Pompeii Excavations
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Was the location of the cities destroyed by Vesuvius forgotten?
Although the formal discovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum took place in the 18th C the cities had not been completely forgotten. Ancient writers often alluded to the the eruption. Pompeii had been explored by treasure hunters but it is uncertain they knew what city was buried beneath. The start of formal excavations were a culmination of increasing discoveries of mosaics, coin=s and pottery around the sites.
Milestones on the way to rediscovering Pompeii
- 12th Century Pompeii, Herculaneum and other cities were marked on the Peutinger Table but this could have been relying on ancient texts and not current knowledge
- 1503 Cartographer Ambrogio Leone created a map with the Herculanuem marked close to its actual site.
- 1592 Domenico Fontana excavated a canal from the River Sarno to a place called La Civita (Pompeii)
- 1689 A inscripton with the word Pompei close toi the ruins was found. Believed to be referring to Roman General Pompey and ignored
- 1699 Giuseppe Macrini states that La Civita is Pompeii
Early Attempts at Excavations
One of the earliest accounts of the excavations came from Horace Walpole in June 1740. His account shows that the excavators had dug a hole under the debris and it's possible to walk down the streets of Pompeii exactly as it was laid out in ancient times. However, if they did meet a wall during the excavation they would go through it not round it. Almost as soon as the buildings are uncovered they begin to crumble and notes that the house beams are reduced to ash as you touch them. Although excavators make notes of their findings there seemed no systematic plan of how to work the site.
Brief History of Pompeii and Herculaneum Excavations
Although Herculaneum was the first focus for the excavators it became increasingly difficult to make progress given the extent of its burial and attention was moved to Pompeii but not before the discovery of the Villa of the Papyri in 1750.
Pompeii
- 1848 Formal excavtions begin
- 1816 House of the Tragic Poet, House of the Faun and Forum Baths found
- 1860 Pompeii comes showpiece of the new united Italy
- 1924-1939 Villa of the Mysteries uncovered
- 1945 Excavations begin after the war and Pompeii becomes major tourist attraction
- 1962 Restrictions begin to be imposed to preserve the ruins
- 1980 Major earthquake permanently closes part of the city
- 1997 Pompeii is permitted to keep all the gate receipts to fund further work
Herculaneum
- 1709 Theatre uncovered. many statues are removed out of the area
- 1738 More discoveries. Major finds are moved to Royal Palace
- 1750 Villa of Papyri
- 1780 Excavations suspended in favour of Pompeii
- 1869 Landowners oppose further excavations and work is suspended
- 1942 Most of wehat can be seen in the 21C is uncovered by this time
- 1998 Excavations of the beach front of the Villa of Papyri are completed.
Villa of the Papyri and Herculaneum Excavations
The following sites: the first has particularly good visuals, the others are some interesting papers on the Villa of the Papyri.
The collaboration of scholars working with the Herculaneum Conservation Project funded by the Packard Humanities Institute has very much highlighted the problems with the already excavated area of Herculaneum. In the past decade incredible achievements have been made in stabilising the exposed buildings. Andrew Wallace Hadrill's Herculaneum (2011).
Both scholars from the HCP and the past superintendent of Pompeii (not Herculaneum), Prof Guzzo, highlight major issues of great importance both for the site, including the Villa, and the inhabitants of Herculaneum who have mostly been ignored in the past. These issues include:
- severe financial problems
- severe conservation problems
- challenges with local attitudes towards the site complicated by severe economic problems
- the presence and involvement of the Neapolitan mafia
- an abundance of material that is understudied, unstudied or ignored that can be learned from the already excavated areas of Herculaneum, the villa and the scrolls retrieved.
Some of the issues have been incredibly improved, but these are not ever-lasting fixes and they do not solve some major problems, such as the involvement of the mafia or the difficulties of seeing EU finances make their way to construction projects or the mismanagement of the sites (ie, custodians, political-private partnerships, etc) that sometimes make their way to the media.
