UNC Asheville to Host Talk on Street-side Bars Recovered in Pompeii

UNC Asheville will host a talk on “Sleazy Bars, Fancy Countertops: Reused Marble for Status Therapy at Pompeii” by classicist J. Clayton Fant, professor of classical studies at the University of Akron, at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 9, in UNC Asheville’s Ramsey Library room 009. The talk will focus on the nearly 160 bars that once sold food and drink along the streets of Pompeii. The event is free and open to the public.

“Sleazy Bars, Fancy Countertops” looks at the multitude of street-side bars recovered in Pompeii’s ruins. Fant’s talk focuses on how street-side bars worked, what they sold, their clientele and why the demand for them was so great. Roughly one-third of the bars had marble covering around the masonry. The bars’ trademark marble tops and facades were not only intended to lure potential customers, but to raise the perceived social level of the establishments. The talk spotlights this decoration as an attempt at circumventing social coding.

Fant is a specialist in the Roman marble trade and Roman social and economic history. He holds a doctorate in classical studies from the University of Michigan. Some of his chief publications are “Roman Marble Supplies,” “Imported Marble at Pompeii, Real and Painted Imitation” and “Pompeii and the Ancient Settlements under Vesuvius.” He has performed research and field work in Turkey, Greece, Tunisia, Egypt and Italy.

The talk is co-sponsored by UNC Asheville’s Classics Department and the Archaeological Institute of America. For more information, call Laurel Taylor, UNC Asheville adjunct assistant professor of classics, at 828/251-6290.

Media Contacts:

• Laurel Taylor, UNC Asheville Adjunct Assistant Professor of Classics, 828/251-6290

• Jill Yarnall, UNC Asheville Public Information Assistant Director, 828/251-6526