Quote: On the right and left they have windows which open like folding doors, so that views of the garden may be had from the dining couches through the opened windows.
I'm told the word "window" was originally "wind hole", as a way to let air in. I think shutters of one sort or another go pretty far back in history. You wouldn't always want rain or snow to blow in the wind hole.
Then there is this fresco, supposedly from the House of Publius Fannius Synistor in Pompeii and now in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Are those blue curtains, perhaps with some designs, in the lower red window above the potted plant? And perhaps in the higher red window, above the door, is a lattice shutter of some sort. If this is what they are, it is interesting that they only cover the lower halves of the windows. Maybe they wanted to let light in, but not to let people peek inside.
Shutters and drapes, or a combination of the two, seem best. Larger Roman houses would have different rooms for different seasons: a summer dining room would have very large 'windows' opening to the portico to let in light and breezes, which probably remained open, whereas winter dining rooms were often windowless chambers - many of them had black walls, apparently (according to a placard in the Museo Nazionale in Rome!) to hide the smirch left by oil lamps, and perhaps heating braziers.
Chambers used as bedrooms tended to be comparatively small and dark, which would make them easier to heat in winter. The ceilings are quite high in the cubiculi of Pompeii, for example, and they often have only a single small opening above the door - I would guess that these were intended more for ventilation (and to clear lamp smoke gathering in the height of the room) than to admit light.
Window panes out of glass appeared in the early 1st century AD and were rather quickly also found in the provinces. What I've always wondered about is whether the Romans did know the chimney to keep individual rooms warm as in medieval houses and castles?
Stefan (Literary references to the discussed topics are always appreciated.)
The author decides that they probably didn't - chimneys were 'invented' some time around the 14th century, he says.
There's a theory that the etymology of atrium derives from ater (black), relating to the smoke-blackened walls and ceiling of what was once the main living room of the house.
Quote:There's a theory that the etymology of atrium derives from ater (black), relating to the smoke-blackened walls and ceiling of what was once the main living room of the house.
- Nathan
It seems more likely that it comes from the greek "aithrion" which meant an inner court or a covered hall with opened/transparent sides. A dictionary offeres a possible derivation from the word "aitho" which mean "to burn" This might link the two with the estia chamber,where the fire was burning in the middle and the ceiling was opened on the top to allow the smoke go out.
Khaire
Giannis
Giannis K. Hoplite
a.k.a.:Giannis Kadoglou
a.k.a.:Thorax
I find it a little bit odd that we have hundreds of examples of the hypocaust heating system but none of you seem to know about it... ?
Romans used under floor and wall heating systems in which a fire was lit and the warm air transported throughout the areas between the walls and underneath the floor. This made a room temperature of 24 degrees possible in winter. People who were not rich and lived in large apartment blocks in Rome often lit their own fires, even though it was a hazard and often forbidden. The ground floors apart from the shops contained often the more well off, while the poor lived near the top floor of these Insulae.
Quote:Has no one of you heard of hypocaust heating ?
Of course they have but
a) this would have been available only to the more well-to-do in the provinces and the larger cities.
b) during Late Antiquity it was very costly to maintain such systems and many fell into disrepair.
The question asked was how you keep things warm, and I take it the loss of the hypocaust, or its absence, was already taken into account.
Robert Vermaat MODERATOR FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
I thought the question was about closing windows (which could be to keep out cold or keep out light), not about generating heat.
But yes, the hypocaust is fascinating. Here in snowy Finland it is very common to have heated floors. I've played with the idea of a Roman-style wood-burning hypocaust for a cabin, but I do have some (justified) fears of burning the place down. hock:
Well if you want to take into account that during the late Roman era the Hypocaust system was no longer in operation, which i highly doubt, the first thing you would have to study is late Roman building remains, both provincial as municipal. Then you have to look for any form of Insulae which might still have been in existence, in Rome that is a certainty. You also need to take into account the spread of window glazing during the later Roman period, as well as looking for instance inside the Porta Nigra for shutter peg/pivot holes. There have been extensive studies on Rome regarding housing. In the first and secind centuries at least, the higher floors of the Insulae had open fires at times and in some the cooking fire was in the same space as the living space, the small cubiculi attest that. The most awkward thing is the absence of lavatories inside houses, especially at Rome, but also at other cities. see also: http://www.i-claudius.com/tempus/sanitation.html and the article : A. Scobie, "Slums, Sanitation, and Mortality in the Roman World," Klio 68:2 ( 1986).
What is important is that in general you can say that shutters were known, as well as curtains and window glass but not everyone would have had the pecunia for glass.
Also in Ségobriga Spain, a quartz was found which could be polished untill you could see through it, which in the first century was used widely, and also Plinius wrote about that. It was called Lapis Specularishttp://www.lapisspecularis.org/
The geberal held belief that after the Roman period all Roman knowledge was lost, also the knowledge of window shutters is not very feesible. Some knowledge remained firmly in place.
Quote: Well if you want to take into account that during the late Roman era the Hypocaust system was no longer in operation, which i highly doubt
Why?
Quote: the first thing you would have to study is late Roman building remains, both provincial as municipal.
So what makes you think this hasn't already been done?
Quote:Then you have to look for any form of Insulae which might still have been in existence, in Rome that is a certainty.
Maybe, but we are not talking about Rome (or Constantinople here), but about houses in general. And these would generally be different from a city block such as in Rome.
Typical for provincial towns such as Londinium for instance was general dereliction, a layer of dark earth covering plots where houses had been torn down or otherwise diappeared.
Quote:What is important is that in general you can say that shutters were known, as well as curtains and window glass but not everyone would have had the pecunia for glass.
I'm not sure about glass, but it's recognised that roof tiles (a far more common thing - every shed had them) disappeared from every roof but a few in for instance Rome, not to re-appear again until the later Middle Ages or afterwards.
Quote:The general held belief that after the Roman period all Roman knowledge was lost, also the knowledge of window shutters is not very feesible. Some knowledge remained firmly in place.
Well, as far as I'm concerned that's not a 'general held belief'. What we DO see however is that the money to build in stone or with 'Roman technology' is lost, so it's more a question of economics that a loss of knowledge. Of course, if demand drops to a barely existing minimum, not many people will be trained in such professions.
Robert Vermaat MODERATOR FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
![[Image: Pompeii_Fresco_002.jpg]](http://www.knowledgerush.com/wiki_image/7/7a/Pompeii_Fresco_002.jpg)
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hock:
