Avenches – Roman Museum – Permanent Exhibition

Second Floor Gardens
There were various types of seats: stools, benches, chairs and armchairs,
sometimes made more comfortable by adding cushions.
The tables placed next to the dining room couches in Mediterranean style were
round and low, while rectangular and high tables, around which one could sit,
represent local custom.
The couches, on which one lay down for meals, were often quite elaborately
decorated with bronze or – less frequently – bone or ivory fittings and were covered
with mattresses and cushions.
For stowing away ones belongings, one mainly used different sizes of chests, which
were often decorated. In certain houses precious objects or family archives were
placed in a cupboard, the upper part of which could be used as a lararium (small
house altar). Chests and cupboards were closed with locks, some of which had
rather complicated mechanisms (no. 38).
1-5. Bronze busts attached to furniture or doors.
6. Bronze bust, decorating an armrest.
7-12. Iron and bronze keys (2).
13-14. Bolts from iron and bronze locks.
15. Iron decorative element inlaid with gold and copper.
16-18. Bronze handles.
19. Box of silver-plated bronze lock with niello decoration.
20-24. Bronze key rings.
25-27. Bronze, iron and bone furniture hinges.
28-32. Fragments with glass and bone inlay.
33-35. Bronze nails with figurative heads.
36. Bronze lock back plate.
37. Bronze leg of a piece of furniture or a brazier.
38. Lock with bronze and iron key.
39-42. Ivory plates (copies).
Gardens (3)
A great number of the houses in Aventicum included a green space, for instance a
vegetable patch or an ornamental garden. The latter were often situated where they
could be enjoyed from the reception rooms. Decorated round discs (oscilla) (no. 1),
which swung in the wind, were sometimes suspended between the columns of
the portico surrounding the garden. Statues, fountains, stone benches and tables,
water basins or arbours, which could be used as dining rooms in the summer, were
all part of the usual fittings of these gardens. A variety of plants were used to form
geometric patterns.
1
2
3
52
Second Floor
7