CITIES OF VESUVIUS REVISION

Non-examinable background -even though this is listed as non-examinable, it does include or duplicate

some material relevant to the examinable topics, and should be covered carefully.
stages of occupation
brief historical overview up to and including the eruption of AD 79
early discoveries and brief history of the excavations
representations of Pompeii and Herculaneum over time

Examinable content:
1 Geographical context
the physical environment: the geographical setting, natural features and resources of Pompeii and
Herculaneum
plans and streetscapes of Pompeii and Herculaneum
2 The nature of sources and evidence
the range of available sources, both written and archaeological, including ancient writers, official
inscriptions, graffiti, wall paintings, statues, mosaics, human and animal remains
the limitations, reliability and evaluation of sources
the evidence provided by the sources from Pompeii and Herculaneum for:
the eruption
the economy: trade, commerce, industries, occupations
social structure; men, women, freedmen, slaves
local political life
everyday life: leisure activities, food and dining, clothing, health, baths, water supply and
sanitation
public buildings basilicas, temples, fora , theatres, palaestra , amphitheatres
private buildings villas, houses, shops
influence of Greek and Egyptian cultures: art, architecture, religion
religion: temples, household gods, foreign cults, tombs.
3 Investigating, reconstructing and preserving the past
changing methods and contributions of nineteenth and twentieth century archaeologists to our
understanding of Pompeii and Herculaneum
changing interpretations: impact of new research and technologies
issues of conservation and reconstruction: Italian and international contributions and
responsibilities; impact of tourism
ethical issues: study and display of human remains

1 Geographical context
the physical environment: the geographical setting, natural features and resources of Pompeii and
Herculaneum
plans and streetscapes of Pompeii and Herculaneum

2 The nature of sources and evidence

the range of available sources, both written and archaeological, including ancient writers, official
inscriptions, graffiti, wall paintings, statues, mosaics, human and animal remains
the limitations, reliability and evaluation of sources
the evidence provided by the sources from Pompeii and Herculaneum for:
the eruption

 the economy: trade, commerce, industries, occupations

 social structure; men, women, freedmen, slaves

 local political life

everyday life: leisure activities, food and dining, clothing, health, baths, water supply and
sanitation
public buildings basilicas, temples, fora , theatres, palaestra , amphitheatres
private buildings villas, houses, shops
influence of Greek and Egyptian cultures: art, architecture, religion
religion: temples, household gods, foreign cults, tombs.

3 Investigating, reconstructing and preserving the past

changing methods and contributions of nineteenth and twentieth century archaeologists to our
understanding of Pompeii and Herculaneum
changing interpretations: impact of new research and technologies
issues of conservation and reconstruction: Italian and international contributions and
responsibilities; impact of tourism
ethical issues: study and display of human remains
Changing methods.

Nineteenth century:
Fiorelli
1.Under Fiorelli, work proceeded for the first time in a systematic way moving from house to
house, from street to street, clearing everything as he went rather than randomly searching for
`special' objects or buildings. Up to this time, Pompeii 's excavators had moved quite frequently and
haphazardly from one area to another, guided by their hope of finding important buildings, precious
objects, and beautiful paintings. He employed a workforce of 500 people assigned to follow the line
of the roads so that eventually the different, haphazardly excavated parts of the site were connected.
After this he was able to plan gradual clearance from excavated into unexcavated parts. (click on
this link to see a present day unexcavated part of Pompeii). His work resulted in three fifths of the
site having been cleared.
2.In past excavations, it was common practice to abandon the excavation of a particular building as
soon as it became clear that it was unlikely to yield the sort of riches one was looking for. Such
places were then back-filled with the earth from new digs. Fiorelli set out to clear these dumps in
order to gain a clear picture of the areas so far excavated. Fiorelli aimed to get an overall picture of
the history of the site through archaeological evidence and so build a more accurate reconstruction
of its history than that gleaned from written sources.
3.Fiorelli was the first to excavate buildings from the top and then from the inside out, rather than
from the side in. The clearing of buildings no longer proceeded by cutting into them sideways from
the entrance. The decision to penetrate buildings from the top was a first step in the development of
modern stratigraphic digging techniques. It meant removing the volcanic material in reverse order
to how it had been deposited on 24-25 August 79, and thus allowed a better understanding of the
process of burial and collapse of any building. In this way the data collected during the excavations
could be used to help with the restoration of the ancient buildings and of their interiors - although
the most important wall paintings and mosaics still continued to be stripped and transported to
Naples.
4.This method of clearing the volcanic debris lead to the discovery of cavities left in the hardened
ash by decomposed organic matter. Impressions left by the victims in the fine ash deposited by the
fatal fourth surge on the morning of 25 August 79 had been observed long before Fiorelli's days.
The imprint of a young woman's breast found in the Villa of Diomedes in 1771-1772 and brought to
the royal museum at Portici. However it was not until 1863 that the true nature of these impressions
was realized. Any body of organic matter enveloped by the fine Vesuvian ash eventually decayed,
but not before the as surrounding it had hardened to form a mould. It was Fiorelli's ingenious idea
to pour plaster into these cavities which acted like a mould. The plaster was left to dry and when
the surrounding ash was removed a statue-like cast of the body or object was created. In doing this,
Fiorelli recovered the shape not only of the bodies of human and animal victims, but also of
countless pieces of furniture and fittings made of perishable material that would otherwise have
been lost.
In more recent times, the method has also been used to recover the shape of roots, thus allowing the
various species of trees and bushes grown in private and public gardens to be identified. Today, the
casts are no longer made of plaster. There have been experiments using transparent resin which
makes it possible to see elements (such as the bone's of victims, or metal parts on doors or pieces of

