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- Investigating, reconstructing and preserving the past
- Changing methods and contributions of nineteenth and twentieth century archaeologists to our understanding of Pompeii and Herculaneum
- Excavations of
- Excavations of
- Work under the Prince d’Elbeuf and Rocco de Alcubierre has led to the destruction of much archaeological evidence
Francesco La Vega
- Became director in 1765
- His practice was to leave the excavated monuments in view (in situ)
- He defended the system of uncovering each building in its entirety and preparing maintenance works in order to preserve in situ the architectural structures
Karl Weber
- Changed the approach of archaeology
- His job was to keep the site logbooks
- He made a slow and systematic approach to digging
- He made sketches and plans of newly discovered buildings in the tunnels and galleries
- He issued daily and weekly reports of the recovery process
- Artefacts were listed to create inventories of goods to be sent to wealthy private collectors
Giuseppe Fiorelli
- Director between 1863-1875
- Developed a method of injecting plaster into the spaces left vacant by the flesh as it decomposed
- This enabled them to recover the shape of the bodies, roots of trees and all the organic elements which left a mould in the volcanic ash after their decomposition
- Developed a method of studying archaeological strata; observation, recording, preservation and reporting
- He had excavations carried out from above in order to recover all elements constituting a house
- He was the first to divide the city of
- He gave houses names based on the ancient owner, the suggested profession of the last owner, a notable feature in the house, a particular striking object or a famous visitor present during excavation
- He established a training school for archaeologists where they could learn the techniques of excavation
- He set up a museum and archive at
Antonio Sogliano
- Spent a lot of time and money preserving the houses and buildings
- Any mosaics and frescoes were left where they were found and guarded against robbery
- Paid particular attention to solving
Vittorio Spinazzola
- He did not take down the walls of houses
- Archaeologists were forced to guess the purpose of the house by interpreting the paintings, election posters and graffiti that covered their facades
- He tried to preserve the upper levels of houses
- This was done because many of the walls contained pictures and graffiti, which were mostly political slogans
- He believed that the city could not be understood without understanding the daily lives of the people and how they expressed this
- One of his innovations was the recording of all phases of the excavation with photographs
- One of the major excavations was of the Via dell’Abbondanza
Amedeo Maiuri
- Director between 1924-1961
- One of the most dynamic and controversial directors in the excavations’ history
- Intensive activity
- Completely excavated the city walls
- Discovered the largest necropolis ever known in
- He instituted a policy of recreating the atmosphere of the interiors of the houses by leaving domestic utensils in place and restoring walls and ceilings
- His aim was to give the visitor an impression of what life was like immediately before the eruption
- Perhaps one of Maiuri’s greatest contributions to archaeology and public education was his series of guidebooks for
- Deepened the excavations at significant locations to investigate pre-Roman levels
August Mau
- Created a system for categorising the Roman wall paintings into four basic decorative styles
- Although Mau’s work has been modified over the years, it still provides the framework for the study of ancient Roman paintings
See Archaeological sources: Wall paintings
De Franciscis
- 1961-1976
- Concentrated on restoration work
Zevi and Irelli
- 1977-1982 and 1982-1984
- Mainly focused on damage caused to the town by the earthquake of 1980
Conticello
- 1984 – 1994
- A large amount of funding became available
- Initiated the systematic philological restoration of all the funds
Guzzo
- 1994
- Concentrating on finding a solution to management and financial problems
Professor Haraldur Sigurdsson
- Before Sigurdsson, Amedeo Mairui believed that
- Sigurdsson and his colleagues conducted the first systematic examination of the Vesuvius deposits
- Sigurdsson cross examined the evidence with other evidence from modern eruptions
- His examination revealed that there were two phases of eruption and
The research of Sigurdsson and his colleagues presented a new reconstruction of the eruption by:
- Combining the stratigraphical evidence from the volcanic deposits and the letters of Pliny the Younger
- Contrasting the different effects of the pumice fall, pyroclastic surges and pyroclastic flows on
- Establishing a chronology for the main events during the eruption
- Identifying the different types of deposits resulting from the eruption and reconstructing the processes that occurred during the event
- Changing interpretations: impact of new research and technologies
- Since the beginning of excavation at
- In the beginning, excavation was haphazard and random. No care was taken and many archaeological remains were destroyed
- There was no system of recording artefacts and many artefacts were sold to wealthy collectors
- Karl Weber and Vittorio Spinazzola later introduced a method of systematic excavation
- Further on, new technology has allowed for the preservation of artefacts
- New technology has also allowed for the restoration of artefacts
- New technology has also allowed for the plaster injection method to identify casts
- The work has been further enhanced since the 1990s by the introduction of computer technology, such as computer-aided design (CAD) software, which allows 3-D constructions to be made
- Advanced technology has allowed us to discover more about skeletal remains such as tooth decay, calcium deficiency etc
- X-ray technology and CT scans are non-invasive techniques which allow us to examine casts
- Issues of conservation and reconstruction: Italian and international contributions and responsibilities; impact of tourism
Responsibilities of the Italians
- A number of international rescue missions were undertaken at
- Some of the conservation methods used in the recent past is now causing new conservation problems in the present
- The
Responsibilities of the world
- The Anglo-American Project in
- The World Monuments Fund and the Kress Foundation have made a major investment in plans for conserving the House of the Silver Wedding
- The Packard Humanities Institute and the
Projects
- Houses in
- Insula of Menander – 3 stage analysis and documentation of a whole city block to draw general conclusions about the insula’s structure over time and its final form in 79AD
- Pompeian forum – challenge widely published and generally accepted views about the Forum in order to produce more accurate plans and elevations and to understand Pompeian urbanism
- The
Impact of tourism
- This has led to the deterioration of sites in both
- This highlights the need for conservation of these sites
- Ethical issues: study and display of human remains
- The ancient Romans believed that for a soul to rest peacefully in the afterlife, the body had to be given a proper burial
- Very little respect was paid to the victims of the 79AC eruption, and during earlier excavations they were sometimes treated as theatre props or as archaeological specimens
- Early excavators and treasure hunters often showed little regard for human remains, often discarding and smashing them carelessly, removing them, displaying them for the grisly entertainment of visitors, or leaving them forgotten, wrapped in newspaper in the dark, dirty basement of museums
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