Pompeii: The First Navigation Map

Check out the Pompeii Bibliography and Mapping Project website. They have just made available their first full map for navigation. You can read more about it here. It's looking great - congratulations to Eric and team!

For sale: antique prints

If anyone is interested in buying antique prints of archaeological remains, I encourage you to take a look at the following website: www.philographikon.com. I have bought prints from Rainer Rauhut in the past and have just received this email:

At age 75, after 40 years of a wonderful career, and with no family members following our foot steps in our antiquarian business, we are now in the process of liquidating our still immense stock of antique prints. When you stroll through our website and discover any print of interest to you, please feel free to disregard our marked price and make us an offer. Don't hesitate to be brave and courageous. We shall certainly consider any offer made. Also please keep in mind, that our stock exceeds by far our internet presentation.If you are looking for prints you do not find on our website, please contact us.

They have a great collection of Pompeian prints, as well as other sites in the Bay of Naples, but the website is not limited to this and you will find all sorts of things on it. Service is quick and friendly too!

Article on Herculaneum's boat

In recognition that there is almost nothing published on Herculaneum's boat, which was found capsized on the ancient shoreline during the 1980s, my Herculaneum colleagues have done a fine job of describing its importance in an article in the popular archaeology magazine, Archeo. You may have missed the edition as it came out in August and only in Italy, but we've finally been able to get a pdf from the editor and I've posted it for download here for those who are interested. Sorry it's not in English but best we could do for the time being!

Kilns with raw clay vases outside Porta Ercolano

Raw clay vases were first found in 2012 during the excavation lead by L. Cavassa (Centre Jean-Bérard/Centre Camille-Jullian, CNRS) outside Porta Ercolano. New fragments were found in the second workshop in 2014, which led to a mention in the new section of the Soprintendenza site, Scavi e ricerche: "La bottega del vasaio sulla Via dei Sepolcri".
A more detailed version is available on the CNRS/INSHS site.

2012 interim report mentioning the raw clay vases was published here, 2013 interim report there. The 2014 interim report is forthcoming there.

In the news this week

From IlGiornale.it:

Per Pompei piano da 105 milioni Servirà o sarà un nuovo spreco?

Fondi Ue per videosorveglianza, nuove luci e più aree visitabili. Ma i custodi si oppongono a tutto: "Qui comandiamo noi"

Il professor Massimo Osanna viene dalla carriera accademica, ma da un anno è il «sindaco» della città morta più viva del mondo: Pompei. 

«Ci sono giorni - spiega Osanna al Giornale - in cui l'area archeologica degli scavi è “abitata” da oltre 20 mila turisti». Osanna - che ha la fortuna di un cognome con invocazione incorporata - non è ovviamente il «sindaco» di Pompei, ma il «Responsabile della Soprintendenza speciale per i beni archeologici di Pompei, Ercolano e Stabia» (ma tanta roba ci starà sul bigliettino da visita?): ruolo che - capirete bene - è ben più complesso di quello di un semplice primo cittadino, tipo Marino, Pisapia o addirittura De Magistris.

Read more here.

From Corriere del Mezzogiorno:

Pompei e il giallo degli affreschi buttati
Grande Progetto, la Dia negli uffici

La denuncia dell’archeologo Mario Torelli. Il blitz pochi giorni dopo la relazione di Nistri

NAPOLI - Un grande archeologo che denuncia, in una intervista concessa a un prestigioso giornale di cultura, che alcuni affreschi del soffitto di una domus di Pompei sono stati buttati via per accelerare i lavori di realizzazione di un ristorante. Potrebbe essere smentito, querelato o oggetto di un’inchiesta. Ma nulla di tutto questo. Quanto detto da Mario Torelli al «Giornale dell’Arte» del novembre 2014 (numero 347), in un articolo a firma di Edek Osser, uscito qualche giorno fa e pubblicato sul sito www.ilgiornaledellarte.com, è passato totalmente sotto silenzio. Un mistero. Eppure, se vera, è una cosa gravissima. Il racconto riguarda un alto dirigente del ministero durante il suo mandato, al vertice dell’ufficio per la Valorizzazione, durato quattro anni (nomina nel 2008).  