furniture) which are embedded in the cast. However, the technique has not been satisfactory and has
been abandoned.
5. Another innovation of Fiorelli's was the system he introduced for naming and numbering
houses and buildings to bring order into a chaotic naming system. Until 1860, most houses had been
given a name based on one of the five following criteria: Name of the ancient owner e.g. House of
Pomponius. Finds suggesting the profession of the last owner e.g. House of the - Surgeon. Some
notable feature found in the house for instance the various paintings depicting Ariadne on the island
of Naxos . A particularly striking object such as the bronze statuette in the House of the Faun. A
famous visitor who had been present during excavation: the House of the Faun, for instance, was
also known as the House of Goethe. Naturally, the same feature could easily occur in more than one
house, and so, in the absence of a central register, it was unavoidable that in the course of time
several houses ended up with the same name.
Fiorelli divided the town into nine regions,(I-IX), each containing up to 22 blocks or insulac. Each
entrance in each block was given a number. In this way each building could be clearly identified by
three numbers, eg V.13.26 V = region, 13 = block, 26 = entrance. Thus the house known as the
House of the Painted Capitals or the House of Ariadne but occasionally also known as the House of
Bacchus was now simply identified as VII 4,31.51.
6. Fiorelli gave modern names to the streets of Pompeii. The crossroads of a Roman town are called
decumanus and cardo. The Street plans of Pompeii and Herculaneum follow a grid pattern although
at Pompeii there is some irregularity because of the shape of the original (Oscan) settlement and the
restrictions of the wall. Fiorelli called the ancient main street of Pompeii the Via Dell'Abundanza or
Street of Abundance because of a street fountain whose carving shows a woman holding a basket
full of fruit. He also named the main cross streets and city gates after roads leading to other local
towns. (decumani are the main streets, with an east-west orientation and the cardines are the
narrower streets which cross them).
Twentieth Century
Mau
August Mau,A German archaeologist, worked at Pompeii towards the end of the 1800s, studying
the art and architecture in particular. He classified the major fresco styles of different periods and
made it possible to date the different phases of Pompeii 's history.
1. August Mau was an excavator and art historian of Roman painting. He was the first to advance
the hypothesis that Roman art was not dependant on Greek origins, but can be seen as a high
achievement on its own. Fiorelli's work formed the basis for Mau's research on Roman wall
painting.
2. In 1882 he published Geschichte der decorative Wandmalerei in Pompeji. In this work he
postulated four stylistic periods: This characterization of Roman wall painting remains the
organization used today.
First Style: "Structural Style" or "masonry style": third century BC - c. 80 BC simple decoration in
imitation of coloured marble plaster was painted to look like blocks or panels of coloured stone.
This style was used to recreate in stucco the marble architectural blocks of Greek temples eg In
Pompeii 1). House of Sallust; 2)House of the Faun. 3) the basilica in the forum
Second Style: "Architectural Style": c. 80 BC - 20/10 BC emphasised architectural details columns and ledges were painted as realistically as possible with perspective and foreshadowing
use of trompe 1'oeil . Behind the architectural details the viewer could see out onto the sacred
landscape of the gods and heroes eg. 1)Villa of the Mysteries; 2)Villa of Poppaea at Opolontis;
Third Style: "Ornamental Style": c.20/10 BC - 50/60 AD grew out of the second style in the
Augustan period - emphasises ornament and presents mythological scenes in a panel set against a
monochrome background (usually red or yellow) in which architectural details fade away or
become illusions. This was an expression of Augustan modesty and the ideal of restraint eg.atrium
of the villa San Marco, rooms of villa San Marco,
Fourth Style: "Fantastic Style": 50/60 AD - 79 AD -little known: Mau did not discuss it in as
much detail as the other three. It is a varied combination of the second and third styles.

