P O M P E I I

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                         STATUE OF APOLLO

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                                                 Pompeii to expand three- fold


                               Major rescue plan of site includes creation of new museum






 (ANSA) -
Naples,
November 11 - 2008

Pompeii is entering the second phase of a major rescue plan, which will triple the number of areas
open to the public, the archaeological site's emergency commissioner Renato Profili has announced.

 Profili, who was appointed during the first stage of the plan, said a sweeping restoration drive would get under way in the next few weeks, focusing on houses, walls and public buildings throughout the ancient city. Over the next two years, it will be turned into a ''building site'', said Profili, but the end result will be worth it. The majority of Pompeii's buildings are currently closed to the public but the restoration will triple the number of structures open to visitors.

In addition, a new museum will be created to house the 12,000 precious mosaics, plates, urns,
frescoes, bronze items and marble statues that are currently locked up in safes.

The government declared a year-long official state of emergency for Pompeii in July, after a string of press reports highlighted the poor condition of the site.

These pointed to crumbling frescoes and walls, poor signposting, inadequate facilities and the fact so many buildings were closed.

Unveiling the three-phase emergency plan, Culture Minister Sandro Bondi said it was ''staggering'' that so many of Pompeii's 1,500 houses were not open to visitors and admitted there was a ''continuing
state of neglect and degradation'' at the site.

Since then, the ancient site has seen a flurry of activity. Restoration has been completed on 19 villas and 22 ancient fountains. In addition, extra public bathrooms have been installed and CCTV coverage has been extended. By the end of this month, the site's new entrance by Piazza Anfiteatro will be open to the public, reducing queues. Following the two years' restoration, the Pompeii Commission will start work with local authorities to remove hawkers and unauthorized guides, and install a kilometre of street lighting. The third phase will involve a new system of management based on the model of other European archaeological sites, which will include allowing private investment.

Every year over two million people visit Pompeii, which was smothered in lava and ash by the 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

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VESUVIUS SEEN FROM THE SEA

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              79AD ERUPTION

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1872 AD ERUPTION

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            1831AD ERUPTION

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              1746AD ERUPTION

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                                         Pompeii Family's Final Hours Reconstructed






Rossella Lorenzi,
Discovery News

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/12/11/pompeii-vesuvius-escape.html

Final Moment | Slide Show 

Dec. 11, 2008

-- Italian researchers have reconstructed the last hours in Pompeii of a dozen people who managed to survive Mount Vesuvius' devastating eruption for more than 19 hours.

Volcanologist Claudio Scarpati, and colleagues Giuseppe Luongo and Annamaria Perrotta of the University of Naples Federico II in Italy, analyzed layers of volcanic deposits in a Pompeian house and examined 13 skeletons found there on a carpet of pumice to reconstruct the events that occurred when the eruption was in progress. The team reported their findings at a recent international conference on ancient DNA in Naples.

Located in Pompeii's main street, Via dell'Abbondanza, the home of Iulius Polybius is one of the most studied in the ancient Roman town.

"This house has yielded rich and diverse archaeological findings. Moreover, it features the most complete stratified sections of Pompeii's volcanic deposit," Scarpati told Discovery News.

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At around 1:00 p.m. on Aug. 24, 79 A.D., Pompeii residents saw a pine tree-shaped column of smoke bursting from Vesuvius. Reaching nine miles into the sky, the column began spewing a thick pumice rain. Many residents rushed in the streets, trying to leave the city.

"At that moment, Polybius' house was inhabited by 12 people, including a young woman in advanced pregnancy. They decided to remain in the house, most likely because it was safer for the pregnant woman. Given the circumstances, it was the right strategy," Scarpati said.

Once considered relatively innocuous by volcanologists, this first phase of the eruption in fact produced 38 percent of the deaths.

"Contrary to what was previously believed, a large number of deaths occurred in the first hours of the eruption. Many skeletons of those who tried to escape show fractured skulls, meaning that they died from collapsing roofs or large fragments falling from the eruptive column," Scarpati said.

