As we move into early imperial Rome in our history of the classical world in 100 objects, we can't help but take a long detour into Pompeii. Preserved almost untouched in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, the site of Pompeii is an archaeologist's – and a classicist's – dream in terms of the information it provides about the everyday lives, and objects used by, ordinary inhabitants of Italy in the 1st century CE. (I was actually lucky enough to participate in an archaeological dig there back in 2006.) In the image above we have one of my favourite artefacts from Pompeii (now housed in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples): a loaf of bread, carbonised in the eruption of the volcano, and thus providing almost-unparalleled evidence for perishable objects like food, which are often lost to us in the archaeological record. Here you can see the impression of the baker's stamp preserved in the carbonised bread, as well as the scoring marks that would have been used to divide it into separate pieces.
2 Comments
Michael
12/11/2017 09:07:51 pm
Geez, don't leave us hanging! What does the baker's stamp translate to???? Thx
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Jimmy Horowitz
12/20/2017 04:41:36 pm
Panera Wonderae. Glutinus freeus.
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AuthorEmily Hauser is a classicist and researcher at Harvard and author of historical fiction recovering the lost women of the ancient world, including FOR THE MOST BEAUTIFUL and FOR THE WINNER. Archives
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