Because of these major problems, personally one may not feel that there is a strong argument for ever-expanding excavation at Herculaneum, but you will always find others who have both similar and differing opinions on the matter. There is more excavated material than enough avenues for examination of areas not studied and for re-examination old theories and published ideas. What should be avoided is adding to the incredibly difficult problem of conservation that new excavations would do (materials are already degrading from the recent excavations). Furthermore, we are still experiencing great difficulty reading the papyri that have been excavated. So, for now, the Villa of the Papyri is safe enough as it is now and has been for nearly 2000 years
Pompeii Excavations through the Years
The nature of the excavations were different to Herculaneum. Firstly, they were done in the open air and nit dangerous tunneling work. The second difference was the focus on extraction of artifacts and statues not uncovering the city itself. As soon as extractions were completed they were often re-sealed again.
Even at the time, excavations were criticized as a treasure hunting exercise with no interest in the site itself or its preservation. Alcubierre was an early director of excavation whose brief was to locate valuable treasures and give them to Bourbon King Charles VII. By 1755 a law forbidding export of antiquities stemmed the tide but not eliminated this trade but it provide an opportunity to regard Pompeii as something beyond than an ancient Roman treasure trove.
Excavations under Ferdinand (IV in Naples. Known as III in Sicily) started to pose the question of preservation. From 1780 the first attempts were made preserve wall pain tings and some buildings were given roofs. When he French occupied in 1808 excavations were accelerated and the Director Mazois was the first to present the town as a whole with the focus on the major landmarks such as the Amphitheatre and the buildings of the Forum.
After the restoration of Ferdinand there was a chronic lack of funds but they were still able to find House of the Faun, Forum Baths and House of the Tragic Poet. Transportation links improved and now mass tourism of the time came to Pompeii but it was also a period of great bribery and fraud (1860's)
The Unification of Italy and Pompeii
Pompeii became the showpiece for a newly confident country. Director of Excavation was Giuseppe Fiorelli. He transformed the archeological methods. Excavarion of buildings was done fro the top not the sides. He also established a school for excavators
Excavations in the 20th Century
in 1894 the House of the Vettii was uncovered and restores and many of the artifacts remained in the house to show visitors how Pompeian's lived. These have since been replaced with replicas. The protections afforded to the Pompeii site meant that excavations and plundering of treasures took place out sude the site. In 1890 the walls of Pompeii were excavated with more intensity than before. It also became clear that many of the houses had two stories but many of these had been dismantled in order to get to the more interesting downstairs rooms
Post war Director was Amedeo Maiuri build upo the changing focus of excavations as discovery, enquiry and preservation. Almost everything that can be seen today at Herculaneum was uncovered up to the period 1942 - 1959. At Pompeii, restrictions have been placed on where visitors can visit. This is to prevent further deterioration and ensure safety of tourists. Conservation is a major priority. There are 15,000 buildings to maintain and further mass excavations would out a strain or the preservation of these buildings. Only 30% of the site is accessible the rest is in ruinous state of uncovered (Regions VII and VIII). It could be argued that what would be considered modern and scientific techniques have only been employed in this Century (21st)
Commentary
The consensus view is that the earliest excavations were focused on the extractions of treasures, statues and artifacts with no thought to discovery or enquiry of the town itself, including its buildings and people. The work was haphazard, lack methodology, classification and documentation. If fact the fabric of the buildings was sometimes destroyed to get at more valuable / interesting materials below - for instance the second story floors. Even correspondents of the day like Walpole noted "there is no judicious choice made of directors.
In later decades and centuries, the narrative goes, a more enlightened and holistic view of the excavation process began coinciding with the birth of a unified Italy with Pompeii as its showpiece. More recently, with better funding; preservation and conservation have been the priorities given that 15,000 buildings need to be managed. Even though, we might consider the motives and expertise of previous generations to be misguided and uniformed we could also argue
1. The digging up and backfilling of the site in the early years to find treasures undoubtedly destroyed valuable evidence but preserved the structures from being exposed to the elements
2. The removal of valuable frescoes, mosaics, statues and the like to Royal Palaces, may have had the unintended consequence of preserving them and being looted and lost to future generations entirely.
