortar, wood, and (by the end of
the 1st century BCE) marble. In wider doorways,
which usually housed one or two sets of folding
doors, these materials were sometimes combined,
with the ‘side plates’ (stones containing sockets
for the pivots) cut from one type of stone and the
Fig. 7. Standardised plan of domestic threshold at Pom-
peii, displaying the rebate (a), sockets for pivot plates (c),
drop-bolts (b), and wood boards attached to jambs (d).
central portion of the threshold from another. By
the final years of the city’s existence the full range
of materials were utilised in the production of
thresholds. The types selected for use at the entrance
to individual rooms and, on a larger scale, through-
out the house as a whole, can provide important
insights into the tastes and living requirements of
the inhabitants, a subject to which we shall return
later in this paper.
The design of most domestic thresholds at
Pompeii resemble closely the Epidaurian example
described above: they contain a square socket for
a pivot plate at either end of the rebate, with two
smaller sockets in the centre of the stone for drop-
bolts (fig. 7). It is notable that a substantial per-
centage (36%) of the pivot sockets surveyed by
the DPHP were round. In these cases the pivot
plate seems to have been done away with alto-
gether and the door pivots placed directly into
the threshold socket. There are also a number of
thresholds in which the sockets for drop-bolts are
present, but those for the pivot plates are absent.
L. Ling (1997, 339) has suggested that in these cases
the leaves were hung from hinges attached to the
upper parts of the jambs. Little physical evidence
for this arrangement has been found, however. A
discovery in one of the doorways of the Casa del
Cinghiale may provide a more likely solution to
this problem. The threshold in this doorway,
which is situated between the atrium and a ser-
vice area, presents a rebate without sockets for
pivot plates or drop-bolts (fig. 8). A thick layer of
lead is positioned in the northeast corner of the
threshold, in the centre of which is a square
depression approximately 8.75 cm in width. The
average measurements of the sockets for square
pivot plates measured by the DPHP is 8.81 x 8.76
cm; this fact, when considered in conjunction
with the location of the depression, indicates that
the lead was used to seal a pivot plate to the
threshold in this doorway. Though we must be
careful not to read too much into a single exam-
ple, the arrangement found in the doorway of the
Casa del Cinghiale does suggest that, in lieu of a
303

