Title: Pompeian Mill-Bakeries: Spatial Organization and Social Interaction
Department: Classical Studies
Description: Bread was vital to the Roman Empire. It formed the basis of the Roman diet; ensuring an adequate supply of bread was one of the emperor's major concerns. However, little is known about the workers who produced the bread that fueled the Empire. They were members of the illiterate lower-classes, and many of them were enslaved. What is known about their lives comes mostly from archaeological material. Pompeii provides a wealth of information about the production of bread in the first century CE; nearly 30 mill-bakeries have been excavated at the site. This project aims to reconstruct the networks of social interactions of workers in Pompeiian mill-bakeries through analysis of the spatial organization of the bread-making process. In other words, using what we know about how people interacted with the space to figure out how they interacted with each other within the space. By examining the context in which they worked, this project will shed light on the daily lives of a group of people on the margins of history, history that would not exist without the products of their labor.
Hometown: McLean, Virginia
Advisor: John Donahue
Each William & Mary Honors Fellowships donation supports the whole Charles Center Honors Fellowships Fund. Donations inspired by specific research projects are distributed by the Charles Center in a way that benefits this project and others. To learn more about Honors Fellowships, please visit our website.