Description Fragment has the original corner of slab with slab edges on two sides (top and right side). A part of a clamphole is visible on the right edge. A street runs top to bottom, and is intersected by a left-right street creating a T-crossing. A cluster with buildings is visible in top left corner with several rooms of unclear function. This cluster continues into fragments 667 and 134 in the same set-up: single room buildings (tabernae) opening to the street with a single room located behind. Although no openings are visible between the front and the back rooms of the tabernae, these must surely have been there in reality (unless they were on a different level). The shops face a street and a large enclosure or courtyard. The bottom corner room seems either unfinished or open (?). Two larger spaces are visible on the right of the fragment, their function is also unclear. The bottom left part shows the corner of a new building or block.

Identification: commercial quarter on flat land Fragment 156 was connected to fragments 667 and 134 with boundary incision matching at Stanford University (Koller-Levoy 2005, fig. 5-7). The output from the matching algorithm assigned high matching scores to each pairwise combination of these 3 fragments; upon manual review, the configuration shown in fig. 6 was determined to be the most likely. E. Rodríguez-Almeida had previously confirmed the join between fragments 667 and 134 (Rodríguez-Almeida 1992, pp. 62-63). The regularity of the streets and buildings on this fragment and on frs. 667/134 indicates flat land. Together, the three pieces show a row of shops facing a street and a triangular or trapezoidal courtyard or open space. The tabernae also seem to back onto a large courtyard. The most common type of tabernae on the Plan consists of a single room that opens directly onto a street. This type of shop could function as a shop, as a dwelling, or, probably more commonly, as a combination of the two. In single-room shops, a wooden loft probably served as the actual dwelling area (Reynolds 1996, pp. 158-9). This fragment may depict a type of tabernae that had an additional room in the back. Such structures have been found in both Ostia and Pompeii. The back room was either used as the family residence or, if the front room had a loft, as a work and/or storage space. Other examples of such tabernae can be seen in frs. 11a, 11c and 11fgh (Reynolds 1996, fig. 3.13).

Significance This piece is a typical example of unidentified fragments of the Plan. No monumental buildings are represented, and the fragment instead provides a view of a lesser known commercial area.

Text by Tina Najbjerg and Lidewijde de Jong