---
title: "House of the Europa Ship I.15.3 - Pompeii Online"
description: "Explore the House of the Europa Ship I.15.3 at Pompeii, where an elite residence evolved into a large urban agricultural enterprise."
url: "https://www.pompeionline.net/en/buildings-and-places/regio-i/house-of-the-europa-ship-i-15-3"
date: "2026-09-15T09:25:51+00:00"
language: "en-GB"
---

#  House of the Europa Ship I.15.3

The **House of the Europa Ship I.15.3** provides particularly important evidence for the economic transformation of Pompeian houses during the city's final decades. Created as a high-status residence and repeatedly altered and enlarged from the **third century BC** onwards, by AD 79 it was closely connected to a large agricultural complex in which a vineyard, vegetable plots, trees and facilities for handling produce had assumed a central role.

The modern name derives from a large **graffito incised on the north wall of the peristyle**, depicting a cargo ship accompanied by the inscription *EVROPA* and smaller vessels. There is no need to identify the ship's name with certainty as a reference to Europa, the princess of Greek myth. The secure archaeological evidence is simply that the vessel shown was named Europa.

### A house with ancient origins

The original nucleus of the domus dates to the **third century BC**, and the building's long history remains legible in its earliest structures and decoration. The monumental tuff columns of the peristyle and several rooms decorated in the **First Style** attest to a phase when the property was a prestigious residence.

The house underwent numerous changes over the centuries. Rooms were enlarged, connected or assigned new functions, substantially altering the original organisation. This development culminated during Pompeii's final years, when a considerable part of the property was increasingly devoted to **commercial-scale agricultural production**.

### The peristyle

The monumental centre of the residence was a large **peristyle**, with numerous rooms arranged chiefly along its north and west sides. Its great tuff columns recall the status achieved by the house during its most prestigious phases.

The peristyle was originally closely connected with residential life, providing a space for circulation, relaxation and display around an open area. Later alterations, however, made the relationship between the house and the large plot behind it increasingly important.

The graffito of the ship Europa is on the peristyle's north wall.

### The ship graffito

The drawing shows a **large cargo vessel** equipped with a mast, sail and recognisable fittings, accompanied by smaller boats. The name *EVROPA* appears beside the ship.

The graffito is especially evocative because merchant ships were essential to the Roman Mediterranean economy. Wine, oil, grain, pottery and many other goods circulated through the port and landing places around the Bay of Naples.

We do not know who made the drawing or whether it represents a ship personally known to its creator. It is therefore best regarded as an image of the maritime and commercial world without constructing undocumented biographical connections.

### The cubiculum with Ionic half-columns

One of the most finely decorated rooms lies near the entrance. This **cubiculum** preserves refined First Style decoration in which painted stucco imitates large blocks and slabs of coloured marble.

The upper walls also feature **Ionic half-columns modelled in stucco**, which the Archaeological Park considers particularly rare at Pompeii. Derived from Greek architectural models of the third and second centuries BC, the decoration makes a relatively small room appear far more monumental.

This room is essential to understanding the contrast between the earlier residential phase and the subsequent productive transformation: the house of AD 79 still preserved clear evidence of the property's former prestige.

### From luxury residence to agricultural production

The function of the complex changed markedly during Pompeii's final phase. The large space at the rear of the house was devoted to **organised agricultural production**, with a vineyard, plots for growing vegetables and numerous trees.

The Park's guide accordingly describes the House of the Europa Ship as an example of an earlier residence adapted to productive and commercial activities. This does not mean that every room ceased to have a domestic function. The transformation was gradual, and earlier residential structures continued to coexist with new economic requirements.

This very overlap makes the house especially significant.

### New research into the final phase

Recent research into urban agricultural production at Pompeii has made it possible to reconstruct this transformation more precisely. Following damage caused by first-century AD earthquakes, **several properties in Insula I.15 were demolished or reorganised and two domus were combined**, creating a large area for processing and managing agricultural produce.