Read more here.

From IlSole24Ore:

Blitz antimafia a Pompei: hard disk sequestrati per far luce sul Grande progetto

Le piogge di novembre a Pompei non portano mai buone nuove. Quattro anni fa il crollo della Schola Armatorum fece salire il livello generale d'allerta intorno a quello che l'Unesco definisce il sito archeologico meglio conosciuto e peggio conservato del mondo occidentale. Quest'anno per fortuna niente crolli, ma arriva un blitz della Direzione investigativa antimafia di Napoli in Soprintendenza con relativa acquisizione di materiale informatico e atti per fare luce sugli appalti del Grande progetto.
Gli agenti sono arrivati negli uffici degli scavi venerdì mattina di buon'ora. L'idea dei più era che si trattasse di un controllo di routine di quelli che periodicamente avvengono sulla base del Protocollo d'intesa per la legalità sottoscritto dai ministeri di Interni e Beni culturali nel 2012. Stavolta, tuttavia, gli investigatori hanno fatto rotta sull'ufficio tecnico, facendosi consegnare gli hard disk dei computer e, in alcuni casi, ispezionando addirittura le cartelle di alcuni dipendenti. Tra gli inquirenti della Direzione distrettuale antimafia di Napoli al momento c'è grande riserbo, ma tutto lascia pensare che il blitz sia riconducibile al fascicolo aperto in Procura prima dell'estate (si veda ilsole24ore.com del 5 maggio 2014) intorno agli appalti del Grande progetto da 105 milioni cofinanziato dall'Unione europea. Da indiscrezioni si apprende che per il momento il lavoro degli inquirenti ruoterebbe intorno all'ipotesi di reato di abuso d'ufficio.

Read more here.

Photo: Vesuvio immortalato dallo spazio

Vesuvio ripreso dallo spazio: è la foto più votata del concorso "Top Satellite Image of 2013"
„

From Napoli Today:

Vesuvio immortalato dallo spazio: è la foto più votata del concorso "Top Satellite Images of 2013"

La bellezza del vulcano campano mozza il fiato anche dall'alto e sbaraglia i tanti degnissimi avversari raccogliendo oltre 3mila voti. In concorso scatti provenienti da ogni angolo del mondo.

 Read more here.

“

Potrebbe interessarti: http://www.napolitoday.it/cronaca/foto-vesuvio-spazio-vince-top-satellite-images-2013.html
Seguici su Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NapoliToday

Book: La Pittura di Ercolano

Many congratulations to Mimmo Esposito on the publication of his long-awaited book!

Domenico Esposito, La pittura di Ercolano. Studi della Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei 33 (L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2014)

News: Vases in Pompeii Reveal Panic Before Eruption

From Discovery News:

'Vases in Pompeii Reveal Panic Before Eruption

'French and Italian archaeologists digging out a pottery workshop in Pompeii have brought to light 10 raw clay vases, revealing a frozen-in-time picture of the exact moment panicked potters realized they were facing an impending catastrophe.

The vases were found sealed under a layer of ash and pumice from Mount Vesuvius' devastating eruption of 79 A.D. and it appears they were just ready to be fired.

They were dropped and abandoned, along with the kilns, after frightened potters saw a pine tree-shaped column of smoke bursting from Vesuvius on Aug. 24, 79 A.D.

Reaching nine miles into the sky, the column began spewing a thick pumice rain. Like many Pompeii residents, the scared potters probably rushed in the streets, trying to leave the city.

"They abandoned the workshop and everything they were doing at that moment," dig director Laëtitia Cavassa of the Center Jean Bérard, told Discovery News. The pottery workshop was found in the area just outside the Herculaneum Gate. It consists of at least three rooms and two kilns.'

Continue reading here.

Does anyone know where this excavation is taking place? Is it that completely ruinous shop outside the Herculaneum Gate that the guidebooks claim was a pottery? Can anyone share any more details about the excavation?