Fig. 8. Threshold and lead sealant from VIII.2.26
(photo author).
pivot socket, lead was used to establish a secure
foundation for a turning post.
THE DOMESTIC THRESHOLD AS A SYMBOL
Before we consider how thresholds reflected the
tastes of Pompeian homeowners, it is worth taking
a moment to review the ancient literary sources
in an attempt to ascertain how these boundaries
were viewed by the Romans themselves. The
Latin word for threshold, limen, was employed
regularly by Roman authors. It was used both
literally (defining the threshold stone itself) and
metaphorically (describing the beginning of an
action or an endeavour); we shall concern our-
selves only with the first of these two definitions
here. Limen also appears as a synonym for ianua,
the word meaning ‘front door’. When Cicero dis-
cusses Antony’s ejection from Curio’s familial
home in the second Philippic, for instance, he spe-
cifically refers to the entrance of the dwelling as the
304
‘threshold’: quotiens te pater eius domu sua eiecit, quo-
tiens custodes posuit ne limen intrares (2.45). Martial
(44.4) follows a similar tack when criticising Titul-
lus, an old man who wanders from house to house
in search of money and favours, using limen, as
opposed to ianuae, to define the main entrances: sede
omnes limen conteris salutator. The word is used in a
comparable manner by Seneca (Constant. 14.2, 15.5)
and Columella (Rust. 1.Praef.9) among others. It
would seem, in fact, that limen, when used in refer-
ence to the front door, came to represent the house-
hold itself. Perhaps this is why, when lamenting the
plight of corrupt and ambitious city-dwellers in the
Georgics, Virgil states that these men will give up
the happiness of domos and limina in exchange for
life in foreign lands: exsilioque domos et dulcia limina
mutant / atque alio patriam quaerunt sub sole iacentem
(2.511-512). Though Virgil is using the word literally
here, there is also a deeper allegorical narrative at
work. By setting domos et dulcia limina in opposition
to alio patriam, he is identifying the ancestral home
as the central component of the Roman state: in
leaving behind their houses, these men also aban-
doned their country. The house threshold played a
crucial role in negotiating this relationship. It served
both as the liminal zone between a series of binary
opposites (e.g. inside/outside, family/society, and
private/public) and the boundary that articulated
these relationships. Occasions that necessitated a
transition from one side of the boundary to the
other required the recognition of the threshold’s
elevated status: thus a marriage (Plaut. Cas. 815-817;
Catull. 61.166-168; Serv. 8.29), the birth of a child
(August. De civ. D. 6.9), or departure for a long trip
(Ov. Tr. 1.3.55-56; Ov. Am. 1.12) often involved rites
or ceremonies held at the threshold to mark the
passage in or out of the house or household.
Patterns of Movement
The importance of the front door in Roman culture
is illustrated by the linguistic distinction made
between it (ianua) and the interior doors, which
were called ostia. No similar distinction is made in
regard to thresholds, however. In the Satyricon (26),
for example, Petronius defines the threshold from
which Encolpius and Quartilla spy on Giton’s bed-
room activities as a limen. And Quintilian (Inst.
11.3.13) describes the departure from a (collapsing)
banqueting hall as ‘passing the threshold’: nam vix
eo ultra limen egresso, triclinium illud supra convivas
corruit atque ita confudit. So from a functional per-
spective, there seems to be little difference in the
way that limen is employed. It simply marks the
boundary between two domestic spaces. Of more
interest to this paper is the famous passage from the
Satyricon (30) recounting the visit of Encolpius and
his party to Trimalchio’s dining room:
His repleti voluptatibus cum conaremur in triclin-
ium intrare, exclamavit unus ex pueris, qui super
hoc officium erat positus: ‘Dextro pede!’ Sine dubio
paulisper trepidavimus, ne contra praeceptum ali-
quis nostrum limen transiret.
In this example, we encounter for the first time the
curious Mediterranean custom of crossing the
threshold with the right foot first. The inauspicious
nature of using one’s left foot is well attested in a
number of ancient sources (Vitr. 3.4.4, Suet. Aug.
92.1, Plin. HN 2.7.5). In fact, the exclamation ‘Pede
dexter!’ was a common way to wish someone good
luck (Prudent. c. Symm. 2.79: feliciter et pede dextro,
Juv. 10.5; Sil. Pun. 7.171), whereas the phrase sinistro
pede was generally associated with bad omens and
ill fortune (Apul. Met. 1.5.27: sed ut fieri adsolet, sin-
istro pede profectum me spes compendii frustrata est).
Thus proceeding across a threshold with the left
foot forward seems to have been particularly
unlucky, which at least partially explains Trimal-
chio’s over-the-top decision to post a slave purely
to prevent visitors from making this mistake.
Ellis’ (2011) recent work on shop doorways has
shown that these passages were more than mere
Fig. 9. Threshold in Maison de l’Hermes, Delos. Note the right side of the doorstop (left side of image) is
almost completely worn away (photo author).
hyperbole: the ‘cult of the right’ very much played
a role in everyday life, impacting the design of
Roman commercial architecture and the flow of
street traffic. By studying the locations of ‘night
doors’ and bar counters, Ellis identified a clear
preference for right-sided access to shops and
bars at Ostia and, to a lesser degree, at Pompeii.
Though the architectural features examined in
Ellis’ analysis are not present in most domestic
doorways, there are other design elements that
allow for the study of movement across interior
thresholds on Mediterranean sites. These patterns
are best exhibited at Delos, where the long-term
use of thresholds produced footwear on certain
parts of the stones, allowing for the reconstruc-
tion of general traffic configurations. A survey of
doorways in five Delian houses revealed the
presence of heavy wear on the right side of most
thresholds (fig. 9). This footwear, in addition to
the presence of a singular bolt-hole located on the
left side of the rebate, indicates that the left leaf
often remained closed, with access between
rooms only occurring through the right side of
the doorway. In a number of cases, the width of
the left leaf was even reduced, thereby providing
more room for movement to the right.
The Delians were not the only Greeks who
entered a room cum dextro pede primus. Further
305
 Table 1. Diagnostic features of thresholds in the Maison des Antes, Glanum.

