Location of the House (Ins III, 13-15) .. View of Cardo IV looking South, with the House of the Opus Craticium overhanging the right footway next to the entrance to the House of Wooden Partition Plan of the House .. .................Plan of the House Key: A. Atrium B. Taberna Description The House of the Opus Craticium is interesting because of its construction; the use of opus craticium. Cheap and quick to build, opus craticium consists of filling a brick and wood framework with a pebble and rock mixture known as opus incertum. Numerous surviving examples of opus craticium have been found at Pompeii, but the parctice seems to have been particularly favoured at Herculaneum. The house was excavated between 1927 and 1933 by Amedeo Maiuri. The main structure of the house is supported by piers of opus incertum and brick, while curtain walls of opus craticium subdivide the interior. .. .. To build walls of opus cratacium, squared timber uprights or arrectaria (8-12 cm thick) were combined with horizontal transversaria (6-8cm) to form panels measuring between 50 and 80 cm per side. These were then filled with concrete and rubble. Other than economic reasons, the use of opus craticium was probably motivated by the amount of space which could be saved by using thin partition walls. The house was divided into two small apartments. These units are better preserved under the layers of mud than the upper storeys of Pompeii, which collapsed under the weight of the lava fallout. The houses position in insula III reveals that its original form probably comprised a small atrium house. A taberna (B) with several back rooms sat to the left side of the hallway (A) leading into the interior. On the right, a staircase led directly to the upper floor and a rather dark apartment consisting of five rooms, of which only two were lit by windows onto the atrium of the House of the Bronze Herma next door (south). .. .. .. .. Remains of wooden wardrobes and two beds, including a child's bed, were preserved, together with a marble table and marble plaque for hanging. The builder integrated the balcony onto the street by moving the entrances to the outer rooms onto the exterior of the house as shown in the photograph above. As a result, even these occupants had access to a small cenatio and a diaeta. .. The apartment located in the interior of the house was even darker. It was lit almost exclusively by one airshaft at the centre of the building. The two rooms were fiilled with furniture; three beds, wardrobes and a lararium. A narrow hallway led to a latrine.

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