By examining the density of volcanic deposits in relation to an accumulation rate of six inches per hour, the researchers concluded that it took up to six hours for the roofs of Polybius' house to collapse.

At around 7:00 p.m., by which time the front part the house had collapsed, the inhabitants took shelter in the rear rooms, whose steeper roofs had not been damaged by the falling material.

"There were three adult males, three adult females of various ages, four boys, one girl, one child and one fetus in the last month of intrauterine life. The fetus was associated with the skeleton of a young (16 to 18-year-old) female," Scarpati said.

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Analysis of mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down through the maternal line, revealed that six individuals belonged to the same family.

"The age of five out of six individuals suggests that they were siblings. Another subject, about 25 to 30 years old, might have been a cousin. The three adult women were unrelated," molecular biologist Marilena Cipollaro, of the Second University of Naples, told Discovery News.

Cipollaro's analysis also revealed that two related subjects suffered from spina bifida, a birth defect resulting in an incomplete closure of the spinal column.

Most likely, the group of people in Polybius' house included the parents, their children, a cousin and his young, pregnant wife, plus a pair of servants.

They all witnessed the terrible evolution of the eruption. In the early hours of Aug. 25, a nearly 10-foot-thick carpet of pumice had already covered the streets and bottoms of buildings.

Polybius' family perished in their home's back rooms.

"The position of some skeletons on the volcanic deposit indicates that some individuals were lying on beds at the moment of death," Scarpati said.

When the first phase of the eruption ended, the eruptive column collapsed, producing a series of pyroclastic currents. These are fast-moving flows of hot gas and rock at temperatures ranging from 392 to 1,292 degrees Fahrenheit.

"The first pyroclastic currents arrived from the north and overtopped the rear part of the house. The currents moved into the garden and advanced toward the front of the house. No escape was possible for the people there. The ash reached every corner in the house and suffocated its inhabitants," Scarpati said.

Ash layers revealed that not all Pompeii residents were killed by the devastating wave of gas and rock.

"We found victims several centimeters above the basal ash layers related to this current. Some residents walked outdoors and survived until the second pyroclastic current," Scarpati said.

Between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m., a final phase, punctuated by more pumice rain, buried Pompeii.

The solid roofs of Polybius' house collapsed. What followed was a long, deathly silence.

"It was impossible to survive that eruption. Even though we calculated that 75 to 92 percent of the residents escaped the town at the first signs of the crisis, it is not possible to know how successful those fugitives were. Hundreds of victims were recovered from the relatively small excavations outside the city walls," Scarpati said.

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An aerial view of the ancient Roman town of Pompeii,
near Naples in southern Italy.
In the background is the volcano Mount Vesuvius.








                     Pompeii today: Site of volcanic devastation reveals history at every turn






Sunday, January 04, 2009
By Gretchen McKay,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Salvatore Laporta/
Associated Press

Few things fuel the imagination like the story of a long-lost and forgotten city that somehow gets found. And as archaeological tales go, there's probably no better one than that of this ancient town in the Campania region of southern Italy. Just ask anyone who's ever made it through elementary school.

When Mount Vesuvius suddenly erupted in A.D. 79, it spewed a mushroom-shaped cloud of smoke, ash and molten lava some 20 miles into the sky, plunging Pompeii -- a thriving commercial center with about 20,000 residents -- into darkness. As prevailing winds caused the volcanic matter to rain down on the city and cover it in a thick layer of pumice and ash, fast-moving avalanches of boiling gas and dust poured down the side of the mountain. Floors and roofs collapsed, and the people of Pompeii, along with the temples, baths, brothels and countless other buildings they had built in the Roman tradition, were buried under up to 25 feet of debris.

