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.
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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.
My first reaction to what you wrote was to marvel at just how far people have come in the last two-hundred years. All of these stories involving frescoes and repressed sexuality really stand in contrast to the global sort of network provided by the Internet - nowadays, men, women, and children can find just about anything through Google Images. I sincerely doubt there's more than a handful of isolated prepubescent boys in all the United States who would be horrified (or even very impressed) by Pompeii's allegedly lewd artwork!
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, it's fascinating to think how a city with a presumably large population (by historical standards) could be buried and entirely forgotten in the course of but fifteen-hundred years. After all, it's not as if the Italian peninsula is now or ever has been a sparsely-populated land. Do you know if there are records of looting or occasional discoveries related to Pompeii that took place before 1599?
I'm also intrigued by how you mentioned Fiorelli in conjunction with decomposing bodies. How well-preserved (or not) were the first sets of corpses and cadavers to be recovered from the site? Likewise, were those bodies still undergoing degenerative processes, or had they essentially mummified?
Note: tried to post this the other day, but Blogspot was acting up.
A very nice continuation of your topic, I was completely unaware of any controversial findings in Pompeii. This is most likely because certain officials don’t want the ruins of Pompeii thought of in a carnal fashion. Considering that many historians think the lifespan of those in the ancient world was very short, it makes some sense that people would keep fertility symbols in their homes. I guess it is just the luck of the poor fool who digs up erotic artwork to have their name forever tied to it. I am unsure if it was a real article, or merely a gag, but I read that some archaeologists have their names disassociated with their findings, because the artifacts they recovered were used for masturbation. It is also interesting that this site intrigued the King of Spain. This reminds me of how Hitler and Mussolini pursued archaeology as a means to glorify their nations.
ReplyDeleteWhat were your impressions when you first found out about these controversial artifacts of Pompeii? Do you think that the requirement of an adult to accompany a minor is a good solution? Will your future blogs cover Herculaneum or any of the other ghost towns created by Mount Vesuvius?
I will be interested to see where the topic of Pompeii goes over the course of the class.
I think this crazy the extremes people had to go use to protect these artifacts. I understand that these artifacts would have been considered pornographic and would have been most likely destroyed, but I didn’t think that people at the time they were discovered would care enough to would rebury them after they have already been dug up. I also never knew that the city had been entirely forgotten. I figured there would have been some record considering how large the society was. Someone had to have know it was there. There had to have been roads leading to and from it, or if there was a dock someone would have known that you could sail up to it. It crazy to think that a civilization and thrive yet be entirely forgotten once its gone.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting. When I learned about Pompeii in school they never discussed any controversy surrounding it. I never knew that fertility was such an important part of their culture. I am curious to know if this was part of a larger culture, like the other towns in the region or if it was just Pompeii who put such an emphasize on fertility.
ReplyDelete