Doorway No. Threshold Boundary Type Number of Bolt-Hole Footwear? Footwear

Present? Bolt-Holes Position Location
1 Yes Double doors 2 Centre Possible Right
2 Yes Double doors 1 Left Yes Right
3 Yes Double doors 1 Left Yes Right
4 Yes Partition N/A N/A No N/A
5 Yes Double doors 2 Centre Yes Right
6 Yes Double doors 1 Left No N/A
7 Yes Multi-valve 3 Centre Yes Right
8 No N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
9 No N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
10 Yes Double doors 0 N/A Yes Right

examples of interior thresholds displaying the left-
sided bolt-hole have been found in Athens, Epidau-
rus (fig. 4), Morgantina (fig. 5, right), Thasos (Grand-
jean 1988, Pl.118.1), and even in the Hellenistic
levels of the Gallo-Greek settlement at Glanum in
western Provence (Bouet 1996, 23-25). At the latter
site, many of the doorways in the Maison des Antes,
a house constructed in the mid-2nd century BCE,
display clear evidence for a long-term pattern of
movement favouring the right. This is indicated by
the presence of the bolt-hole on the left-centre of the
threshold, footwear on the right side, or a combina-
tion of both (table 1). The footwear is so pronounced
in some cases that doorstops originally measuring
6-7 cm high were completely worn away, suggest-
ing that traffic patterns were maintained in the
house long after the area was conquered by the
Romans in 121 BCE.
A similar pattern appears at Vaison-la-Romaine,
a Roman civitas centre located 30 km to the north
of Glanum, where a handful of diagnostic thresh-
olds have survived in the Maison au Dauphin.
This house was constructed in the mid-1st century
BCE, just prior to the inauguration of Vasio as the
capital of the civitas of the Vocontii (Goudineau
1979). One threshold from the Maison au Dau-
phin is particularly illustrative. It sits between the
jambs of a doorway linking the peristyle with a
garden complex to the south (fig. 10). The arrange-
ment of the doors is reminiscent of numerous
examples from Delos, in which the left leaf is nar-
rowed to compensate for movement to the right;
here the leaves measured approximately 37 cm
(left) and 61 cm (right). The width of the left leaf
is confirmed by the drag-mark made by its drop-
bolt, a wear pattern that also indicates that this
leaf was periodically opened and closed. There
can be little doubt, however, that it stood closed
more regularly than its counterpart on the right,
for the doorstop on the right side of the stone has
been entirely worn away by foot traffic.
These Provençal examples suggest that move-
ment favouring the right side of the doorway was
not unique to either Greek or Roman domestic

Fig. 10.Threshold in Maison du Dauphin, Vaison-la-Romaine (photo and plan author).

306
 Table 2. Location of drag marks in surveyed houses at Pompeii.

Doorway No. House Room Type Threshold Material Drag Mark Location
26 Casa di Casca Longus Cubiculum Basalt Left
51 Casa dei Ceii Cubiculum Basalt Right
92 Casa dei Quattro Stili Cubiculum Limestone Right
226 Casa di M. Lucretius Fronto Andron Marble Right
246 Casa di Pansa Cubiculum Limestone Right
321 Casa del Labirinto Cubiculum Limestone Right
359 Casa del Labirinto Kitchen Basalt Right
405 Casa dei Capitelli Figurati Cubiculum Limestone Right
449 Casa del Cinghiale Fauces Limestone Both
459 Casa del Cinghiale Cubiculum Limestone Right
465 Casa del Cinghiale Cubiculum Limestone Right
485 Casa delle Colombe a Mosaico Cubiculum Limestone Both
587 Casa degli Amorini Dorati Cubiculum Marble Right
609 Casa del Principe di Napoli Kitchen Basalt Both

