Pompeii Excavations

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 fierst focus for the excavators it became increasingly difficult to make progress given the extent of its burial and attention was moved to Pompeii but n ot before the discovery of the Villa of the Papyri in 1750.

Pompeii

• 1848 Formal excavtions begin
• 1816 Hose 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 Excavtions 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.

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 190 the walls of Pompeii were excavtated 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 chnagining 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 argues 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. Maybe Sera can add some thoughts here but 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