The study therefore calls the productive complex the **House of the Europa Ship I.15.1–3**, covering a larger area than the entrance at I.15.3 by which the domus is traditionally identified.

The change was consequently far more than the conversion of a small private garden into a vegetable plot: it affected a considerable portion of the insula and involved a thorough redesign of the property.

### A large plot of 1,847 square metres

The agricultural area covered approximately **1,847 square metres**, a substantial expanse within the city. It occupied **two terraces**, created in part by altering and levelling earlier structures.

Archaeological investigation identified hundreds of cavities left by plant roots. Casts of these voids and their distribution allowed the layout of the vineyard and other crops to be reconstructed with a precision seldom possible at archaeological sites.

The garden of the Europa Ship was therefore not merely ornamental, but a genuinely productive plot embedded within the urban fabric.

### The vineyard

The principal crop was the **grapevine**. Root cavities reveal rows planted in a relatively regular pattern, with spacing compatible with the recommendations of ancient agronomists.

Recent research has also identified a very interesting difference between the two terraces. The upper terrace contained a well-established vineyard whose vines had been growing for many years. On the lower terrace, by contrast, the plants were **very young and had not yet reached two years of age** when the eruption buried them.

This shows that the agricultural enterprise had expanded only recently and that the property was still investing in its vineyard during Pompeii's very last years.

### Not only wine

The presence of a large vineyard does not automatically prove that all its grapes were made into wine on the property. Recent research emphasises that no complete wine-making installation capable of accounting for the entire crop has been identified.

Some grapes may therefore have been sold or consumed as **table grapes**, or used to prepare other products. Certain stages of processing may also have taken place elsewhere.

This is an important example of archaeological caution: the presence of the vines is certain, whereas the final destination of the entire crop cannot be reconstructed with the same confidence.

### Vegetable plots and other crops

Alongside the vines were **plots for pulses and vegetables**. The official guide mentions broad beans, onions and cabbages, while archaeobotanical investigations have confirmed the presence of several food plants.

The study of root cavities and charred remains also shows that many trees grew here. Remains of **grapes, broad beans, hazelnuts, almonds and dates** were recovered together with traces left by hundreds of plants.

Not every species proposed in the past can be identified with equal certainty. It is therefore preferable to avoid presenting long lists of cherry, peach, apricot and pistachio trees as if every identification were conclusively established, and to focus instead on the more robust archaeobotanical evidence.

### Two intensively cultivated kitchen gardens

**Two distinct kitchen gardens** were also identified within the large plot, organised with furrows and systems for distributing water. Their area could have produced more vegetables than a single household required.

This further supports a commercial interpretation of the property. Some produce was certainly available to the house's residents and workers, but the size and organisation indicate activity directed towards sale as well.

The House of the Europa Ship thus documents an important feature of Pompeii's final years: the use of urban land to increase food production and create new sources of income.

### The 416 root cavities

Fieldwork led by **Wilhelmina Jashemski** and her team in the 1970s was crucial to understanding the garden. Using a method that was innovative at the time, they identified and documented **416 cavities left by roots**.

By filling some of these voids with suitable material, archaeologists could reconstruct the position and size of vanished plants. Their distribution then helped to distinguish rows of vines, trees and cultivated areas.

This research transformed the study of Pompeian gardens. Spaces once described merely as courtyards or empty plots became evidence for reconstructing agriculture, diet and the urban economy.

### The 240 trees

The most recent research estimates that approximately **240 trees** grew among the crops in the large garden.

The combination of vines, trees and vegetables diversified production and prevented the enterprise from depending on a single crop. The plot could yield produce at different times of year and provide grapes, fruit, nuts, pulses and vegetables simultaneously.

This model reveals a form of urban agriculture far more rational and organised than the image of a simple domestic garden would suggest.

### The twenty-eight terracotta vessels

An earlier Pompeionline article stated that plant seeds were found in **28 terracotta vessels along the perimeter walls**. This point requires correction.