environments, but a universal custom. As such, companion on the right (fig. 11). As we have seen
we might expect to find ample evidence for the from the example in the Maison au Dauphin, this
continuation of the trend at Pompeii. The identi- arrangement can also reflect a traffic pattern
fication of movement patterns in the houses of focused on the right side of the doorway.
the Vesuvian cities is more complicated, however,
because the primary archaeological markers (bolt- OBJECTS OF FUNCTION OR DECORATION?
holes and foot-/use-wear) are typically absent. In
virtually all of the doorways where double doors Thus far we have examined the design of thresh-
can be identified, the thresholds display two bolt- olds and their use in domestic prosperity rituals
holes in the centre of the rebate (as above, fig. 7), in ancient Mediterranean houses. In this section,
indicating that either leaf could remain closed at we will consider the ways in which thresholds
any time. There are also fewer traces of use-wear could be incorporated into a dwelling’s architec-
on Campanian thresholds, because the materials tural and decorative programmes. Because these
employed to produce them are quite often hard seemingly utilitarian objects were used to compli-
(e.g. basalt), and in some houses the stones were ment interior decoration, it is difficult to under-
regularly replaced. As a result, it is rare to find stand their role within the domestic environment
heavy wear on domestic thresholds, either from without considering both their functional and
drop-bolts or pedestrian traffic. aesthetic qualities. In fact, the relationship between
There are, however, a limited number of door-
ways (14 of the 545 surveyed at Pompeii) in
which the drop-bolts created drag marks in the
floor behind the threshold (table 2). Within this
small group, the locations of the marks are intrigu-
ing: in one doorway (26) the mark appears only
behind the left side of the threshold, in ten door-
ways the marks are found only on the right, and
in the remaining three they appear behind both
sides of threshold. If we accept the premise that
the presence of drag marks can be linked with the
regular use of an individual leaf, then these results
suggest that (within this limited sample, at least)
there was a clear preference for crossing domestic
thresholds on the right side. It is also worth not-
ing that the drag mark located behind the left Fig. 11. Threshold in Doorway 26, Casa di Casca Lon-
side of the threshold in doorway 26 indicates that gus. Pivot sockets highlighted in blue; reconstructed
the left leaf was considerably smaller than its arcs of the door leaves in red (photo author).

