East Wall
Description
Henrik Boman & Monika Nilsson
Along the eastern line of room e, a foundation for a wall, or rather for a threshold, runs for 1.3m from the NE corner. The structure is 0.4m wide, which is the standard width of the other walls in the house.
The line of the wall can be followed a further 0.2m in the preserved cocciopesto floor. To the south, the floor is completely destroyed and there are no traces of the wall although an examination was made to a depth of 0.15m below the top of the preserved foundation.
The fact that the floor is preserved along the line of the wall indicates that there must have been some kind of threshold at the door opening to prevent water from the ambulatory entering the tablinum during heavy rains.
Sequence:
The imprint of the northern threshold piece in the cocciopesto floor indicates either that the floor and the arrangement with the large doorway belong to the same building phase, or that the floor is a later construction. The edges of the imprint are straight and smooth in a way that is most likely the result of a floor being constructed secondly, after the threshold was in place. This could be a building sequence, or a chronological sequence, but the first suggestion is the most likely.
It is possible that room f was the original passageway to the rear area of the house, when there was a closed wall running above the foundation along the E wall of room e. The door in the E wall of room f was closed off in a later stage of the transformation of the house.