Rediscovery and Culture Clash

Rediscovery of Pompeii

After the volcano covered the city, the name and location of Pompeii along with several other towns also buried, were forgotten. They would stay forgotten until 1599. This was when workers digging an underground channel ran into ancient walls covered with paintings and inscriptions. Upon discovering the wall, architect Domenico Fontana was called to the site. He uncovered a little more, discovering a few frescos. The wall also had an inscription referencing a decurio Pompeii, meaning “the town councilor of Pompeii”. However, no one seemed to notice that the inscription mentioned a previously unknown ancient Roman city. Then he covered them back up again and the discovery ended there.  Today, there is some debate over Fontana’s actions. Some argue that when he covered the paintings it was a clear act of censorship, in part because of their sexual content. While others champion him, claiming it as an act of preservation for the future. This side claims he knew the sexual content of the paintings were considered very bad taste in the social climate of the time, thus hiding the paintings was preventing their likely destruction.

            There were several more centuries that would pass before anymore of Pompeii was rediscovered. Workers were digging a foundation for a summer palace for the King of Naples, in 1738, and Herculaneum, another city buried by the volcano, was properly rediscovered. These findings lead to the rediscovery of Pompeii ten years later, in 1748. International excavations by Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre, a Spanish military engineer, unearthed Pompeii, once again. The before mentioned King of Naples, Charles of Bourbon, later became the King of Spain, and took great interest in the towns excavated under where his summer palace was supposed to be. He liked the political and cultural power the antiquities reinforced in Naples.

            *(Some info also in the first post)* Karl Weber was the first to direct real excavations. He was then followed by Fanscisco la Vega in 1764, who was in turn succeeded by his brother, Pietro, in 1804. Pietro also worked with Christophe Saliceti during the French occupation. Next, Giuseppe Fiorelli took charge in 1860. During excavations by afore mentioned excavators, voids in the layers of ash containing human remains were found occasionally. Fiorelli was the one to realize these voids were left by the decomposing bodies of Vesuvius’s victims. He eventually invented the plaster technique to recreate the forms. This is still used today but with clear resin because it does not destroy the bones and is more durable.

           

Sexual Culture Clash

The idea of Fontana, the first to unearth parts of Pompeii, covering up the paintings for protection from the strict modesty prevailing at that time was confirmed by later reports. These reports were by later excavators who suspected that some sites had been discovered and reburied. This is very likely because even many household items had sexual themes, such as phallic oil lamps, which reflected ancient Roman culture, but this was much more liberal than many modern day cultures. As it turns out, what had been thought of as erotic imagery, such as oversized phalluses, was in fact fertility imagery. Regardless, there was a clashing of cultures, which lead to numerous discoveries being hidden. One example is a wall painting depicting the ancient god of sex and fertility, Priapus, in which he has a rather enlarged penis. This was covered with plaster, locked away, and only opened on request. The only reason it was rediscovered in 1998 was due to rainfall.

Another example of the ancient Roman culture opposing the beliefs of the present is in 1819. This is when King Francis I of Naples took his wife and daughter to the National Museum to see the Pompeii exhibit. The erotic artwork had embarrassed him so much that he termed it pornographic and ordered it to be locked away. It was put in the Secret Cabinet, a separate gallery, only accessible to “people of mature age and respected morals”. It went through a series of closings and re-openings for nearly a century, until it was final reopened in 2000. To this day, minors are only allowed entry in the presence of a guardian or with written permission.

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Citations-

“Pompeii.” Wikipedia: Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 July 2004. Web. 16 Feb. 2012.

Introduction: The Basics

The city of Pompeii was a thriving Roman city until August 24, 79 A.D. On that day, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius buried the city under 12 to 20 feet of volcanic ash and the city was lost for nearly 1700 years. The city remained buried in its volcanic tomb until it was discovered in 1749. Because of how quickly the city was buried along with the hot ash and pumice, there is an extraordinary amount of details about everyday life preserved. There are human and animal figures frozen in time as well as tools, wine bottles and other artifacts. This incredible preservation helps create an amazing look into first century Roman life.

Karl Weber was the first to start true excavation of the site, however it was Guiseppe Fiorelli, in 1860, who realized the voids in the ash containing human remains were the forms of people's bodies. He created a technique of injecting plaster into the voids to recreate the forms of the volcano's victims.