Verulamium Hypocaust and Mosaic
About
Roughly 200,000 individually cut tesserae form a mosaic floor laid directly over a hypocaust system whose brick pillars once channeled hot air beneath a wealthy townhouse's reception rooms. Excavators in the 1930s chose to leave it exactly where the Romans built it, now sheltered by a museum building. This particular house did not yet stand in 117 CE; it belongs to Verulamium's later, more prosperous 2nd-century building boom.
What happened here
The front door opens onto a corridor and then a roofed hall with a pool under an opening in the roof, and that hall is a public room — clients arrive at dawn to greet the owner, and the whole plan is arranged so they can be received and impressed. Behind it, a colonnaded garden with a dining room off it, three couches around a low table, guests reclining on the left elbow. Rooms are small, dark and multi-purpose; furniture is moved as needed. Walls are painted to open the space out with fake architecture and landscapes. Windows are shuttered rather than glazed. Cooking, laundry and the slaves' quarters are pushed to the edges. Street frontage is let out as shops, because it is too valuable to waste.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →