Pompeii preserves a great deal of evidence of a thriving textile trade. Inscriptions indicate the importance of textile workers in local politics. Buildings such as fuller’s workshops, dye workshops and wool processing units suggest a comprehensive cloth manufacturing industry. The Eumachia building in the forum has also been interpreted as evidence of the prominence of the wool trade.
The archaeology alone, however, cannot determine whether this industry was to serve the towns needs or evidence of Pompeii’s standing as a major cloth manufacturer.
Electoral Notices and Inscriptions
Many inscriptions, especially electoral notices identify prominent trades within Pompeii. They suggest that those working in textiles were active in local politics. Dyers, felt workers, fullers and wool workers all featured in electoral notices. Other inscriptions from the town show that those in the textile business occupying prime positions on the city council. These local business men were an economic power to be reckoned with, at least within Pompeii itself.
The Eumachia Building
The Eumachia building occupies a prominent position in the forum of Pompeii and has been used as evidence of the dominance of the textile business within the city.
A large porticoed building, its founder Eumachia came from a family associated with the wool trade. This and the fact that her statue were paid for and dedicated by the town’s fullers has led many people to speculate that the building was the town’s wool market or a guild house for the fullers. The prominent position of the building in the forum has been used as evidence of the central role of wool in Pompeii’s economic life, with speculation that it was a major export.
Nothing in the archaeology backs up either function. The exact function of the Eumachia building is not known and so it cannot be used as evidence of textiles as a major trade beyond Pompeii. Its dedications simply show that the local textile producers flourished in the town, not that the town flourished because of its textiles.
Textile Workshops in Pompeii
Pompeii has many examples of different types of textile workshop. Whilst many could have had a commercial purpose, they were also likely to have been simply serving a local market.
Types of workshops that can be identified in the archaeological record are as follows:
- Officinae lanifricariae . This type of workshop was where the raw wool was processed. Most facilities of this type were located to the east of the forum where there was a small scale ‘industrial park’ which housed outlets dealing with manufacturing on a commercial scale.
- Textrinae. Spinning and weaving of wool for domestic consumption would have occurred in most roman homes. These workshops were dedicated to the commercial spinning and weaving of wool, possibly before passing it onto a dye workshop
- Officinae tinctoriae. Dye workshops have been identified by kilns on the premises and plant remains for making pigments. They were distributed about the city, suggesting they were just as likely to dye cloth for the local communities as well as on a commercial scale. They could also have been linked to their own local retail outlets. Clothes shops existed in Pompeii and many of the workshops could have been supplying specific local retail outlets.
- Officinae coactiliariae.wool felting workshops
- Fullonicae.Fuller’s workshops were raw wool was cleaned and woollen clothes were finished and also washed. They are often close to main streets, in the same area as other shops and small businesses for instance Stephanus’s Fullery on Via Dell Abbondanza. They could have served as local laundrettes as well as playing a part in the commercial production of cloth.
Stephanus’s Fullery
Archaeologists have been able to discover much about the processes’ of a fuller from the wall paintings surviving in this building as well as the material remains. Fabric was pounded in narrow basins, with urine and fuller’s earth used to bleach it. Clothes would then be dried in an open courtyard, where they were brushed and finished. The whitening process would be completed by winding the cloth around a cylindrical frame and then applying sulphur. Creases were ironed out by a wooden clothes press.
Sources
Pompeii: A Sourcebook (2004) Alison E Cooley and MGL Cooley. Routledge: London and New York
The World of Pompeii (2008) Ed John J Dobbins and Pedar W Foss. Routledge: London and New York
Natasha Sheldon - A writer since 2000, Natasha Sheldon holds a BA Hons in ancient history and archaeology and MA in ancient history and historiography.
Join the Conversation