Italy Blog #86: Pompeii Part 7: Ancient Restaurants and Bakeries

Large clay pots built into countertops. stored liquids.

In today's blog, we're still walking you through some of the amazing finds of the ancient city of Pompeii and we're walking down a main street where shops were located. It was there that people would go for dinner time if they didn't want to cook at home. They went to the shops.

RESTAURANTS - Take out was popular in Pompeii. It was fascinating to see how well-preserved some of the shops were (the ones who didn't suffer roof collapse). There were usually three or so cisterns in a large countertop, that held liquids from wines to soups to oils.
Because the shops were either below or in front of houses of the owners, other things not found in the shop could be prepared in the houses and sold in the shops. 

  

MANY STORES - Our tour guide said that on the main street where we walked there were about 400 stores, and people lived over their shops. Larger homes were built behind shops.  Excavators found 82 restaurants!  Stores facing the street were likely owned by the more wealthy people. They were built in a grid.

WHAT KIND OF STORES? - Products like wine, oil, fish, meat, soups, vegetables, eggs, and bread were all sold.

A Pompeiian Oven

BAKERIES - 35 Bakeries were found in the city of Pompeii once excavated. According to pompeiin.com, the ovens were made of bricks

Roman bread encased in ash

(opus latericiumcium), while the floor of the bakery was made of slabs of basalt lava, the same material used to pave roads. The millstones were made of lava stone. Some types of bread were decorated with anise, poppy seeds, sesame and other trees established on the crust with egg white. Later, they began to use the yeast, obtained by mixing millet or bran flour to sour.
  It's fascinating to know that loaves of bread were actually found intact as hardened ash in the bakeries. In one bakery, 85 loaves were found left in an oven at the time of the eruption showing the demand for shop brought bread was high.  For more information about the Pompeii bakeries, visit: http://www.ancienthistoryarchaeology.com/pompeian-bakeries

Watering stations to collect water

In addition to the shops, streets were also full of watering stations.
WATERING STATIONS - Throughout the entire city were rectangular stone basins that provided water for the public.These often had pictures of gods or animals on them.

NEXT: OFF TO THE GYM AND BATH HOUSE!