307
these two aspects of design provides the most use-
ful evidence for the manner in which thresholds
were viewed by the residents of Pompeii.
In terms of sheer numbers, basalt and lime-
stone were the materials employed most com-
monly for the production of thresholds. In the
survey conducted by the DPHP, each type made
up approximately 40% of the sample. The remain-
ing 20% was composed of various types of mar-
ble (15%), mosaics (4%), and other materials (1%).
Due to its local abundance, basalt was used almost
exclusively in the earliest houses at Pompeii. To-
wards the end of the 2nd century BCE, limestone
quarried from the Sarno valley also began to
appear, both in newly constructed dwellings and
as a replacement for basalt thresholds in older
houses. The substitution of one material for another
has been seen in some houses as evidence of
‘upgrading’. Staub (2009) suggests that the inser-
tion of travertine thresholds in the atria of houses
in insula V.1, for example, was associated with the
redecoration of these dwellings in the second
style. A similar process has been noted in the Casa
del Labirinto: near the turn of the 1st century BCE,
the basalt thresholds in the tetrastyle atrium were
removed and replaced with limestone (Strocka
1994, 66-69). Since the minimum uniaxial com-
pressive strength (UCS) of Vesuvian basalts has
been measured at 165 megapascals (MPa) (Lan-
gella/Calcaterra et al. 2009, Table 4) – two to
three times the minimum UCS of most high den-
Graph 1. Percentages of threshold material, sorted by house.
308
sity limestones and travertines (Hoek/Brown
1997; Jackson/Marra 2006, 424-426) – it is difficult
to see the advent of limestone thresholds at Pom-
peii as anything other than an aesthetic choice.
Staub (2009, 211) has argued, in fact, that white
limestone was chosen specifically for the thresh-
olds in the Casa del Torello because it provided a
decorative contrast with the primarily black sec-
ond-style mosaics installed at the beginning of
the 1st century BCE. It is worth pointing out, how-
ever, that many of the largest and best-decorated
houses at Pompeii never went through this transi-
tion. In the Casa del Menandro, for instance, there
is clear evidence for multiple phases of redecora-
tion (R. Ling 1997, 131-132). Yet throughout the
atrium the basalt thresholds installed during the
2nd century BCE remained in situ. In fact, many of
the well-appointed houses surveyed by the
DPHP retained a high percentage of basalt thresh-
olds (graph 1). If we were to place the fourteen
houses that contained basalt thresholds in at least
half of their doorways into Wallace-Hadrill’s
(1994, 80-84) ‘quartiles’, a system used to establish
the relative wealth of dwellings based upon their
size, six would be located in quartile 3 (houses of
‘average’ size) and seven would be situated in
quartile 4 (‘elite’ houses).
On the other hand, the use of visually pleasing
materials for the production of thresholds was
clearly a point of pride in many dwellings. In the
Casa dei Quattro Stili, a uniform set of limestone
thresholds was installed in the atrium, while basalt
stones were utilised in the doorways located to-
wards the rear of the house. Similar arrangements
can be found in the Casa dei Capitelli Figurati,
Casa di Pansa, Casa di M. Caesius Blandus, and
two properties located on Pompeii’s south escarp-
ment, the Casa del Cinghiale and Casa delle
Colombe a Mosaico. In these houses, the distinc-
tion between the aesthetic qualities of the two
materials has been made clear, no more so than
in the service areas (kitchens, latrines, etc.) where
basalt, rather than limestone, was used almost
exclusively.
The appearance of marble as the dominant
material in three of the surveyed houses (the Fig. 12. Threshold in Doorway 210, Casa del
Casa della Fontana Piccola, Casa del Triclinio, Triclinio (photo author).
and Casa di Marcus Lucretius Fronto) can simi-
larly be linked with a desire to place aesthetics
above function. Because of its comparatively low
compressive strength and high value, marble was
sometimes used for the production of side plates
rather than full thresholds. This was a common
arrangement in the Casa del Triclinio and Casa di
Marcus Lucretius Fronto, where many of the
doorways contain irregularly-shaped pieces of
Luna or Pentelic marble next to the door jambs.
In some cases, the side plates were augmented
with a narrow block of limestone situated
between them (fig. 12). The asymmetrical design
of the side plates and the presence of multiple
types of marble in many doorways suggest that
the material itself was of greater value than the Fig. 13. Threshold in Casa del Principe di Napoli,
craftsmanship applied to its installation. Such tablinum (photo author)..
shoddy work is rarely found in houses where
limestone is the favoured material. In the atrium alongside one another, with the cocciopesto floor
of the Casa di Pansa, for instance, each travertine on the either side of the threshold pulled up and
threshold was cut to nearly identical measure- never replaced. Again, the clumsy nature of the
ments (circa 192 x 68 cm). work suggests that it was more important to uti-
The regular reuse of marble, both from thresh- lise marble in any form than to produce a thresh-
olds and other contexts, reinforces this point. Even old that was aesthetically appealing.
in houses where marble was employed sparingly, Indeed, regardless of their appearance, marble
the stones often bare evidence of previous use. thresholds appear to have been considered pref-
The threshold of the tablinum in the Casa del erable to limestone by the 1st century CE. This
Principe di Napoli provides an excellent example relationship is made explicit by a threshold in the
of this phenomenon. Composed of four reused Casa della Caccia Antica (fig. 14). Located between
stones, this threshold was haphazardly installed the atrium (room 2) and the dining room (room
during the third quarter of the 1st century CE 12), this was the only threshold that was pro-
(either immediately before or after the earth- duced from limestone when the house was con-
quake of 62 CE, depending upon the date of the structed. In the other doorways, basalt stones
fourth-style decorations in this room) (fig. 13). were preferred and remained in use until the 79 CE
Though the marbles appear to be of similar col- eruption. The presence of limestone in this single
oration, no attempt was made to cover up the doorway suggests that room 12 was intended to
sockets for pivots and drop-bolts extant from hold a special status within the residence. This
prior use. It appears that the stones were simply status is confirmed by a decision taken by the
cut to approximately the same width and fitted residents in the 1st century CE, when they chose

