Ercolano. Tre secoli di scoperte

There is currently a spectacular exhibition of all the sculpture found at Herculaneum in different archaeological eras at the Museo Nazionale Archeologico di Napoli. The exhibition includes all the old-favourites from the Villa of the Papyri, the Basilica Noniana and the Augusteum, and more recent discoveries such as the statue of an Amazon, found in the early 2000s. There is also a display of organic materials recovered from the site, particularly clothes, and another of the so-called epigraphic Alba of the Augustales.

The exhibition is set to run until 13th April 2009, although hopefully it will be extended. However, for those of you who won't make it to Naples on time, here are some links to a description of the exhibition: http://www.beniculturali.it/eventi/dettaglio.asp?nd=ec,ev&idevento=55445 and http://www.archeologiaviva.it/index.php/news/36/ERCOLANO:_TRE_SECOLI_DI_SCOPERTE.html. There is also an exhibition catalogue, edited by Maria Paola Guidobaldi and published by Electa.

MAV Ercolano

Has anybody visited the Museo Archeologico Virtuale in Ercolano? It opened last summer, I believe, and it looks remarkable.

I would be really interested to know if anyone has visited the museum and what they think of it.

P.S. I also found a really cool plan of the Bay of Naples on the museum website: http://gallery.xlimage.it/acquerello/index.html.

Bars and brothels

This one from Rogue Classicism:

'According to Clare Kelley Bazeby, there is material evidence that the Ancient Greeks may have been opening up bars and brothels in their private residences to supplement their income. She looked at items dating from the period 475 B.C. down to 323 B.C. from sites as diverse as the Villa of Good Fortune at Olynthus to Building Z in Athens. Bazeby dixit:

“This has a real impact on how we view the economy in classical Greece … A lot of trade and industry was based within the home.”

“If you look at the remains coming from ancient Greek homes, it seems very clear to me that these buildings had another function, that some areas were used for commercial purposes … It’s amazing how entrenched people in the field are. We are trying to change archaeologists’ minds by pointing out that houses could be used economically as well being residences.”

“There was nothing to stop part of a house being utilized for commercial gain by using a room fronting onto the street as a shop, or indeed from using the household courtyard for business transactions.”

“My research shows that a lot of trade was embedded within the domestic walls. It also changes our perception of who was drinking wine, and where they were doing it. Women, slaves and foreigners as well as ordinary Greeks, would all have enjoyed time and wine in a classical tavern …”

Added Allison Glazebrook:

“There is no evidence of any purpose-built brothels for ancient Greece. We should not expect brothel spaces to look that different from houses in the material record because girls lived in brothels in which they worked.”

See Rogue Classicism for links to newspaper articles about the papers.

I know this is not 'Roman', but I've got to say that the idea of the house being used habitually for commercial gain fits with my own views on domestic space. All sorts of craft and trade activities could have taken place within the house (all types of houses, too, big and small) on a normal day-to-day basis, without this being anything noteworthy or unusual. I haven't really considered that bars or brothels might have been opened up inside houses, but perhaps this is something worth thinking about. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Comune versus street hawkers

There's a storm brewing at Herculaneum. The Comune are attempting to evict the street stalls that have been set up in the car park of the excavations. See http://www.ilmediano.it/aspx/visArticolo.aspx?id=4468. Apparently the stalls - which are basically permanent structures - take up the space of between 50 - 60 coaches. Naturally the stall owners are protesting, but the Comune is standing firm. The mayor has declared: 'Le strutture vanno spostate, la protesta è insensata. Bisogna garantire la sicurezza dei visitatori. In qualità di primo cittadino, devo rispettare e far rispettare la legge e per questo i provvedimenti saranno applicati'.

Populating Pompeii

How did Pompeians move through their city? A company called "Procedural," which seems to be based in Switzerland, has marshaled their expertise in urban modeling and computer programming to attempt an answer.

In their own words:
Pompeii was a Roman city, destroyed and completely buried during an eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius. We have revived its past by creating a 3D model of its previous appearance and populated it with crowds of Virtual Romans. In this paper, we detail the process, based on archaeological data, to simulate ancient Pompeii life in real time. In a first step, an annotated city model is generated using procedural modelling. These annotations contain semantic data, such as land usage, building age, and window/door labels. In a second phase, the semantics are automatically interpreted to populate the scene and trigger special behaviors in the crowd, depending on the location of the characters. Finally, we describe the system pipeline, which allows for the simulation of thousands of Virtual Romans in real time.

Check out their work on you tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA3gzqG94JQ

You can read their paper as well:
http://www.vision.ee.ethz.ch/~shaegler/wiki/research:papers:citycrowdsvast07:public:index

An interesting idea, I think, but one that raises more questions than it answers. Some immediate ones: Where are the kids? Why is everyone walking alone? Why is everyone walking in the first place (as opposed to riding, leading animals, pushing something, etc.)? I'm curious about others' thoughts.

What I want to know!

I have two questions today (having spent the morning in an undisciplined fashion, perusing the shelves of the AA with no particular aim!), and would be very grateful to anyone who either knows the answer or can point me in the direction of relevant bibliography ...

1. What is the current thinking about the Augustan Suburban District - is it one district or are there more than one? Or do we just not know?

2. Have there been any stratigraphic excavations in the Central Baths? Do we know what was destroyed for the baths to be built? Presumably it wasn't an empty space.