3. Guiseppi Fiorelli may have been the first truly enlightened director of the excavations who employed scientific method but his over respect for the integrity of the monuments meant that much needed restorations were not done
4. However, were the excavations of the period any better or worse than Pompeii? About the same time as formal excavations took place at Pompeii, Elgin was obtaining a permit from the Ottamons to remove sculptures from the Parthenon.
5. As late as 2008 the Italian Government issued a state of emergency for Pompeii and allocated more funds to the site after it was alarmed by the deterioration of the site in recent years. A classical historian, Frank Sear commented that It is not surprising given what has happened to Pompeii during the last 250 years. The best that can be said of the whole sorry situation is that a third of the site is still buried. It should stay that way
The haphazard, unstructured and uncontrolled ways in which Pompeii was excavated in the middle of the 18th century highlights the fact that the aim was to strip the site of its treasures. In 1763 when an inscription confirmed the site to be Pompeii a different attitude prevailed due to the interest of scholars and of the general public. Back-filling was forbidden and the ruins were left exposed and conservation and presentation were considered. By 1863 Fiorelli introduced a more systematic excavation procedure, subdivided the town into regions, insulae and doorways and records of the excavations were made. His approach certainly paved the way for Pompeii to be studied as a site of historical interest. The aim of the excavators today places emphasis on preservation and restoration of the existing exposed site and excavation of layers of Pompeii dated pre first century CE.
Outside influences which have had an impact on the progress and nature of the excavations at sites in the region began by the political structure of Italy during the 18th century, which had both Spanish and French interest in the exposure of the sites. The English ‘Grand Tour’ also spread word about both sites, which highlighted the destructive nature of excavation at that point in time and the fact that the outside world was not being told about what was being unearthed in these areas . Other factors which held back the progress of the excavations included both world wars; not only did excavating stop but damage was caused at Pompeii by Allied bombs. However, the unification of Italy in the 19th Century and its need to build up the country after the wars in the 20th century meant that the country invested in the tourist industry which had an impact on the excavations in Pompeii and Herculaneum in order to meet standards required to treat the sites as tourist attractions.
Information lost during the early excavations included the disposal of pots and inscriptions, which were regarded as unimportant and artwork which were not considered good enough to keep or to go on show. The fact that the early excavators did not catalogue their finds in an appropriate manner has also meant that stratification recording was either absent or not informative. Lack of regulation meant that artwork and artefacts were stolen and sold privately from the site or the surrounding privately owned land, therefore no record of their existence is known.
Over the years attitudes have changed considerably. Fiorelli’s new ideas on excavation which saw a much more sympathetic way of digging out the town - from the top down - stopped the destruction of buildings during the excavation process which could be associated to earlier eras. He initiated the disposal of heaps of soil and dirt in order to present the site in a fashion more in keeping with the way it had been pre eruption. Fiorelli insisted on cataloguing, recording and mapping all details about the site and publishing excavation records to enable foreign scholars to become involved. However, his plans did not include any form of restoration. Today’s attitude continues Fiorelli's ideology, but is predominantly one of preservation and conservation, to the extent of closing vulnerable areas to the public.
When he left in 1874 the emphasis returned to restoration and preservation of ruins with painting being roofed or waxed over and villas being completely excavated and restored in situ.
Maiuri from 1924 onwards benefitted from large amounts of funding which allowed the large scale excavations at Herculaneum. All buildings started to be restored not just the interesting. He benefitted from the thinking of the time that archaeological remains were evidence of Italy’s past greatness. However the work was carried out using inaccurate methodology and inadequate tools so the houses were not well restored according to a paper on the following website - bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/Pompeii_rediscovery_01.shtml.
Regarding the outside influences we should have in mind that this era is the beggining of the Grand Tour fashion, specially Italy is gaining a lot of atraction among the wealthy people, Greece is not available due to the Ottoman Turks. The travellers are very inthusiastic about visiting and rediscovering antique locations, they are also demanding archaeological findings and collectable things as souvenirs of their trips.
It is the time of the Rococo period in art, which in England is not well accepted due to ideological differences, the discoveries of Herculanum gave a new return to the streight classical forms in opposition to the curves of the Barroco and Rococo and consequently becomes the beggining of the Neoclassical period in France