After the eruption, Pompeians returned to dig through the ash and see what they could salvage; Emperor Titus even offered financial assistance for cleanup and recovery. But the wasteland could not be saved. Abandoned and eventually forgotten, Pompeii lay lost to history for the next 1,500 years until workers digging a canal in the 16th century accidentally stumbled upon its relics. It would take another 200 years before Pompeii, under the King of Naples, Charles III of Bourbon, was recognized for what it was and truly explored in 1748.

Scientific excavations started at the end of the 19th century and have continued systematically ever since.

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Today, the archaeological site near Naples is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Italy, drawing more than 2.5 million visitors each year.


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If you go: Pompeii

Getting there: Pompeii is within easy driving distance of Naples, off Motorway A3 Napoli-Salerno/Salerno-Napoli. But be prepared: It's more expensive to park outside the gate than it is to tour the grounds inside it. Fortunately, you can also get to the site by train (Pompeii has its own stop on the Circumvesuviana line to Sorrento) or by bus from Naples or Sorrento.

Hours/admission: The gates to Pompeii open at 8:30 a.m. year-round and close at 6:30 p.m. April-Oct. and at 5 p.m. Nov.-March. Admission costs 11 euros (about $15.30) or 20 euros (about $28) for a three-day pass to five neighboring archaeological sites (Herculaneum, Pompeii, Oplontis, Stabiae and Boscoreale). It is closed New Year's and Christmas Day and May 1.

For the best experience: It can be tough to wrap your head around an archaeological site as vast as Pompeii. So be sure to read up on the ruins before you visit and allow yourself plenty of time (at least 4 to 5 hours) to wander its many streets. It's also worth splurging on the audio guide (6.50 euros for one or 10 euros for two), which gives you a historical overview of the city plus detailed information on nearly 70 individual sites. A keepsake booklet is included in the price.
Information: www.pompeiisites.org.

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Many who make the trek, me included, are eager for a firsthand look at the famous plaster casts made of some of the victims. (More on that later.) But Pompeii is not so much about worshipping the dead as it is getting a firsthand glimpse of how these ancient people lived.

It sounds trite, but Ancient Rome can't help but come alive when you wander the same raised stone streets -- many still bearing ancient cart-wheel tracks -- that carried Pompeians about their daily business: to the Temple of Apollo, the town's most important religious building, across the street to the rectangular Basilica, where justice was administered, and on to the grandiose, colonnade-lined Forum, a busy shopping area where elections were held and official announcements made.

For instance, who knew that people in the first century enjoyed snack bars along with public baths and bought their daily bread from bakeries instead of making it at home? Or that social life revolved around the peristyle, an interior garden surrounded by a colonnade of porticos? Or that Pompeians had such an affinity for color, not to mention love of the pleasures of the flesh?

But there it is, right in front of you for the touching, seeing and imagining: The thermopolia, with their terra-cotta containers sunk into masonry counters, where people would have bought hot food and drinks (it was customary to eat lunch outside the home). The House of the Baker, with its machinery for grinding wheat and giant, vaulted oven. The richly decorated walls in the atrium of the House of the Small Fountain. The colorful, oh-so-erotic murals depicting the various services offered in the 10-room Lupanare, the best organized of Pompeii's many brothels. (Not surprisingly, the line to get inside this building was 40 people deep.)

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The sheer scale of Pompeii is staggering. The archaeological area covers more than 163 acres, of which about 111 have been excavated. Even with a schematic map, it's easy to get lost amid the ruins, because building numbers on the audio tour (a must) didn't seem to match up with the numbers posted on the buildings. It wasn't until we found ourselves in front of the Forum that we managed to get our bearings.

Yet even with a good map or the services of one of the local guides who offer narrated tours of the hot spots, it's impossible to see it all in one day; it's that big. Thank goodness many buildings are often closed -- at least that's one less thing you feel you have to explore. Unless, of course, it's something extraordinary, like the Villa of the Mysteries, a spectacular villa outside the city walls with Pompeii's best-preserved frescoes. Wouldn't you know it, it was off limits to the public the day we visited.

