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SUMMARY WOODEN FURNITURE in HERCULANEUM Form, Technique and Function

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SUMMARY WOODEN FURNITURE in HERCULANEUM Form, Technique and Function SUMMARY WOODEN FURNITURE IN HERCULANEUM Form, technique and function This study deals with the wooden furniture which has come to light since the rediscovery of Herculaneum in the 18th century. The emphasis is on the form and function of the individual pieces and on the techniques employed in making them. Chapter 1 lays out the basic parameters of the study. The term 'furniture' is defined and divided into various categories to embrace not only familiar items such as beds, tables, chairs and cupboards, but also objects like chests and household shrines (aediculae) which were a common feature of Roman interiors. Built-in fittings, such as racks supported by the walls behind them, are also considered as furniture for the purposes of this study. The circumstances under which wood has been preserved in an archaeological context is then examined. This is followed by a survey of the research into ancient furniture, notably of the poor coverage given to the Herculaneum furniture in the archaeological literature. This in spite of the fact that these finds represent the most extensive group of wooden furniture known from Classical Antiquity. The sorry conclusion is that the wooden furniture of Herculaneum has never been adequately published and therefore has never received its rightful place in the study of Roman furniture. We then move to the comparative material available for the Herculaneum furniture. Original wooden pieces from elsewhere in the Roman world are the obvious primary source, but casts of wooden furniture taken in Pompeii and furniture in materials other than wood are also valuable, as are contemporary depictions and remarks by classical authors. Although these various sources are not representative in themselves, when combined they give a reliable picture of wooden furniture in Roman times. The chapter closes with a discussion of the 'Nachleben' of the Vesuvian cities in the 18th and 19th centuries, when Roman wooden furniture played virtually no role in neoclassical furniture design. Chapter 2 reviews the Herculaneum material. Of the numerous pieces of wooden furniture found since the beginning of excavations, 41 are preserved more or less complete or in fragments: thirteen beds, nine tables, three benches, a stool, and fifteen pieces of storage furniture. We examine what happened to the material at the moment of the eruption and then ask how the surviving stock of data (on the one hand the preserved pieces themselves, and on the other the excavation reports, which mention many more discoveries) should be evaluated. The surviving pieces are by no means perfect: they are carbonized and often in fragments. The carbonization of the wood was caused by the heat of the lava and by the subsequent exclusion of oxygen which immediately followed, a process comparable to modern charcoal production. However, other factors have caused further damage. These include the pressure with which the lava flow entered the houses, shifting and breaking up objects, and later exposure to oxygen leading to the decay of the wood. Moreover, many pieces were lost when the shafts of the eighteenth-century excavations were dug straight through them. The extant pieces were all recovered in this century. These have only survived because a new method of preservation had by then been developed: the application of paraffin-wax to the surface of the wood. These pieces are of great interest, because they give us the opportunity to study the form of the pieces and the techniques employed to make them. For furniture found in the preceding two centuries we have only the descriptions given in the excavation reports. These however give valuable information on form and technique, and (when the find context has been accurately recorded) on how the furniture was used. The extant pieces of furniture from known find contexts all originate from the more recently excavated area of the town. They come from the upper floors as well as from the ground floors of buildings, usually from shops and houses. In addition to the paraffin-wax treatment, missing 271 sections have sometimes been restored and frames have been built to support the fragile material. Initially the frames were made of metal and wood, but these are now being replaced by perspex versions. The state of preservation varies from piece to piece: those which have been transferred to the Magazzino Archeologico (the site storeroom) are mostly in good condition, but those which still stand in the excavations are deteriorating rapidly due to environmental pollution and touching by tourists. In this chapter various sources (the excavation reports, the surviving pieces and fittings made of other materials, indications of furniture in the domestic architecture and decoration) are combined to gain an idea of the role of wooden furniture in the interiors of Herculaneum's houses. The forms of furniture preserved in Herculaneum are discussed in Chapter 3. On the basis of the reference material reviewed in the previous chapter, we investigate whether the various categories of furniture found in Herculaneum occurred only in this town or were more widely spread in the Roman world. Beds and couches, tables, sitting and storage furniture are presented in turn. Three types of bed can be identified in Herculaneum: beds with high back and side boards mounted on the edges of the bedframe (here called 'beds with boards'); biclinia (two beds joined together at right angles); and children's beds, including a cradle. Of a fourth type, beds with a fulcrum (a curved rest mounted on one end of the bedframe), no wooden remains have survived. The great variety of 'beds with boards' found in Herculaneum and in depictions from elsewhere, justify the conclusion that this type of bed emerged in the 1st century B.C., much earlier than has been hitherto assumed. As regards the biclinia and the children's beds, no comparable pieces have been found outside Herculaneum, although their functional design suggests that such pieces must have been more widespread. The tables are all of the same type, although their details vary: three legs carved in animal leg form supporting what is usually a round tabletop. In one case the tabletop is crescent shaped. At two-thirds of their height these legs generally carry a carved decoration: a griffin's head, the head of a young Dionysus or a dog apparently coursing up the table leg. The design of the tables has Hellenistic antecedents, but the decoration can be regarded as a Roman innovation. Animal legs are also in evidence on three benches, although here they are much more stylized. This form also exhibits Hellenistic influences. The only preserved stool in Herculaneum has a seat decorated with a star in veneer mosaic. This makes the piece unique. The storage furniture includes cupboards, aediculae, racks and chests. On the basis of depictions we are able to conclude that lockable, freestanding cupboards were used all over the Roman world, although the examples in Herculaneum are the only surviving originals. The wooden aediculae are also unique as originals, but examples made of less perishable materials and stray finds of statuettes of household deities strongly suggest that wooden shrines occurred elsewhere with equal frequency. Similarly we can assume that racks in service rooms and shops, which are only preserved in this town, were also in use elsewhere. Finally, chests of various shapes were part of the inventory of many of Herculaneum's houses. From finds (especially of metal fittings) made in other places it is clear that chests were a regular feature in Roman houses. A chronological development of furniture forms or types cannot be established in Herculaneum; the snap-shot, frozen at the moment of the eruption, points to the simultaneous use of all the pieces which have come to light. Although there are similarities within the different categories of furniture, one gets the impression that there was no serial production. Evidence of the wider distribution of some of the types of furniture found in Herculaneum is provided by three pieces depicted on the Simpelveld sarcophagus (the Netherlands, c 200 A.O., fig. 10). These are a 'bed with boards', a round table on three legs and a cupboard with two panelled doors. On the other hand, other pieces depicted on this sarcophagus suggest that certain types of furniture, such as the wickerwork chair with back- and armrests, were familiar in other parts of the Empire but perhaps not in Herculaneum. The materials and techniques used in manufacturing the Herculaneum furniture are presented in Chapter 4. The surviving pieces provide the starting-point for a general survey of the materials and techniques used by Roman cabinetmakers. Roman expertise owed a great deal to the Greeks, who in turn were endebted to the Egyptians. The chapter therefore begins with a discussion of the 272 .
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