Architectural details are returned and the walls broken up into spatial levels and vistas although
central scenes continue to be painted in parcels. Some scenes are light and fantastical e.g. house of
the Vettii (diagram) House of the Vettii and House of Octavius Quartio. There are some figures
which are painted over the monochrome background without the panel
Vittorio Spinazzola
Victoria Spinazzola was the next important archaeologist to work at Pompeii , from 1911 to 1924.
1.Under his direction most of the main street, Via dell'Abondanza which goes from west to east
all along the length of the town, was cleared and several of its important buildings, such as the
House of Cryptoporticus, were excavated.
2.Spinazzola reconstructed many of the facades of the buildings, revealing a busy street where
private houses, workshops, taverns and bakeries stood side by side. His reconstruction of the
faades of the houses along this street with their balconies, upper floors and roofs, was meticulous
in its excavation technique combined with restoration. These upper floors had been crushed under
the volcanic material of AD79. In doing so he demonstrated how it was possible both to understand
the process by which the buildings had been buried in the first place, and also what the original
structure of the houses had been - thus making it possible to restore them accurately. More
specifically, his work demonstrated that the upper stories of Roman houses were open and well lit,
whereas the lower floors had blank walls to the street and few windows. He based his restorations
on indications from the structural remains and also on paintings of Roman houses.
3. Spinazzola was one of the first archaeologists to record the phases of an excavation in
photographs such as the 1910 photograph of the site.
Amedeo Maiuri - superintendent of excavations for thirty seven years from 1924 to 1961.
Amedeo Maiuri took over from Spinazolla and continued excavations till the outbreak of World
War II, when work was suspended. The site was extensively damaged by Allied bombing in 1943.
Maiuri resumed excavation after the war and worked rapidly for the next ten years, clearing ten
insulae.
Archaeologists have criticised Maiuri's work for a number of reasons.
1.The excavations were done too quickly with very little documentation
2.and few of the excavated buildings were protected. By 1957 one-third of the known paintings had
faded to the extent that they were no longer visible. During the following 20 years almost half of the
images visible in 1957 also disappeared. Many of these were never properly recorded
3.While concentrating on new excavations, older buildings were ignored, unprotected and
unrecorded.
4.Growing numbers of tourists and increasing atmospheric pollution added to the problems of the
site.
5. The positive views of Maiuri result from his work in uncovering the city's walls, finding a large
necropolis along its southern walls and exploring Regio I and Regio II. Maiuri also uncovered the
Casa del Menandro and Villa dei Mister. Much of this work, however, was carried out using
inaccurate methodology, with inadequate instruments, and the project suffered from chronic
underfunding, so the houses were not well restored and were eventually practically abandoned.
6. Maiuri's positive contribution also includes the stratigraphical research he undertook under the
AD 79 level, in his search for the origins of Pompeii.
Details 1: A policy change
Since 1961, when de Franciscis took over as director of archeological works efforts have been
concentrated on fully restoring and understanding each building investigated. Digs no longer
involve wide areas, but are limited to individual nuclei, and special attention is dedicated to
preserving the contexts.
In 1977 Fausto Zevi became director of the site and stopped all excavation activities on
government-owned land. Instead he concentrated on restoring and documenting what was already

uncovered. Over the next three years an inventory and photographic record of all mosaic floors and
painted walls was carried out, resulting in around 18 000 photographs.
Following the earthquake which struck Pompeii in November 1980, an assessment of the site
revealed the serious state of decay of many buildings. Authorities realised that something had to be
done to halt further deterioration. In 1983 a French archaeologist, Jean-Pierre Adam was asked to
evaluate possible methods of restoration and conservation. The European Community gave 36
billion lire for the restoration of Pompeii in 1984. Unfortunately work was slow to begin.
In 1984 Baldassare Conticello started an extensive and systematic restoration of buildings in Regio
I and II, where excavation work had already been completed.
The present director, Pietro Giovanni Guzzo (who started his role in Pompeii in 1994) has had to
confront many management and financial problems in order to plan the finishing of excavations and
the complete restoration of the buildings. In the most recent years, excavations have been carried
out outside the Porta Stabia, and also in Murecine, near the river Sarno, where the Hospitium dei
Sulpici has been uncovered.
As the map shows, there are areas of Pompeii shaded in blue which remain uncovered. However, in
view of the deterioration of those areas already uncovered, current policies focus on the
preservation and restoration of what has already been excavated. Today 44 of the 66 hectares of
urban area are visible, and it is widely considered that the other 22 hectares must be left under the
volcanic debris, in order to preserve them more securely.

changing interpretations: impact of new research and

technologies
New Finds at Herculaneum February 2, 2000 ( article by
Kristin M. Romey )

Forty-eight additional victims of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79 have recently
been found and, according to anthropologists at Naples University, they didn't die the way
that we think they did.
Scholars have generally assumed that the people who sought refuge from the eruption on the
beach of Herculaneum suffocated on the enormous amounts of ash generated by the
volcano. By studying the bone fragments and the positions of the remains of the new 48
victims from the beach site, the anthropologists argue that they have established "beyond a
doubt" that they died in a fraction of a second after being exposed to blast of 750-degree
Fahrenheit heat.
Like other victims of Mt. Vesuvius that have been recovered from Herculaneum and
Pompeii, the remains of the 48 consist of moulds created when ash and boiling mud covered
the bodies and subsequently hardened. Casts of the victims are created by injecting silicone
rubber into the moulds.
The position of the remains indicates that adults were attempting to shield children at the
time of death. Thirty-one of the moulds were complete. A bracelet in the shape of a snake,
money, and metal fittings from shoes were also recovered.

New research into housing

- the evolution of house styles in pompeii rather than a
static atrium house style.
- houses as indicators of social status the external symbol
of the owner.

 issues of conservation and reconstruction: Italian and international contributions and

responsibilities; impact of tourism