Happily, we were able to see both the Forum and Stabian baths, where Pompeians would have bathed in early afternoon; the Fullonica of Stephanus, where raw wool was processed and washed in a mixture of water and urine; and the sumptuous "fourth style" frescoes in the House of the Ancient Hunt. We also made it to the stone amphitheater, large enough for 20,000 spectators and one of the oldest (circa 80 B.C.) and best-preserved amphitheaters in existence. Was this the type of structure Maximus, the Roman gladiator played by Russell Crowe in the 2000 flick "Gladiator," would have battled in? More to the point, what caused the violent riot that broke out between fans in A.D. 59 and forced closure of the field for 10 years?

Many of Pompeii's most spectacular finds -- say, the colorful floor mosaic depicting the Battle of Issus that was unearthed in the House of the Faun, along with sculptures, gems, glass, silver and a collection of Roman erotica -- are safely ensconced in the Museo Archeologico ****onale. But there's still plenty to see, even if you have to sometimes squint to make out the details. (One of the pop-up "before/after" books sold at the gate can help fill in the blanks.) And things you wish you didn't see, such as the modern-day graffiti marring a delightful fresco of a dancing woman in the House of the Lararium of Achilles. Then again, ancient Pompeians themselves were fond of scratching risque jokes, caricatures of famous people and "appreciative" remarks about beautiful women onto the walls. So who's to judge?

To me, the most haunting site was our last stop of the day: the Garden of the Fugitives, a former farm in the shadow of Vesuvius that's been cultivated as a vineyard. It's on these grounds that 13 doomed Pompeians were overtaken by a toxic cloud of blistering sulfurous gas as they tried to escape, covered in ash and left in situ. In 1860, archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli devised a method of producing casts of the victims by pouring liquid plaster into the cavities left in the hardened ash by the decomposed bodies. Today, the three families are encased in glass, children still close to their parents.

We'd hoped to round out the day with a visit to the ancient ruins of Herculaneum, just 9 miles northwest. Smaller and wealthier than Pompeii, this seaside resort was buried under a river of semi-liquid volcanic mud when Vesuvius blew its top nearly 2,000 years ago. According to our guidebook, it's actually better preserved than its more famous cousin, with some of its original wooden staircases and furniture on display. But we were too hot, too tired and emotionally spent.

Next time with the kids, we promised each other. And while we're at it, we'll probably squeeze in a climb to the summit of Vesuvius, which when the weather is clear offers a stupendous view of the Bay of Naples. Sure, it's still an active volcano (it's erupted three times since 1906). But it's only from that perch some 4,200 feet above the sea that you can fully appreciate the magnitude of its power, and the devastation it rained down on so many people so long ago.





Gretchen McKay can be reached at
gmckay@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1419.
First published on January 4, 2009 at 12:00 am



VIDEO AND MORE PICTURES:
(I was not allowed permission to reproduce them)


http://www.archaeologynews.org/link.asp?ID=371812&Title=Pompeii%20today:%20Site%20of%20volcanic%20devastation%20reveals%20history%20at%20...
 

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                           Mansions In Pompeii: Ideal Measurements Of A Pre-Roman Model






ScienceDaily
(Mar. 11, 2009)

— Metrological analysis of ancient houses reveals the use of standard models that were ingeniously adapted to suit individual situations.

Pre-Roman atrium houses exhibited a striking number of similarities as part of a long Italic building tradition. Dutch researcher Noor van Krimpen analysed the measurements of primary mansions in Pompeii. As buildings were constructed according to a standard model, the adaptations to that model, required by the economical, practical and social demands of any particular project, provide a lot of information about the social significance of the houses of Pompeii’s elite.

Noor van Krimpen has added a new weapon to the archaeologist's arsenal; the metrological analysis. This was already used to find out more about the design aspects of historical constructions. Van Krimpen, however, has now also used the method to add to our knowledge of the social significance of the houses of Pompeii’s elite. The main advantage of using metrological analysis is that it does not require further excavations and so the remains are kept intact.