Conference: Diet and environment in the Roman world

There are a bunch of Pompeii-related papers at this conference, and the new Superintendent will be there too. The whole thing looks fascinating.

Diet and Environment in the Roman World

Sponsored by the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma, the American Academy in Rome, l’École française de Rome, the Escuela Española de Historia y Arqueología en Roma 12-14 November, 2014 Museo delle Terme di Diocleziano Rome

This conference addresses one of the most important new directions in classical archaeology – an increasing attention to human environments. The evidence of plant, faunal and skeletal data provide the possibility of a fuller understanding of the ancient world – of agricultural techniques, diet, health and disease and environmental change. Through the more intensive collection and analysis of biological data, classical archaeology is transforming from a discipline concerned principally with great monuments to a richer consideration of the relationship between humans and their many environments.

The conference assembles an international group of specialists – faunal and human skeletal specialists, archaeobotanists and historians. Major excavations from around the Roman world will be presented in the light of new biological data, with teams of specialists from each site asked to present the whole of their collections, highlighting places where different kinds of evidence yield similar – and divergent – histories. Each team will be further asked to situate their findings in historical context – both of their site and more broadly. Keynote summaries will be offered by archaeologists and historians, reflecting on the significance of individual findings for the field as a whole.

Program

Wednesday Nov. 12: AM (9:30-11:30)
9:00 Arrival and Coffee
9:30-12: Welcome State of the Field Summaries
9:30-10:00 Marijke Van der Veen, “Plants as Archives of Human Behaviour”
10:15-10:45 Luca Bondioli, “Cosa narrano le ossa ed i denti”
11-11:30 Michael MacKinnon, “Zooarchaeology and Roman Archaeology: Trekking a Course Forward”
11:45-12:15: Coffee Break
12:15-12:45pm Response, William Harris
1pm: Break
PM (2:30-5:30pm): Team Site Presentations
2:30: Emanuele Papi, “Il caso di Thamusida (Marocco)”
3:30: John Marston, “Archaeological perspectives on desert adaptation in the Roman Fayum, Egypt”
4:30 Dominique Castex, “Cimitero di Ss. Pietro e Marcellino, Roma”
6:00 pm Reception

Thursday Nov. 13: AM (10-12): Team Site Presentations
9:00 Cofee 9:30 Pompeii: Temple of Fortuna Augusta: Véronique Zech-Matterne, (CNRS/MNHN, UMR 7209 AASPE), “Le temple de Fortune Auguste et ses annexes (Pompéi, Campanie): étude des restes végétaux associés aux niveaux de fondation et de fonctionnement d’un lieu de culte,” Tarek Oueslati (HALMA UMR 8164 CNRS-Université de Lille) “Faunal remains from the Annex of the Fortuna Augusta Temple, Pompeii.”
10:30: Pompeii: Porta Stabia: Mark Robinson (University of Oxford) and Michael MacKinnon (University of Winnipeg), “Complexity and context in the Diet and Environment of a Pompeian neighborhood,”
11:30: Erica Rowan and Mark Robinson, “Evidence for Diet at Herculaneum”
12:30 pm: Break
PM (2:30-4:30): Team Site Presentations (45 minutes each + 15 minutes discussion)
2:30 Portus: Tamsin O’Connell and Simon Keay
3:30: Almudena Orejas, Paloma García Díaz, Carmen Fernández Ochoa Gijón, “The Fábrica de Tabacos in Gijón (Asturias. Spain): the geoarchaeological and archaeobiological record”
4:30-5pm: Coffee Break 5pm: Key Note Lecture: Peter Garnsey: “Climate, Crops and the Costs of Urbanization in the Roman World”
8:00 Dinner at Palazzo Farnese for Participants