Archaeologists did indeed document **28 terracotta vessels set into the ground**, some belonging to the type known as *ollae perforatae*, or perforated pots. It cannot, however, simply be asserted that they contained the seeds of the species listed in the old article.

These vessels formed part of the agricultural organisation of the plot and may have served functions connected with cultivation and plant management. The archaeological fact should therefore be retained without turning it into an unproven botanical claim.

### Water and irrigation

An agricultural property of this size required careful management of **water**. Two cisterns, drainage channels and systems capable of collecting and distributing water, including runoff from building roofs, have been identified within the complex.

The terraced ground made use of the natural slope, while channels helped direct water towards the crops.

These installations show that the garden did not emerge by chance. Agricultural conversion required building work and detailed planning intended to make the land productive over the long term.

### Amphorae and dolia

Archaeologists also found a substantial quantity of **amphorae** in the south-eastern part of the portico, while one or more large *dolia*, used for storing produce in greater quantities, stood within the complex.

Their presence is consistent with the property's commercial character, although the original contents of each vessel cannot always be determined.

Taken together, the amphorae, cisterns, buried vessels and agricultural installations present a far more significant picture than any single find: the house was now also operating as a centre for managing production intended to generate income.

### The stable

The official guide also records a room interpreted as an **animal stable**. Livestock could therefore have been integrated with the property's agricultural activities.

Animals were useful not only as a source of foodstuffs, but also for transport, labour and manure. There is not enough evidence to reconstruct precisely which animals were regularly kept here or in what numbers.

It is therefore best to restrict the interpretation to the documented existence of a room used as a stable.

### Transformation after the earthquakes

Recent research places the agricultural conversion within the broader transformation of Pompeii after the **earthquake of AD 62 and subsequent seismic events**.

Rather than simply rebuilding every house as it had been before, some owners radically changed the use of their properties. Damaged buildings might be combined, demolished or converted into productive spaces that offered new sources of income.

The House of the Europa Ship is one of the clearest examples of this strategy. The great residence retained traces of its aristocratic past, while a substantial part of the property had been absorbed into an urban agricultural economy.

### Residence and enterprise

It is therefore misleading to describe the House of the Europa Ship simply as a wealthy domus or, conversely, as a farm. In AD 79, the complex had **both dimensions**.

The monumental peristyle columns, First Style decoration and refined cubiculum recalled a long residential history; the vineyard, vegetable plots, cisterns, amphorae and stable documented a property now strongly oriented towards production.

The transformation shows the flexibility of property use at Pompeii and the close relationship that could exist between social prestige and the pursuit of profit.

### Modern excavations

The house was brought to light chiefly between **1951 and 1961**, with further campaigns in **1972–1973 and 1975**. The later investigations were especially important for the study of the large agricultural plot.

Jashemski's work systematically documented root cavities and reconstructed vineyards and kitchen gardens. The House of the Europa Ship consequently became one of the key sites in the development of the **archaeology of ancient gardens**.

Modern investigations continue to reassess this evidence by combining it with botanical research, excavation records and analysis of the city's economic organisation.

### A house that records Pompeii's transformation

The **House of the Europa Ship I.15.3** is therefore far more than a domus named after a graffito. Its history spans several centuries, from the third-century BC nucleus and monumental First Style decoration to the gradual conversion of part of Insula I.15 into a large agricultural complex.

In AD 79 the vineyard was still expanding, some vines had been planted less than two years earlier, and the kitchen gardens, trees, irrigation systems and storage vessels reveal an evolving investment in production. At the same time, the peristyle and the cubiculum with Ionic half-columns preserved the memory of the earlier high-status residence.

This coexistence of **former domestic luxury and a new agricultural economy** makes the House of the Europa Ship crucial to understanding a dynamic Pompeii, where earthquakes prompted not only restoration but also far-reaching changes in property and economic activity.

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