First impressions: ROOM 6

Room 6 is a relatively large room. Like room 3, it has three walls and there is no sign of a shutting door on the fourth one. The floor, that is unfortunately visible only in very small and damage bits almost entirely covered in dirt and pebbles, is very similar to the one in room 3. The similar decoration (cocciopesto with a white pattern) could point at a visual and structural relationship with room 3. However, the two spaces are not geometrically identical (or even remarkably similar). 

House of Orpheus, looking south from room 6
Photo by V. Vitale, 2012

On the contrary, room 6 shows quite a peculiar feature that I was not able to identify and that occupies almost half of the space. A ridge (high roughly 20 cm) goes along the room’s three walls and an additional feature (same hight of the ridge) closes the rectangular shape on the fourth side. 

To me, it looks to big to be a bed and too small to be a triclinium (moreover, room 10 with its view on the garden is much more likely to have been the triclinium). The potential view from the unidentified feature in room 6 is not particularly interesting. It includes part of the fountain, but without its visual interaction with the garden and the colonnade. It makes me think that it was more likely to be something to be seen than an observing point of view.

I have been suggested that it could even been a water feature, but I couldn’t find any actual evidence to support that idea.

In both the maps I have found, the feature is recorded and appears to be evenly vertically divided. However, that division is now no more visible on site. At least not to my archaeological-untrained eye.