Friday, Nov. 14:
9:30: Coffee
10: 00-12 Environmental Archaeology in Rome: A Round Table Discussion: Moderator: Massimo Ossana Francesco di Gennaro, Maria Rosaria Barbera: (sul ruolo delle bioarcheologia nell’ambito della Archeologia a Roma: stato delle ricerche, problematiche e risultati) Tina Panella (su suoi scavi nel centro storico: approcci multidisciplinari) Jacopo De Grossi Mazzorin & Claudia Minniti (su archeozoologia nell’area di Roma: stato delle ricerche, problematiche e risultati) Paola Catalano (su antropologia nell’area di Roma: stato delle ricerche, problematiche e risultati) Carlo Rosa, Renato Matteucci e Renato Sebastiani (su geoarcheologia nell’area di Roma: stato delle ricerche, problematiche e risultati) Laura Sadori e Alessandra Celant (su archeobotanica nell’area di Roma: stato delle ricerche, problematiche e risultati)

Call for participants: Apolline Project

Study Medieval Human Bones and Roman Ceramics on the Slopes of Mt Vesuvius

Call for participants – Winter one and two-week courses offered in the areas of human osteology and ceramic analysis.

The Apolline Project is an open research network, which sheds light on the hitherto neglected past of the area to the north of Mt. Vesuvius, in the Bay of Naples. The project has run actively since 2004 and has several components, with current major work focusing on a Medieval church and a Roman villa with baths buried by the volcanoclastic debris of Vesuvius.

The Apolline Project is now accepting applications for its intensive winter lab courses. Selected participants may have the opportunity to spend additional time before and after their chosen program(s) at the project’s accommodations at no additional charge in order to better explore the region.

For further information, including individual course descriptions, please visit:
HUMAN OSTEOLOGY: http://www.apollineproject.org/bones.html
POTTERY LAB: http://www.apollineproject.org/labs.html

We would be very grateful if professors would be so kind as to forward this message to the relevant university mailing lists and to students who might be interested in participating. If your institution is interested in joining the research network (we have permission to work and study other sites), please send us a message at info@apollineproject.org

Latrines, sewers show varied ancient Roman diet

Archaeologists picking through latrines, sewers, cesspits and trash dumps at Pompeii and Herculaneum have found tantalizing clues to an apparently varied diet there before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius destroyed those Roman cities in 79 A.D. 


A scallop shell with makeup found in a sewer of Herculaneum.
[Credit: Mark Robinson/Oxford University Museum of Natural History] 

Much of what residents didn't digest or left on their plates went down into latrine holes, became remnants in cesspits built up over the centuries or was thrown away in local dumps. At a three-day conference ending Friday in Rome, archaeologists discussed their discoveries, including gnawed-on fish bones and goose eggshells that were possibly ancient delicacies for the elite. 

"We just have small glimpses of the environment, but some are quite curious," Mark Robinson, a professor of environmental archaeology at Oxford University Museum of Natural History, told the conference. 

Here's some of the curiosities the experts discussed: 

Romans liked eating local 

Much of what the inhabitants ate was local. Archaeologists noted that some types of mollusk shells found in the sewers of Herculaneum came from the ancient town's beach. Notable exceptions include grain, which was likely imported from Egypt; dates from the Middle East and northern Africa; and pepper spice from India. Although flour left no traces across such a long time, grain weevils apparently survived the milling process, ending up in a Herculaneum sewer that served a block of shops and home. 

Pork pleased Roman palates then and now 

Today's Romans are big on pork—pork slices known as porchetta are a popular filling for lunchtime sandwiches. Trash dumps from roughly the 1st century B.C. and the early 1st century A.D. in the Pompeii neighborhood of Porta Stabia yielded an abundance of pig bones, a sure sign that pork was popular then, noted Michael MacKinnon from the University of Winnipeg. Particularly tasty mollusks known as telline were popular on ancient tables; now telline as an ingredient for a seafood sauce is a much sought-after item on present-day Roman menus. 

A chicken in every pot? 

That's not clear but lots of chicken eggs were consumed, judging by the numerous pieces of eggshell found. Erica Rowan, an archaeologist at the University of Exeter who worked on the Herculaneum sewer, also reported finding two fragments of goose egg shell, possibly the remnants of a meal consumed by the elite. But for the most part, it appeared that both rich and not-so-rich Romans in these cities ate much the same food, especially fish. 

