Assessing the Value of a Newly Excavated Insula at Pompeii
A regional museum in Campania has commissioned a display on a newly excavated insula at Pompeii (Insula 14, Regio V). Your team is given the following evidence. (1) A sealed room containing 34 carbonised loaves and a bronze seal bearing the name of a freedman baker. (2) A wall inscription in the entrance corridor listing 11 candidates for a local magistracy, with three names repeated and one name accompanied by the phrase 'rogat' ('asks for'). (3) A small lararium with faded frescoes of the Lares and a serpent. (4) Coins of Vespasian found in a drain, plus one coin of Titus. (5) A graffito near the kitchen reading 'Campanus hic cacavit' (a scatological insult). The museum wants a 4-panel display: economy, religion, politics, daily life. Your curator argues the graffito is the most valuable item because it is 'authentic human voice'.
1. Which single item is strongest for dating the final occupation phase, and how should the display phrase the dating claim?
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The coin assemblage is the strongest dating evidence, but only in a limited sense. The latest coin (Titus) gives a terminus post quem - the deposit cannot be earlier than that issue. It does not give a terminus ante quem. The drain context is secondary (material washed in), so the coins date the fill, not necessarily the room's abandonment. The loaves give no date. The seal gives a name, not a date. The inscription gives a political moment but is undated. Display wording: 'Deposits in the drain include a coin of Titus, indicating activity no earlier than his reign; the drain fill may post-date the room's use.' Avoid 'the house was destroyed in AD 79 because of the coins' - the eruption is known independently (Pliny the Younger, stratigraphy), not from this assemblage. The honest claim is a floor, not a ceiling. A curator wanting a firm date should combine the coin with the stratigraphy of the destruction layer and any securely sealed context.
2. The curator calls the graffito the most valuable item. Evaluate that claim against the other four items for a 4-panel display.
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The graffito is valuable for daily life because it is spontaneous and unofficial, giving voice to a non-elite perspective that formal inscriptions rarely preserve. But 'most valuable' overstates it. (1) The loaves plus baker's seal are stronger for economy: they show commercial baking at scale, a named freedman producer, and a sealed context - evidence of a supply chain, not just an attitude. (2) The 11-name programmata are stronger for politics: they show electoral mobilisation, repeated names (suggesting organised support), and the vocabulary of canvassing. (3) The lararium is stronger for religion: it locates domestic cult in a specific room and shows the Lares-plus-serpent iconography. (4) The coins are the only dating anchor. The graffito is evocative but singular - one anonymous voice, no date, no named individual. It should headline the daily-life panel, not the whole display. Rank by evidential function: coins (dating), programmata (politics), loaves/seal (economy), lararium (religion), graffito (daily life). The curator's instinct is right about texture, wrong about weight.
3. A label draft reads: 'The 11 names prove the baker's household supported these candidates.' Identify and correct the reasoning error.
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The error is conflating presence with proof of support. The programmata list 11 names, but: (a) a rogat formula is a request, not a vote; (b) we do not know who wrote it - household members, clients, passers-by, or a professional rogator; (c) the location in the entrance corridor makes it visible to visitors, which is precisely where canvassing operates; (d) the baker's seal is in a different room and does not link the freedman to the inscription. The corrected label: 'Eleven names appear in a programme of electoral recommendations in the entrance corridor. The formula rogat marks a request for support. The author is unknown; the inscription shows that canvassing occurred at this address, not how the household voted or whom it controlled.' The general principle: ancient inscriptions record speech acts, not demographic facts. The display should present the programmata as evidence of electoral culture, and flag the authorship problem explicitly rather than resolving it in the label.