Jewels, coins, tools and cosmetics: a cupboard in Cornelius Maximus’s house brings to life the daily lives of Pompeii’s women before Vesuvius erupted in AD 79.
The wardrobe of a woman from ancient Pompeii has come to light again. Thanks to the work of archaeologists it has been possible to recover the interior of a cabinet that held everyday items in house IX 11, 7, or the house of Cornelius Maximus, in the central area of the city buried by Vesuvius.
Looking at these objects, it is almost as if we can conjure up the life of a woman of Pompeii before the site was destroyed in AD 79. Among the finds are make-up tools (tweezers, a spatula for mixing pigments), a glass balsamarium, a perfume burner to fill the home with pleasant fragrances, a bronze lamp, alongside lead weights, probably used for a commercial activity and kept in a small wooden box of which only faint traces remain.
What was in the Pompeian woman’s wardrobe
Vases and pots in bronze, glass and ceramic were also found: everyday household objects, but perhaps also heavy with memories, as in the case of an elegant little jug decorated with pine-scale motifs. There is also a necklace composed of at least twenty-four miniature objects in faïence, bone, glass paste and rock crystal, all pierced for suspension and representing deities (Bes and Mercury can be identified), feet and hands, pine cones and bunches of grapes.
According to experts, such necklaces were sometimes regarded as “magical” objects used in spells and potions; in reality they are what are known as crepundia, literally ‘rattles’: necklaces with amulets that were given to children to protect them, but also so that they could be heard when they moved.
It was not unusual for adults to keep them too, often in small boxes or, as in this case, in cloth bags inside wardrobes, apparently as keepsakes of a childhood of which little else remained. The Roman world was characterised by a high degree of geographic mobility at all levels, from slaves to wealthy merchants, so that many people found themselves living far from relatives and parents and from the places of their childhood.
The small treasure hidden in the wardrobe
Another secret kept in the wardrobe unearthed in the excavation is a small hoard of coins: there are 38 of them, all bronze, preserved in a “cistella”, a small container made of plant material using basketry techniques, the remains of which were analysed after being recovered during the dig. The presence of the coins in particular suggests that the owner or owners did not have time to recover the objects of value, whether economic or emotional.
If they were in the city at the time of the catastrophe, they will have tried to flee. If they managed to escape, they would not have returned to dig under the floors for their possessions, unlike others whose efforts have left traces revealed by recent excavations. But perhaps they did not succeed and may be among those who, as the historian Tacitus recalls, died without heirs and whose property would have been used for the refounding of Pompeii, which ultimately never took place. These are questions destined to remain open.
The human dimension of Pompeii’s past pieced back together
“Pompeii is not just a place of great works of art; it is also somewhere where the most ordinary objects restore the human dimension of the past. The value of this discovery lies in the possibility of reading together the different traces of a life: personal habits, work, memories,” says the director of the Archaeological Park, Gabriel Zuchtriegel.
“We cannot reconstruct with certainty the identity of the person who lived in the house, but these fragments bring us closer to their everyday life,” the director adds.
What we know about the House of Cornelius Maximus
The excavation has helped clarify some aspects of the house in which the wardrobe was found. The facade of the dwelling, tentatively attributed to a figure named Cornelius Maximus on the basis of inscriptions now no longer visible, had already been excavated in 1912. Only now, however, has part of the rooms behind it been investigated, as part of the major restoration and accessibility project for the adjacent Insula dei Casti Amanti.
Although our knowledge of the house remains partial, some highly interesting data have emerged: on the one hand, the refined Fourth Style wall paintings in the room with the wardrobe, attributable to the workshop on with the central position of the house, which overlooks one of the main arteries of the ancient city
On the other hand, at the time of the eruption various works were nevertheless in progress that must have affected liveability considerably. Added to this is the discovery of at least two mouse skeletons, found inside an amphora on a mezzanine. According to analyses carried out in the park’s laboratory, they probably belonged to the species Apodemus sylvaticus, also known as the “wood mouse”.
Mice of this kind normally live in natural environments and gardens, from where they often invade attics and storage areas in human dwellings in search of food. The two specimens found at Pompeii were not fully mature, as indicated by the degree of development of their skeletons (117 tiny fragments). The discovery adds to evidence of the presence of rodents in other Vesuvian contexts, such as the service quarters of the suburban villa at Civita Giuliana or the sewers of Herculaneum, and offers the image of an urban society that also had to contend with unwelcome guests.
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