Hors d'oeuvres for the deities 

Being buried for centuries in the sewers and cesspits helped preserve food traces—Vesuvius' eruption also carbonized some food for posterity. Bite-sized, carbonized, cake-like breads—"nibbles for the gods" is how Robinson referred to them—were discovered at a disused kiln in Pompeii. Pieces of votive cups were also found, prompting archaeologists to view the nibbles as possible offerings to ancient Roman deities. Author: 


Read more at: The Archaeology News Network

Date of the eruption

I just came across the following blog post: The Inconvenient Coin: Dating the Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum. I wasn't going to post this to Blogging Pompeii at first (we're all familiar with the debate!), but then I read one of the comments by David Atherton:

'Richard Abdy of the British Museum examined the coin in question last year when it was part of the BM’s Pompeii exhibit. In his article ‘The Last Coin in Pompeii’ in the 2013 Numismatic Chronicle he concluded the reverse legend actually reads TR P VIIII IMP XIIII COS VII, dating it to July/August 79 AD'.

 I wasn't aware of this article. Has anyone read it yet? If so, what do you think? 

News: Napoli. Piazza Municipio: rinvenuta un’altra nave

From: E' Campania

Napoli. Piazza Municipio: rinvenuta un’altra nave Non si ritarderà l'apertura della metro nonostante i nuovi rinvenimenti di Maria Cristina Napolitano - 07 Novembre 2014 Trovata a Napoli nel cantiere di Piazza Municipio un'altra nave di epoca romana. La zona in cui si stanno svolgendo i lavori della linea 1 della metropolitana, corrisponde ad un’area archeologica di lunga continuità di vita: dall’epoca romana a cui appartiene il porto di Neapolis, al periodo aragonese all’epoca moderna. I lavori per la metropolitana riguardano la realizzazione del tronchino di collegamento tra il pozzo di stazione di linea 6 e quello di manovra di via Acton. Che la zona fosse di interesse archeologico era cosa nota, già in letteratura si leggeva dell’esistenza in loco del porto romano.

Continue reading and view photos of the ships here.

Exhibition: L'empire de la couleur

Alexandra Dardenay (Maître de Conférences, Archéologie et Histoire de l'art romain, Université de Toulouse) has curated a new exhibition on Roman wall-painting in Toulouse. It will run from 15th November 2014 to 22nd March 2015.

News: Montreal woman ‘pushed by the weight of her conscience’ returns stolen artifact to Pompeii after 50 years

From the National Post:

Montreal woman ‘pushed by the weight of her conscience’ returns stolen artifact to Pompeii after 50 years

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/11/02/montreal-woman-pushed-by-the-weight-of-her-conscience-returns-stolen-artifact-to-pompeii-after-50-years/
Fifty years after a Canadian woman stole a precious antiquity while on a tour of the ruins of Pompeii, regret finally got the better of her, so she made a pilgrimage back to the site near Naples to return it, according to Italian authorities.

The woman, unnamed but identified as a 70-year-old Canadian from Montreal, whose identity the National Post has learned independently, illustrates the abiding power of regret, and how the urge for atonement can persist even when the crime is long forgotten

Read the full story here.

    

pompeiiinpictures.net

We are sorry to inform you that one of our pompeiinpictures sites, www.pompeiiinpictures.net is not operating at present.

The registrar for this web name, who we have been with since July 2007, ceased trading unexpectedly and we have had no contact about what may happen next.

As a result pompeiiinpictures.net no longer points to our web site and is thus unavailable anywhere in the world at present. We are unable to gain the access needed to change this.

We are seeking a resolution to this matter. It seems to involve chasing people in the USA, Russia and Australia, but strangely not the UK where it was registered.
Unfortunately we do not know how long this may take. Once we get our domain name back it should be a quick return to normal service.

A suggestion.

If you have any bookmarks, links or are using references from a book or elsewhere that refer to the pompeiiinpictures.net site, then simply 

      change net to org or eu in the web address line 

this will use www.pompeiiinpictures.org or www.pompeiiinpictures.eu instead.

Rest assured all other pompeiiinpictures sites are working normally.

They are all hosted in other places in the world with other suppliers.

Once again our apologies for this problem.