309
 Fig. 14. Threshold in Doorway 439, Casa della Caccia Antica (plan after Allison/Sear 2002, fig. 43).

to replace the limestone threshold with marble.
Rather than electing to remove the original stone,
however, they simply placed a thin panel of mar-
ble overtop, with a layer of mortar applied
between the two stones to bond them together.
The location of the pivot socket on the left (east)
side of the threshold and the positioning of the
marble underneath the east jamb suggests that
the installation predates the reconstruction of the
piers at the front of the tablinum in opus vittatum

310
mixtum, an event dated to after the 62 CE earth-
quake (Allison/Sear 2002, fig. 44). The basalt
stones located in the other doorways surround-
ing the atrium would have been heavily worn by
this time (in their present state they are virtually
destroyed), so it is surprising that this was the
only threshold that saw refurbishment. We can
perhaps attribute the decision to a desire to main-
tain room 12’s level of prestige, in which case
transitioning from limestone (the high-grade
material of the late Republic) to marble (the high-
grade material of the early empire) would have
been a natural progression.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
The results presented above demonstrate that the
types of materials used for the production of
thresholds varied widely in both humble and
prestigious Pompeian houses. It is also clear that
when materials were ‘upgraded’, this often
occurred at the expense of functional quality. The
transition from basalt to limestone represents the
most substantial downgrade in material strength,
although substituting marble for limestone was,
in some cases, also a reduction in this capacity.
Though it has been suggested that there is a pos-
itive relationship between material type and par-
ticular decorative phases (Staub 2009, 216-217),
this hypothesis has been based largely on anec-
dotal evidence, employing thresholds from a
small group of houses in an attempt to illustrate
trends present at city-wide level. As we have seen,
the examination of a more expansive selection of
houses, located in different parts of the city, has
revealed that these trends, when they did exist,
were highly localised. This is not to say that the
study of thresholds in individual dwellings can-
not yield important results. Strocka’s (1991) chro-
nology of thresholds in the Casa del Labirinto
proved to be a useful companion to his interpre-
tation of the house’s architectural phasing. Simi-
lar surveys, such as those conducted in the Casa
degli Amorini Dorati (Seiler 1992) and the Casa
dell’Ara Massima (Stemmer 1992) have likewise
benefitted from the development of threshold
chronologies. But it is also clear that the materials
utilised for the production of thresholds and the
regularity with which they were replaced varied
widely from house to house. The literary and
archaeological evidence discussed in the first half
of this paper suggest that decisions regarding
material type and replacement were not taken
lightly. Domestic thresholds were the focus of
numerous ritual activities in the ancient world,
and the patterns of habitual movement at the
doorway identified in Greek and Roman houses
support this notion. Whether the choice to pass
across the right side of the threshold was the
result of active thought processes associated with
myths or superstition is debatable. It is more
likely that favouring the right hand and the right
foot was, rather than a conscious act on the part
of individual agents, simply an example of cul-
turally normative behaviour. Whatever the case,
these consistent patterns of movement indicate
that thresholds held an important position within
the Greco-Roman worldview, and are thus
deserving of greater scholarly attention.
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