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House of the Bear

Location: Regio VII

Insula 2

Area: 196 square meters
Rooms: 8

House of the Bear is a private residents that stands on the Via Augustali. This colorful Pompeii residence gets its name from a mosaic of a wounded bear. It was one of the first decorations discovered in the House of the Bear, yet it was not the last. The resident has some of the most splendid mosaics that adore walls and floors.

The House of the Bear was first excavated in 1865 and again in 1868. The hallway walls retain most of their original fourth-style fresco decoration, consisting of red and yellow panels separated by architectural motifs over a lower red decorative frieze. The hallway has a thin layer of mosaic, more or less divided into two parts. The part closest to the roadway is covered with a colorful mosaic of a wounded bear pierced with a spear (pictured above), and the part adjacent to the atrium consists of a black and white geometric pattern.

The entrance hall leads directly to the atrium - the living room (b) with the central impluvium or indoor pool for collecting rainwater, which fell here through a hole in the roof. The walls of the atrium retain some remnants of gypsum, but they are too faded to provide a proper description of the fresco decoration. The atrium has a beautiful mosaic floor, which consists of a black and white geometric pattern, complemented by a wide frame framing the central image. A short passage from the southwestern corner of the atrium leads to a medium-sized room (d) that overlooks the street. The room is illuminated by two square windows in the south wall.

Three more rooms of irregular shape (e, f and g) open on the west side of the atrium. In the back of the house, besides the fact that there is a small tablin - a bedroom (h), as well as a richly decorated fountain (i), fully lined with brightly colored tesseram and shells. The fountain consists of gables installed above the arched niche. Water flowed from a small rectangular hole in the center of the niche to flow into the semicircular pool below.

On the south side of the atrium is the living room, directly to the west of the entrance hall, a door opens on the back of the adjacent property, known as Taberna Hedones (c), pink in the above plan. In the photo on the right. The building has access to the street and apparently used to be a bar. The room has some remnants of plaster, which preserved some interesting graffiti which translates as:

"You can get a drink here for just one coin. You can drink the best wine for two coins. You can drink falernian [wine] for four coins."

Bear House was empty at the time of the eruption. Apparently the owner with family members and servants were able to escape, or in any case they tried to do it. We will probably never know about their fate.