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Wynter Erickson

Professor Griffiths

ANTH 2030

November 16, 2017

Pompeii Excavation

For a long time, I have always been fascinated by the sites of tragic destruction and the

evidence that was left behind for us to find. So, I decided to do my project on the ancient city of

Pompeii. The city of Pompeii is located in Italy at the base of the great volcano Mt. Vesuvius,

which was the cause of Pompeiis end. What I want to learn from my study of this magnificent

site of ancient history, is the culture of the people of Pompeii and how they lived. When Mt.

Vesuvius blew on that fateful day and consumed the city in ash, the city was frozen in time,

leaving the indents of the bodies of those who could not escape and the city itself with all its

buildings and artifacts almost perfectly preserved for us to find and study. Using this priceless

information as well as all kinds of different methods of excavation, archaeologists have and still

are learning so much about how these ancient people lived. I would now like to present the

history of Pompeiis excavation and then compare my project to another report that focused on

finding evidence of pollution within the soil. I will compare the techniques that were used in

both projects and will explain why both projects used the same methods as well as different ones.

Pompeii was completely buried for 1,700 years before it was discovered by

archaeologists. Somewhere between the late 1500s and the early 1600s, a Swiss architect

named Domenico Fontana unknowingly dug an underground tunnel through Pompeii (The

Archaeological Site of Pompeii). Although some discoveries were made at that time, no further

investigations in the area were made until the excavation of the buried Campanian towns in
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Herculaneum in 1709. True excavations of Pompeii didnt begin until the year 1748 when King

Charles Bourbon III of Spain, as a way to greaten his kingdoms fame, sent a surveying engineer

named Rocco Gioacchino de Alcubiere, to excavate and survey the site (Mignone, Lisa Marie).

Using pickaxes and often gunpowder, tunnels were dug down to and then through the buildings,

with a workforce including convicts. The purpose of this work was solely to recover works of art

for the private royal collections, including frescoes hacked from walls and mosaics gouged out of

floors. Apparently material not deemed worthy of these collections was destroyed, to prevent it

falling into the hands of lesser people. Distinguished visitors, including the pioneering German

archaeologist J. J. Winkelmann, protested at the disgraceful waste, and by the 1760s there was

some improvement, including rudimentary recording (McIntosh, Jane 1). Although it was

clearly identified as an ancient city from the beginning, the fact that it was the city of Pompeii

was not discovered until several years later.

Pompeii, because of its age and fragility, had to be excavated from underneath the ash

mainly by hand using shovels and other careful means that could not accidently destroy any of

the precious historical artifacts that lay beneath it. In the way of actual excavation, the method

used here was very different from the method used in the pollution project. First of all, the

project goals of each project were very different. While the pollution project goal was to find

evidence of pollution in the soil that dated back to the 1930s, the goal of the Pompeii excavation

was to uncover the city and learn about the civilization before it was destroyed by the volcano.

Although they each had different goals, some methods were the same.

In an attempt to learn more about Pompeiis history, soil was used to find much of the

missing information. Archaeologists have even applied stratigraphic principles to understanding

the history of the famous Roman city of Pompeii, which was buried following an eruption of the
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volcano known as Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Although the historical record of the explosion itself is

quite clear, scientists use stratigraphy to help unwrap the city's past before the eruption.

Excavators had assumed, based on the testimony of ancient written sources, that parts of Pompeii

had been built as long ago as

the fifth century B.C. and

had been occupied ever

since (Shepherd, Kenneth).

The different layers of soil

that was found in this

Figure 1

stratigraphic study showed evidence that the civilization existed long before the believed date

that the city was buried.

Another thing that the Pompeii project and the pollution project had in common were the

study of the environment. Of course, it is obvious from the pollution projects research goal and

findings that the environment was affected by pollution. In fact, the environment was the goal.

Study of the environment was and still is another important aspect to studying how the city of

Pompeii was before the volcanos eruption. By studying it, much can be found about the peoples

culture and way of life. Two gardens were fully excavated. Flower pots, some purpose-made

plant containers others pierced cooking pots, showed the positions of some trees and shrubs. One

of the most important discoveries was evidence for the bedding-out of herbaceous plants in the

form of a rectangular grid pattern of planting holes filled with soil which had been on the roots of

the plants. Molluscan analysis of this soil showed it to be alluvial, so the plants had perhaps been

raised in a nursery garden on the Sarno floodplain south of Pompeii (Research Pompeii).
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Through this discovery, archaeologists found that the people of Pompeii grew plants specifically

for decoration, meaning that these people did not focus solely on survival, but were well

civilized and were much like we are today. They valued beauty and sought to place it around

their homes. Burnt Offerings to the Lares Small pits containing high concentrations of cremated

bones and carbonised plant

remains were found in the

gardens of VI 16,27 and V

1,18 and also the two

peristyle gardens of I 9,11-

12 (House of Amarantus).

The bones include parts of

piglets and the heads and

Figure 2

feet of cocks. The carbonised remains include stone-pine cones, figs, dates, grapes and hazel

nuts. Other items include a piece of poppy-seed bread or pastry. These remains have been

interpreted as offerings to the Lares (household gods) (Research Pompeii). Through this very

important discovery, archaeologist have found that offerings and sacrifices have been made to

the gods, which means that the people of Pompeii were not only actively religious, but also

worshipped many different deities. Along with this discovery of offering remains, temples

dedicated to certain gods were also discovered. One especially belonging to the Greek goddess

of love and beauty, Aphrodite, showed that she was of importance to their religion. This

information alone gives researchers today a lot of insight into what these people believed and
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because religion is a major part of ancient civilizations, this information shows a lot about how

they lived as well.

Although this project and the pollution project were very different in their goals and in

their methods, they did both have similarities when it came to knowing the truth to the history of

times long past. Much has been done and discovered through research and study of Pompeii. I, as

well as thousands of researchers and millions of people, have learned of how these people lived

before that fateful day. However, although researchers have been digging and studying it for

centuries, it continues even today to still provide much for us to analyze and learn from.

Pompeiis many secrets may never be fully revealed to us.

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Works Cited

Griffiths, Alan. An Ongoing Archaeological Research Project on the History of Fossil Fue l

Polluion in the Salt Lake Valley. pp. 115, An Ongoing Archaeological Research Project

on the History of Fossil Fue l Polluion in the Salt Lake Valley, 2011.

McIntosh, Jane, How were Pompeii and Herculaneum excavated? Archaeologist, researcher

for Civilizations in Contact, 2008.

http://www.schools1.cic.ames.cam.ac.uk/pdfs/Hist_of_Arch_at_Pompeii.pdf

Mignone, Lisa Marie, et al. Interactive Dig Pompeii. Interactive Dig Pompeii - Field Notes:

July 9, 2001, Archaeology Magazine, 2001,

interactive.archaeology.org/pompeii/field/2.html.

Research Pompeii. Environmental Archaeology of Pompeii and Herculaneum - School of

Archaeology - University of Oxford, The University of Oxford, 2017,

www.arch.ox.ac.uk/EAPH.html.

Shepherd, Kenneth R. Fluvial Sequence Stratigraphy Using Thorium.docx - Documents.

Dokumen.tips, 12 Nov. 2014, dokumen.tips/documents/fluvial-sequence-stratigraphy-

using-thoriumdocx.html.

The Archaeological Site of Pompeii. Italian Tourism Official Website, 10 Sept. 2013,

www.italia.it/en/discover-italy/campania/poi/the-archaeological-site-of-pompeii.html